Psychology Today – The Inflamed Brain (February)
How Encephalitis Changed My Life
A Personal Perspective: When the immune system erroneously attacks the brain.
By Juliana Ortiz
One minute, I couldn’t stop babbling about starting high school; the next, I was in an ambulance speeding to Miami’s Jackson Hospital, where I was eventually diagnosed with NMDAR-antibody encephalitis—a disease most people have never heard of that forever changed my life.
It started in August 2014. I was 14 and a straight-A perfectionist. But this year was different. During my first week of school, I felt overwhelmed, nervous, anxious, and foggy. I kept telling myself it was just nerves, but people said I was acting odd.
Then, I failed my first test.
Read the full blog on Psychology Today site