Cahalan begins experiencing paranoia and hallucinations, throwing away cherished belongings and imagining bedbugs that do not exist in her apartment.

Cahalan visits Dr. Bailey, is misdiagnosed with mononucleosis, and accidentally leaves her lucky ring behind in the examination room.

After days without sleep, Cahalan has a massive seizure in front of Stephen while confiding her insomnia to him.

Dr. Bailey dismisses Cahalan's symptoms as alcoholism and possible bipolar disorder, prescribing anti-seizure medication and sending her home.

While visiting her NYC apartment with her father and stepmother Giselle, Cahalan becomes convinced the two have kidnapped her.

Cahalan's divorced parents set aside their differences and agree to admit her to NYU Langone Medical Center.

Cahalan suffers her most severe seizure while checking into NYU, beginning a month-long period she will not be able to remember.

NYU doctors give Cahalan her first hospital diagnosis of Capgras syndrome, a disorder in which patients believe loved ones are imposters.

A spinal tap is performed on Cahalan, and the results reveal significant inflammation in her brain.

Dr. Najjar asks Cahalan to draw a clock, and she places all the numbers crowded onto one side of the face.

Dr. Najjar diagnoses Cahalan with anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis, describing it to her family as a brain on fire.

A brain biopsy confirms Cahalan's brain is inflamed, and Dr. Najjar begins a steroid treatment plan.

Cahalan is discharged from NYU and moves back to New Jersey, struggling to walk, speak, and write during early recovery.

Cahalan writes and publishes a personal article about her illness for the New York Post.

Cahalan is fully released from all medical care and treatment after nearly three years of recovery.

These events follow the central arc of Susannah Cahalan's story, from her first alarming symptoms to her eventual diagnosis and recovery. Cahalan's early paranoia and physical decline lead to repeated misdiagnoses from doctors who fail to take her condition seriously. After her parents reunite to admit her to NYU Langone, a month-long blackout begins during which she is falsely labeled with several psychiatric disorders. The turning point arrives when Dr. Najjar asks her to draw a clock, revealing the brain inflammation that finally leads to a correct diagnosis of anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. With the diagnosis confirmed by a brain biopsy, treatment begins and Cahalan slowly rebuilds her life. Her journey closes with a published article about her illness and her full release from medical care.

The core medical crisis and diagnosis journey

Cahalan is introduced as a successful New York Post journalist with stable friendships, a loving boyfriend, and close family relationships.

Cahalan's father visits her deteriorating apartment and helps her clean it, revealing the full extent of her decline.

Cahalan conducts a disastrous interview with television host John Walsh, barely maintaining her balance and bumping into walls on her way out.

Rather than using library resources, Cahalan asks a librarian friend for a tarot card reading to explain her deteriorating condition.

Psychiatrist Dr. Levin accepts Cahalan's self-diagnosis of bipolar disorder after a brief intake and immediately prescribes an antipsychotic.

During a late-night moment of sudden clarity, Cahalan and Stephen profess their love and commitment to each other.

Dr. Arslan conducts the most thorough psychiatric intake yet, interviewing people around Cahalan and diagnosing her with schizoaffective disorder.

Cahalan's father writes a heartbreaking journal entry during her hospitalization, praying that God would take him instead of his daughter.

As Cahalan's psychosis temporarily recedes, she is moved from the ward into a peaceful private room overlooking the East River.

Dr. Najjar's experimental IVIG treatment fails to improve Cahalan's condition, and several of her doctors begin abandoning her case.

Young medical students examine Cahalan as a rare specimen during hospital rounds, and her outraged father shouts them out of her room.

While being driven home after a hospital stay, Cahalan awkwardly but noticeably bobs her head in response to a song on the radio.

Cahalan's brother James visits and sees his sister for the first time since before her illness began, and both are deeply shaken.

Cahalan discovers her long-lost lucky ring tucked inside a pile of unopened mail retrieved from her Manhattan apartment.

After full recovery, Cahalan and Stephen move in together, while her parents revert to barely speaking to each other.

These events highlight the human details and secondary story beats surrounding Cahalan's illness. Before her breakdown, Cahalan is a capable journalist whose decline becomes visible in small but telling moments, from a disastrous celebrity interview to a filthy apartment her father has to clean. During hospitalization, doctors continue to miss the diagnosis while those around her struggle emotionally, most painfully in her father's private journal and in the slow failure of experimental treatment. As Cahalan recovers, moments of reconnection — responding to music, reuniting with her brother James, and rediscovering her lucky ring — mark her gradual return to herself. She must also navigate the outside world again, including being treated as a specimen by medical students during hospital rounds. The pool closes with Cahalan and Stephen moving in together, signaling the personal resolution of her long recovery.

Behind the scenes of illness and recovery

Cahalan begins accusing Stephen of infidelity without any evidence, violating his privacy and marking a sharp break from her normal personality.

Cahalan withholds key symptoms from Dr. Bailey during her neurological examination, directly contributing to her initial misdiagnosis.

Following her first major seizure, Cahalan experiences an out-of-body sensation — the first time Stephen steps in to save her life.

Cahalan's family begins keeping a shared community journal to document her symptoms, diagnoses, and their personal emotional reactions.

Dr. Russo diagnoses Cahalan with postictal psychosis and prescribes antipsychotics after a single examination at NYU.

Cahalan hallucinates that local news broadcasts are reporting on her mental breakdown and that her father has murdered his wife Giselle.

During her father's hospital visit, Cahalan briefly surfaces as her old self, hugging him and urging him to stay positive.

Dr. Najjar contacts Dr. Dalmau, whose published research on NMDA-receptor encephalitis becomes the definitive treatment roadmap for Cahalan's case.

While Stephen drives Cahalan home from a hospital visit, she spontaneously sings along to a familiar song, stunning him with her presence.

During recovery, Cahalan watches hospital surveillance footage of herself and feels no connection to the person she sees on screen.

Cahalan attends a friend's wedding during recovery, drinks champagne, and dances with Stephen to the visible delight of her mother.

After cognitive tests reveal the extent of her mental impairment, Cahalan stops returning for follow-up appointments with her doctors.

Cahalan's father gives her his private medical and personal journal, revealing emotional entries he was never able to express to her directly.

Cahalan visits Dr. Najjar's home and learns how her published article finally brought him the approval of his long-doubting father.

Returning to the NYU epilepsy floor, Cahalan confirms that the Purple Lady she believed was a hallucination was a real patient.

This pool traces the key revelations and emotional turning points that shape Cahalan's journey from illness to recovered self. Early warning signs — her unprovoked accusations against Stephen and her decision to hide symptoms from her doctor — reveal the pattern of denial at the heart of her ordeal. During hospitalization, fleeting moments of the old Cahalan surface even as her delusions intensify, including her belief that her father is a murderer and that news stations are broadcasting about her. Dr. Najjar's breakthrough leads to contact with Dr. Dalmau, whose research provides the roadmap for her treatment. Recovery brings its own turning points: a spontaneous burst of singing in the car, joy at a wedding, and the painful decision to stop attending cognitive follow-up appointments. The pool ends with two profound revelations — her father's private journal and the confirmation that the woman she thought she had hallucinated was real all along.