"You have to look backward to see the future."
Amid her many doctor's appointments and tests, Cahalan realizes that the key to fixing her problem is analyzing the past not the present. Whatever is wrong with her has been for sometime, so maybe she just needs to reframe the past to learn the truth. This sort of reverse thought will help her determine what her options are going forward.
“There are surprising similarities between this diary and the diary I kept during junior high school. In each, there's a stunning lack of insight and curiosity about myself. In place of deep thought, there are dozens of passages dedicated to my body (weight gain in the recovery piece and lack of breasts in the junior high journal) and silly, petty issues of the day (hating hospital food versus fighting with frenemies).”
Cahalan has a surprisingly generous sense of humor. Despite her hardships, she keeps looking for the bright side. Her sense of humor is self-deprecating. In this quotation she compares her recovery journal to a diary she kept in middle school, highlighting the absurdity of unique situations which she experiences today.
“Sure, I had gained a lot of weight...I had begun to fear that I would never lose (it) and would be forever confined to this foreign body. The problem was much more superficial - but easier to grapple with - than my real worries about being trapped in my broken mind... When I worried about being fat forever, marred in the eyes of those closest to me, I was actually worried about who I was going to be: Will I be as slow, dour, unfunny, and stupid as I now felt for the rest of my life? Will I ever again regain that spark that defines who I am?”
During her treatment, Cahalan gains a great deal of weight. She's stressed and unhealthy, and doctor's don't seem to be helping. As she explains here, her concern is the mental illness more than the weight gain. But she feels trapped in a physical form which is inaccurate. People judge her now for the way she looks, but she's doing all that she can to improve. This fear that she will forever be trapped in a mind and body that don't feel like hers is the worst she can imagine.
“How many people throughout history suffered from my disease and others like it but went untreated? This question is made more pressing by the knowledge that even though the disease was discovered in 2007, some doctors I spoke to believe that it’s been around at least as long as humanity has.”
After she is correctly diagnosed, Cahalan turns her attention to the elephant in the room. She had spent time in many of the world's top hospital only to have doctor's misdiagnose and incorrectly treat her. If her disease had only been discovered a few years ago, then how many people had suffered from it silently? How many had died? Perhaps this is her motivation for writing the book: exposure. She is now the spokesperson for countless people around the world who's rare conditions have been overlooked or misunderstood. This gives her illness purpose.
