Mind on fire for a month. Million Dollar Madness

The existence of the ability to forget has never been proven: we only know that some things do not come to mind when we want to.

Are my eyes open? Is anybody here?

I can't tell if my lips are moving or if there's anyone else in the room. It's too dark, I can't see anything. I blink once, twice, three times. My gut tightens with inexplicable fear. Then I understand what's going on. Thoughts transform into speech slowly, as if wading through molasses. Questions are made up of individual words: where am I? Why does my head itch? Where is everyone? And then the surrounding world gradually emerges - at first its diameter is the size of a pinhead, but gradually the circle expands. Objects emerge from the darkness, focus is adjusted. In a minute I recognize them: TV, curtain, bed.

I immediately understand that I have to get out of here. I make a leap forward, but something is stopping me. Fingers feel the mesh of belts on the stomach. They hold me on the bed like... can't remember the word... ah, like a straitjacket. The straps are fastened to two cold metal rails on either side of the bed. I grab them and pull up, but the straps dig into my chest, and I manage to lift only a couple of centimeters. To my right there is a closed window - it looks like it goes out onto the street. There are cars there - yellow cars. Taxi. I am in New York. I'm home.

But before I have time to feel relieved, I see her. The woman in purple. She looks at me intently.

Help! - I shout.

But her expression doesn’t change, as if I hadn’t said anything. I'm trying to escape the restraints again.

“Don’t do that,” she says melodiously, with a familiar Jamaican accent.

Sybil? - But is this possible? Sybil was my nanny. The last time I saw her was as a child. Why did she come back today? - Sybil? Where I am?

In the hospital. You better calm down.

No, it's not Sybil.

I'm in pain.

The woman in purple comes closer, bends down to unfasten my bonds, first on the right side, then on the left side, her breasts lightly touching my face. With my hands free, I instinctively lift my right one to scratch my head. But instead of hair and skin, I feel only a cotton cap. I rip it off, suddenly angry, and begin to feel my head with both hands. I feel rows of plastic wires. I pull one out - my scalp stings - and bring it to my eyes. It is pink in color. On the wrist is an orange plastic bracelet. I squint, trying to read the inscription, and after a couple of seconds, capital letters appear before my eyes: MAY ESCAPE.

Current page: 1 (total book has 18 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 12 pages]

Suzanne Cahalan
Mind on fire. Month of my madness

Susannah Cahalan

BRAIN ON FIRE. MY MONTH OF MADNESS

Originally published by Free Press, a division of Simon&Schuster, Inc.

* * *

Dedicated to all patients with my diagnosis

The existence of the ability to forget has never been proven: we only know that some things do not come to mind when we want to.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Prologue

At first nothing is seen or heard.

– Are my eyes open? Is anybody here?

I immediately understand that I have to get out of here. I make a leap forward, but something is stopping me. Fingers feel the mesh of belts on the stomach. They hold me on the bed like... I can't remember the word... ah, like a straitjacket. The straps are fastened to two cold metal rails on either side of the bed. I grab them and pull myself up, but the straps dig into my chest, and I only manage to lift myself a couple of centimeters. To my right is a closed window - it looks like it looks out onto the street. There are cars there—yellow cars. Taxi. I am in New York. I'm home.

But before I have time to feel relieved, I see her. The woman in purple. She looks at me intently.

- Help! – I shout.

But her expression doesn’t change, as if I hadn’t said anything. I'm trying to escape the restraints again.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says melodiously, with a familiar Jamaican accent.

- Sybil? – But is this possible? Sybil was my nanny. The last time I saw her was as a child. Why did she come back today? - Sybil? Where I am?

- In the hospital. You better calm down.

No, it's not Sybil.

I'm in pain.

The woman in purple comes closer, bends down to unfasten my bonds, first on the right side, then on the left, and her breasts lightly touch my face. With my hands free, I instinctively lift my right one to scratch my head. But instead of hair and skin, I feel only a cotton cap. I rip it off, suddenly angry, and begin to feel my head with both hands. I feel rows of plastic wires. I pull one out - my scalp stings - and bring it to my eyes. It is pink in color. On the wrist is an orange plastic bracelet. I squint, trying to read the inscription, and after a couple of seconds, capital letters appear before my eyes: MAY ESCAPE.

Part one
Madness

And I know the fluttering of wings in my head.

Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary: Excerpts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf

1. Bedbug blues

It all probably started with a bug bite - a bedbug that wasn't really there.

Although I was very worried about the problem, I tried to hide my growing anxiety from my colleagues. For obvious reasons, I didn't want to be seen as someone who had bedbugs. And so the next day, as calmly as possible, I walked through the New York Post editorial office to my workplace. I disguised the bites and carefully pretended that everything was fine with me, that nothing was happening. Although “normal” in our newspaper, on the contrary, should have aroused suspicion.

The New York Post is known for its pursuit of breaking news, but in fact the paper is as old as the American people. Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, it is the oldest newspaper in the country and has been published continuously for more than two centuries. In its first century of existence, the Post fought against slavery by supporting the abolitionists; It was largely through her efforts that Central Park was founded. Nowadays, the newspaper's editorial office occupies a huge but stuffy room; rows of open cubicles and a mountain of cabinets with filing cabinets, where no one needs, forgotten documents from several decades are stored. On the walls hang clocks that have stopped long ago, dead flowers that someone hung to dry; a photo of a monkey riding a border collie and a polystyrene glove from the Six Flags amusement park are reminders of past reporting. Computers are dying, copying machines are the size of small ponies. The tiny closet, which was once a smoking room, now houses equipment, and the door is decorated with a faded sign reminding that the smoking room is no longer here - as if it would occur to someone to wander in here and light a cigarette among the monitors and video cameras. I started working as a seventeen-year-old intern, and for seven years the Post editorial office was my eccentric little world.

When the deadline looms, the office comes alive: keys are clattering, editors are yelling, reporters are chatting incessantly - a typical tabloid editorial office, as everyone imagines it to be.

– Where is the damn picture for this signature?

- How could you not understand that she was a prostitute?

– Remind me, what color socks were the guy who jumped off the bridge?

On days like these, it’s like being in a bar, only without the alcohol: a bunch of adrenaline-charged news junkies. The Post's personalities are unique, and you won't find them anywhere else: the writers of the best headlines in the entire print industry; hardened bloodhounds tracking down corporate directors; ambitious workaholics who can instantly win over and then turn everyone around against them. But other days the office is quiet; everyone silently leafs through courtroom footage, conducts interviews, or reads newspapers. Often – like today, for example – it’s quiet here, like in a morgue.

As I walked to my desk to begin the day's work, I passed rows of booths marked with green signs bearing the names of Manhattan streets: Liberty Street, Nassau Street, Pine Street, William Street. Previously, the editorial office was located in the seaport area near South Street, and its building actually stood at the intersection of these streets. I work on Pine Street. Trying not to disturb the silence, I sit down next to Angela, my closest friend from the editorial office, and smile tightly. Trying to speak quietly so that the echo of my words does not spread throughout the silent hall, I ask:

– Do you know anything about bedbug bites?

I often jokingly said that if I had a daughter, I would want her to be like Angela. In the editorial office she was my hero. Three years ago, when we met, she was a timid, polite young woman from Queens, just a couple of years older than me. She came to the Post from a small weekly newspaper, and her intense work at a major city tabloid gradually revealed her as a talented reporter—one of the Post's most gifted. Angela gave out excellent reports in batches. Late Friday night, she could be found writing four articles at once on four different screens. Of course, I began to look up to her. And now I really needed her advice.

Hearing the terrible word “bugs,” Angela automatically moved away.

“Don’t tell me that you have them,” she said, smiling playfully.

I started showing her my hand, but before I could complain, my phone rang.

- Are you ready? – It was Steve, the new Sunday editor.

At thirty-five, he had already become the editor-in-chief of the Sunday edition - that is, my division - and although he behaved friendly, I was afraid of him. On Thursdays, Steve held a meeting with reporters, where everyone proposed their ideas for the Sunday newspaper. Hearing his voice, I realized with horror that I was completely unprepared for this meeting. Usually I had at least three clear ideas prepared - not always brilliant, but at least I had something to offer. And now - nothing, absolutely nothing to fill my five minutes with. How could this happen? It was impossible to forget about the briefing: it was a weekly ritual for which we all diligently prepared, even on weekends.

Forgetting about the bedbugs, I stood up, staring at Angela and desperately hoping that by the time I got to Steve's office, everything would resolve itself.

I nervously walked down Pine Street and went into his office. I sat next to Paul, the Sunday news editor and dear friend who had taken me under his wing since I was a sophomore. I nodded at him, trying not to meet his gaze. I adjusted my glasses with huge scratched lenses on my nose, which a journalist friend of mine once called my personal means of protection, because “no one will want to sleep with you while you’re wearing them.”

We sat in silence for a while, and I hoped that I would be calmed by the presence of Paul, so familiar and imposing. With his mop of prematurely gray hair, his habit of inserting the word “horseradish” everywhere and everywhere as an interjection, Paul embodied all the old-fashioned stereotypes of a reporter and was a brilliant editor.

We were introduced by a family friend, and the summer after my freshman year, Paul gave me the opportunity to try myself as a reporter. After a few years of working on the sidelines—breaking news, gathering information for other reporters writing stories—Paul gave me my first big assignment: a story about rows in a student dormitory at New York University. I'm back with an article and photos of me playing beer pong; My courage amazed him, and although the revealing article was never published, he began to assign me more and more reports, and finally, in 2008, I was accepted on staff. And so, sitting in Steve's office, completely unprepared for today's meeting, I felt that I had let down Paul, who believed in me and respected me, I still felt like a dropout.

The silence dragged on and I raised my head. Steve and Paul looked at me expectantly, and I started talking, hoping that I would come up with something along the way.

“There was a story on one blog...” I muttered, desperately trying to cling to scraps of half-formulated thoughts.

“That won’t work,” Steve interrupted me. – Next time, find something better. Agreed? So that she doesn’t come with anything else.

Paul nodded, his face flushed. For the first time in my entire journalistic career, I sat in a puddle: this had never happened even in the school newspaper. I left the meeting fuming with myself, puzzled by my own stupidity.

- Everything is fine? – Angela asked when I returned to my seat.

- Yes, but I suddenly forgot how to do my job. But this is nonsense,” I joked darkly.

She laughed, showing slightly uneven teeth, which, however, did not spoil her at all.

- Come on, Suzanne. What's wrong? Never mind. You're a pro.

- Thank you, Ange. – I took a sip of the cooled coffee. – Today is just not my day.

That evening, as I walked west from the Newscorp building on Sixth Avenue, past the tourist cesspool of Times Square toward my home in Hell's Kitchen, I reflected on the day's troubles.

As if deliberately fulfilling the stereotype of a New York writer, I rented a cramped one-room studio apartment and slept on a fold-out sofa. The windows of the apartment, in which there was a strange silence for New York, looked out onto a courtyard common to several apartment buildings. Here I was more often awakened not by the howling of police sirens and the creaking of garbage trucks, but by a neighbor playing the accordion on his balcony.

Despite assurances from pest control that I had nothing to worry about, all I could think about was bedbug bites as I tossed away my favorite Post articles, reminding me of what a strange job I had—victims and suspects. , dangerous slums, prisons and hospitals, twelve-hour shifts spent in the cold in the photographers' car waiting for a celebrity to be “caught” and photographed. While doing my job, I enjoyed every minute. So why did everything suddenly start to fall out of hand?

As I stuffed my treasures into trash bags, I stopped to read some of the headlines. Among them was the biggest report of my career: I was able to secure an exclusive prison interview with child abductor Michael Delvin. Every media outlet in the country was chasing this story, and I was just a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. But Delvin spoke to me twice. However, the story didn't end there. After the article was published, Delvin's lawyers went crazy; The Post was sued for libel, tried to get a publication ban, and local and national media began criticizing my methods on air, questioning the ethics of prison interviews and tabloids in general. Paul had to endure a lot of tearful calls from me at the time, and this brought us closer; In the end, the newspaper and my senior editors stood up for me.

And although this experience cost me a lot of nerve cells, it whetted my appetite, and from then on I was sort of proclaimed a full-time prison reporter. Delvin received three life sentences.

There was also a report about butt implants – “Behind the Watch,” a headline that still made me smile. I went undercover, posing as a stripper who needed a cheap butt enlargement, and approached a woman running an illegal operation out of a downtown hotel room. I remember I stood with my panties down to my knees, and was downright offended when she announced the price - “a thousand apiece,” that is, twice as much as they charged the girl who introduced us to this enterprise.

Journalism was the most interesting thing in the world: life was like in an adventure novel, only even more amazing. But I had no idea that soon my fate would take such a strange turn that it would fit to be written about in my own favorite tabloid.

Although the memory of the “butt report” made me smile, I consigned this clipping to the growing mountain of garbage. “That’s where she belongs,” I snorted, despite the fact that these crazy stories were worth more to me than gold. At that moment it seemed to me that I should just throw it all away, but in fact, such merciless reprisal of the traces of many years of work was completely unusual for me.

I spent several hours cleaning, clearing my apartment of bedbugs, but it didn’t get any better. I knelt down next to a pile of black garbage bags, and suddenly my gut tightened with an inexplicable horror, as if in a free fall, a feeling similar to what happens when you learn about something bad or about someone's death. I stood up, and then pain pierced my head - a bright white flash of a migraine, although I had never suffered from migraines before. Stumbling, I went to the bathroom, but my legs wouldn’t obey me, it was like I was falling into quicksand. She probably caught the flu, I thought.

* * *

Most likely, there was no flu, and there were no bedbugs. However, some pathogen still entered my body - a small microbe that started a chain reaction. Where did it come from - from the businessman who sneezed on me on the subway a few days before and released millions of viral particles onto us, the rest of the passengers of this car? Or did I eat something, or did something get inside through a tiny cut in the skin - maybe even through one of those mysterious bites?

* * *

This is where my memory fails me.

The doctors themselves don’t know what caused my illness. One thing is clear - if that businessman had sneezed on you, you would most likely have caught a cold, and that would have been the end of it. But in my case, this sneeze upset my entire universe; Because of him, I was almost sentenced to life in a mental hospital.

2. Girl in a lace bra

A few days passed, and the migraine, the unsuccessful briefing and the bedbugs were almost forgotten, and I woke up, rested and happy, in my friend’s bed. The day before, I introduced Stephen to my father and stepmother, Giselle, for the first time. They lived in a luxurious mansion in Brooklyn Heights. Stephen and I had been dating for four months, and meeting our parents was a big step for us. True, Stephen already knew my mother - my parents divorced when I was sixteen, and my mother and I always had a closer connection, which is why we saw each other more often. But my father was of a stern disposition, and we were never particularly frank with him. (Although he married Giselle almost a year ago, my brother and I found out about it only recently.) But the dinner turned out to be a success - wine, delicious food, warm, pleasant communication. Stephen and I left under the impression that the evening had been a success.

Although my father later admitted that at that first meeting he felt that Stephen was more of a temporary fling than a “long-term” boyfriend, I would disagree with him. Yes, we started dating recently, but we had known each other for six years—when we met, I was eighteen and we were both working at a record store in Summit, New Jersey. Then we just communicated politely at work, but it didn’t lead to anything serious, since Stephen was seven years older than me (for an eighteen-year-old girl, the difference is unthinkable). And then one evening last fall we met again at a mutual friend's party at a bar in the East Village. We clinked beer bottles and started talking. It turns out we have a lot in common: a dislike for shorts, a love for Dylan's Nashville Skyline 1
Bob Dylan's ninth album.

Stephen had a special charm, the charm of a slacker and a partygoer: a musician, long, disheveled hair, a thin figure, an always smoking cigarette in his mouth, an encyclopedic knowledge of music. But his most attractive feature was his eyes - trusting and honest. The eyes of a man who has nothing to hide - when I looked into them, it seemed to me that we had been dating for a long time.

* * *

That morning, as I stretched out on my bed in his huge (compared to mine) studio in Jersey City, I realized that the whole apartment was at my disposal. Steven had gone to rehearse for his band and had to return only in the evening, and I could stay with him or leave. About a month ago we exchanged keys. For the first time in my life, I had a boyfriend with whom I reached this important step, but I had no doubt that I had done the right thing. Together we felt very good, we felt happy, we were not afraid of anything and knew that we could trust each other. However, as I lay in bed that day, I suddenly, quite unexpectedly, felt a ringing in my head, a thought that obscured everything around me: read his mail.

Irrational jealousy was completely out of character for me; never before have I had the urge to violate someone else's privacy in this way. But on that day, without even realizing what I had done, I opened his MacBook and began to look through the contents of the mailbox. Several months of boring everyday correspondence - and finally, the last letter from his ex-girlfriend. "Do you like it?" – was written in the subject line of the letter. My heart pounded desperately in my chest; I clicked the mouse. She sent him a photo of herself with a new haircut: red hair, seductive pose, pouty lips. Steven didn't even seem to answer her, but I still wanted to slam the computer on the screen or throw it across the room. But instead of stopping there, I gave in to my rage and continued to dig until I restored all their correspondence for a year of relationship. Most letters ended with three words: I love you. And Stephen and I haven’t even confessed our love to each other yet. I slammed my laptop shut in anger, though it was hard to tell what it was that made me angry. I knew he hadn't spoken to her since we started dating, and he hadn't done anything to blame him for. But for some reason I wanted to look for other traces of betrayal.

I tiptoed over to his yellow IKEA chest of drawers and froze. What if he has video cameras installed? No, it can not be. Who would think of keeping an eye on what is happening in the apartment in their absence, except for anxious parents spying on a new nanny? But the thought wouldn’t let me go: a what if he's watching me now? What if this is a test?

Although I was startled by the unusual intrusive thoughts, I opened the drawers and began rummaging through his things, throwing them on the floor, until I finally came across the jackpot: a cardboard box decorated with stickers of rock stars. The box contained hundreds of letters and photographs—mostly of his exes. There was one long strip of photos from a photo booth: him and his latest ex, bow lips, looking at each other with loving eyes, laughing, then kissing. Everything happened right before my eyes, like in a children's picture book: the story of their love. Next photo: the same girl in a transparent lace bra, standing with her hands on her thin hips. Her hair is dyed ash, but it suits her - she doesn’t look like a whore at all, as ash blondes often do. And under the photographs are letters, a whole stack of handwritten notes, some from my school years. The top letter is the same girl, crying about how she misses him while she lives in France. Two words in the letter were misspelled; Noticing this, I felt such gloating that I laughed out loud - I literally laughed.

And then, as she reached out to pick up the next letter, she caught her reflection in the dresser mirror, wearing only her bra and panties, with an armful of Stephen’s personal love letters clutched between her knees. A strange woman looked at me from the mirror - her hair was tousled, her face was distorted by an unfamiliar grimace. " I never behave like this, I thought with disgust. – What happened with me? I've never rummaged through my friends' things in my life.».

I rushed to the bed and turned on the phone: it turned out that two hours had passed! And it feels like no more than five minutes. A couple of seconds later the migraine struck my head again; I felt nauseous. It was then that I first noticed that something was wrong with my left hand: a tingling sensation, like numbness, but too strong. I clenched and unclenched my fist, trying to get rid of the “pins and needles,” but it only got worse. Then, trying to ignore the tingling sensation, I rushed to the dresser to put away Stephen’s things so that he wouldn’t notice that I was rummaging through them. But soon my left hand became completely numb.

I had not spoken to most of them for more than six months, and although there were no more than six of them, it seemed to me that they were a crowd. I started to feel claustrophobic; I'm sweating. It was difficult for me to concentrate on anything, so I looked at my feet.

Sue, our mother hen, pulled me into a tight hug. Then she walked away and said loudly so that everyone could hear:

Why are you nervous? We all love you.

This was said kindly, but it only made me more worried. Was my awkwardness really that obvious? Apparently, all my experiences were immediately reflected on my face. I was suddenly seized by a strong sense of emotional insecurity in the face of colleagues and friends. I felt like a lab rat waiting for the inevitable dissection. And I shuddered at the thought that I would never again feel at ease in this edition, which was actually my second home.

Fortunately, the Post did not interfere with my desire to throw myself into my work. As Paul had promised, no one had touched my workspace: all the books, documents, even the paper coffee cup were still where I had left them.

My first assignments—short pieces—were fairly unremarkable: a report about a woman who was voted the best bartender in New York, and a short piece about a drug addict who wrote a book of memoirs. So I gradually returned to everyday journalistic duties - writing articles and reports, light ones at first, but I didn’t care. The zeal with which I took on the task was the complete opposite of my sluggish performance seven months ago, before leaving work, when I did not even find the enthusiasm to interview John Walsh. Now I took on every report, even the most insignificant one, with ardent enthusiasm.

Although in the first month my colleagues tiptoed around me, I didn’t notice anything like that. I was so preoccupied with the future - the next note, the next task - that I could not adequately assess what was happening. Since I began to type much more slowly, I had to record most interviews with a voice recorder. Listening to these recordings now, I hear an unfamiliar voice: this Suzanne speaks slowly, with difficulty, and sometimes gets lost in her words. Like drunk. Angela, my “bodyguard,” secretly helped me with articles, but in a way that didn’t make it obvious that I needed help; Paul invited me to his table while he edited my notes and re-taught me the basics of journalism.

Only a week after returning to work did I find the strength to clear out the emails and paper letters that had accumulated over seven months. I didn’t even want to think about what my sources decided when their letters were returned to them or no one answered them. Maybe they thought that I had quit my job or left journalism altogether? Were they worried about me? Looking through mountains of books and press releases, I was tormented by these questions.

I had no doubt that I was completely back to normal. Before going to work, I told Dr. Arslan so. At that time, the dosage of the medications had decreased so much that they could practically be stopped. My parents and I sat at the table in Arslan’s office, like every two weeks since my discharge.

And again the same question. How would you rate your well-being as a percentage out of one hundred?

I answered without hesitation:

And this time both mom and dad nodded in agreement. Even my mother finally agreed with my assessment.

Well, then I must say that you are no longer of interest to me,” Dr. Arslan said with a smile, and our professional relationship with him ended there.

He advised me to continue taking anti-anxiety and antipsychotic medications for another week and then stop.

Mind on fire. Month of my madness Suzanne Cahalan

(ratings: 1 , average: 5,00 out of 5)

Title: Mind on Fire. Month of my madness

About the book “Mind on Fire. My Madness Month by Suzanne Cahalan

Suzanne Cahalan extracted from her memory bit by bit the events that happened to her during her illness, interviewed the doctors who treated her, her family and friends. I read a thousand pages of medical reports, watched several hundred snippets of video recordings from my room... all in order to REMEMBER how she once went crazy...

On our website about books lifeinbooks.net you can download for free without registration or read online the book “Mind on Fire. The Month of My Madness" by Suzanne Cahalan in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and real pleasure from reading. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary crafts.

Sue, our mother hen, pulled me into a tight hug. Then she walked away and said loudly so that everyone could hear:

Why are you nervous? We all love you.

And again the same question. How would you rate your well-being as a percentage out of one hundred?

I answered without hesitation:

And this time both mom and dad nodded in agreement. Even my mother finally agreed with my assessment.

Well, then I must say that you are no longer of interest to me,” Dr. Arslan said with a smile, and our professional relationship with him ended there.

He advised me to continue taking anti-anxiety and antipsychotic medications for another week and then stop.

Mind on fire for a month. Million Dollar Madness

Suzanne Cahalan Mind on fire. Month of my madness

* * *

Prologue

Part one Madness

1. Bedbug blues

* * *

* * *

2. Girl in a lace bra

* * *

About the book “Mind on Fire. My Madness Month by Suzanne Cahalan

Suzanne Cahalan
Mind on fire. Month of my madness

Part one
Madness