Brain On Fire

     In the book, " Brain On Fire" by Susannah Cahalan, shows the journey of a young woman, named Susannah who's mental health is slowly declining. As she slowly loses her mind, Susannah starts getting help from her divorced and concerned parents. However their concern grows through out the book as Susannah's mental illness increases in its seriousness. Her mental health is not only causing Susannah trouble but is also causing her parents concern to grow.

    As her mental health starts to slowly decrease, Susannah's parents start showing their concern for her by urging her to go see a doctor. At the beginning their focus was trying to get Susannah to take charge in her mental health issues. At one point in the book it states " My parents would call everyday, as if they coordinated it together despite their divorce. First it would be my mom, and when I wouldn't answer, my dad. They both had the same thing to say, to go see a doctor." This shows her parents concern and how serious it started out, since even though they were divorced, they still came together to help their daughter. Despite their efforts though, Susannah didn't get help and her illness just kept getting worse and worse.

    The illness continues to get worse and worse and Susannahs parents concern changes from minor to major. Susannah gets hospitalized and has turned extremely paranoid and delusional. Her paranoia reaches the point where she doesn't believe her parents are her parents, but that they are her enemies. Despite this, her parents keep coming and taking care of her. In the book it says " My mother came everyday during her lunch hours, any breaks she could get just to take care of me, I still pushed her away with my paranoia." This doesn't only show how Susannahs mental health is declining, but also the level of concern from her parents and how it escalated.

      Throughout the course of Susannahs mental troubles, her parents concern for her changes from minimal to significant. At first their concern was just based on trying to get her medical attention and urged her to get help for herself. However, when Susannah gets hospitalized her parents concern gets to the point where they themselves are physically going and helping their daughter.