Wednesday, August 19, 2015

What is an example of a delusion in the book Brain on Fire?

Susannah Cahalan suffered from a rare brain disease that included delusions and hallucinations; she wrote about the experience in her book Brain on Fire. Cahalan's disease was called anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. The disease begins with symptoms similar to the flu and then progresses into delusions and hallucination episodes. These are followed by an unresponsive period, during which the patient starts to have seizures and has difficulty breathing.
One of the hallucinations that Cahalan has in Brain on Fire involves a moment where she is watching a newswoman talk about her on the television. During this time, Cahalan calls for a nurse to come to her room, but she hears one of her roommates in the hospital laughing. The woman speaks in Spanish, but Cahalan believes she can understand what the woman is saying, and she believes the woman is going to record her talking. Then she is going to send the recording into the Post. The roommate tells Cahalan that the nurses can't be trusted and Cahalan becomes frightened. She runs outside of her room after pulling out the EEG electrodes connected to her body. Two nurses have to pull her down and contain her until help comes. This episode is entirely a hallucination that Cahalan has while in the hospital.

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