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One of Susannah's major concerns is the fact that she doesn't remember anything but hallucinations from her month in the hospital. To remedy this and to help her piece together what happened, she describes several scenes from hospital monitoring footage. These videos are the only unbiased evidence Susannah has of her time in the hospital (compared to the personal narratives of her friends and family, or doctors' interpretations as expressed in their notes on Susannah's charts). In this way, the videos come to symbolize the only real “truth” and unbiased record of what happened in the hospital. Similarly, the videos allow Susannah a window into the mind of the person she sees in the videos, a person she barely recognizes as herself. To this end, the videos are also physical representations of Susannah's split identity.
EEG Video Monitoring Quotes in Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
The Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness quotes below all refer to the symbol of EEG Video Monitoring. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 35 Quotes
The raw panic makes me uncomfortable, but the thing that truly unsettles me is the realization that emotions I once felt so profoundly, so viscerally, have now completely vanished. This petrified person is as foreign to me as a stranger, and it's impossible for me to imagine what it must have been like to be her. Without this electronic evidence, I could never have imagined myself capable of such madness and misery.
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Susannah describes watching the EEG videotapes of herself in the hospital as she begins Part 3, in which she details her recovery process. Susannah feels very unsettled watching these videos, offering a look into how people perceive identity. Susannah never considered that a person could have these two very different identities (let alone not remember one of them), as people tend to think of identities as being relatively static. It's incomprehensible to think that a person could be one person on one day, and be an entirely different person the next. This is, of course, made possible through brain chemistry Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt.
Chapter 47 Quotes
The girl in the video is a reminder about how fragile our hold on sanity and health is and how much we are at the utter whim of our Brutus bodies, which will inevitably, one day, turn on us for good. I am a prisoner, as we all are. And with that realization comes an aching sense of vulnerability.
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Susannah describes how difficult it was to see the EEG video footage of herself for the first time. Seeing this crazy version of herself makes it abundantly clear to her that even if she doesn't remember being this other person, she was indeed acting this way—the video evidence proves this. The video footage thus itself functions as a memory here, and in turn helps Susannah create her own story about what happened. However, seeing herself in this light also makes it clear that the line between health and sickness is very thin and easily obliterated. Susannah's illness came on suddenly Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui
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"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
EEG Video Monitoring Symbol Timeline in Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
The timeline below shows where the symbol EEG Video Monitoring appears in Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 15
...four-person room 24 hours per day, and two cameras hang above each bed. This provides video evidence of seizures for the hospital, and Susannah tells the reader that these videos were...
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Susannah describes an EEG video in which she lies in bed in the fetal position looking upset, fiddles with her...
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Chapter 18
Susannah describes an EEG video in which she pushes her help button. She's on the phone, though it's not clear...
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Chapter 21
Susannah describes an EEG video in which Mom stands by the window, dressed for work. Susannah crawls into bed and...
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Chapter 25
...tap at the beginning of Susannah’s third week in the hospital. Susannah describes an EEG video in which she lies in bed with Stephen, asleep. Susannah wakes and starts inhaling rapidly,...
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Chapter 28
Susannah describes an EEG video. She reclines on the bed, gets up, and haltingly walks to the door. Mom, off...
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Chapter 35
...with her name into her player and watches footage of herself from the hospital. The video captures unhinged, raw panic in her face, and she realizes that she can barely imagine...
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Chapter 47
For Susannah, the hardest part about writing the article is handing over her EEG tapes to the photo editor of the paper. She has to help him open the files...
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