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208 pages, Hardcover
First published April 3, 2018
This book is an account of what mental illness looks like from the inside. But it is also a map of my evolution as a scientist and as a person. It is the story of an incredible journey, one from which I could not have imagined I would ever return. It is a story that I never thought I would be able to tell, of how I went from being a scientist studying mental disorders to being a mental patient myself – and how, remarkably, I came back.
My emotional overreactions – anger, suspicion, impatience – suggest that my frontal lobe is undergoing catastrophic changes. But these warning signs are lost on me. As an expert on mental illness, I, more than most people, should be able to see that I'm acting strangely. But I can't. Although I don't know it yet, my six tumors and the swelling around them are shutting down the frontal cortex, the part of the brain that allows for self-reflection. Paradoxically, I need my frontal cortex in order to understand that mine has gone missing.
Kasia doesn't tell me until much later, but it deeply pained her to see me so disoriented, so altered, from the sharp-minded and accomplished person I used to be: her sharp-witted mother, the one who taught her math and logic as well as the importance of honesty and how to enjoy her life. She doesn't want our roles to change. She doesn't want to be a physician examining my symptoms and observing my strange new behaviors in an attempt to understand what's wrong. She wants her loving, fun, competent mama. Not this confused, angry, self-absorbed impostor.
As if from some previous life, as if from the deepest fog of perception, images of my recent past begin to emerge. I'm regaining my hold on everyday life and on reality. It's like I'm clawing my way up from a black hole and slowly beginning to recognize my surroundings and see the sun. And I'm starting to realize how deep that hole was.