The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery

Right up my alley and fascinating to boot, Barbara K. Lipska's The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery was a read that I couldn't put down. 

Barbara was a prolific researcher on the neuro-origins of mental illness and the director of the brain bank at the National Institute of Mental Health. Her life's work served as the greatest irony when she began losing her mind in the prime of her life. At first she loses sight in the corners of her eye, and she knows -- it's a tumor. Her breast cancer metastasized to her brain, which was the ultimate cruelty. She has it treated and has confidence in her recovery, but she slowly changes from the loving, caring mother and wife that she has always been to someone she doesn't even understand. Her work can't save her. 

You know me and brain stuff -- I love it. Can't keep my hands off of it, except for maybe when I read murder and mayhem. I was fascinated by Lipska's journey from researcher to the researched, and I found myself overwhelmed by her experience. I love that she opened the book with a particular point in her journey, when she found herself dying her hair and then going for a run, but not realizing she still had dye in her hair and then losing her place in her neighborhood. None of it phased her as she didn't even realize what was happening. It was fascinating to read, and then to jump into her journey from her beginnings in Poland and her journey to the United States. Her research was profound and an incredibly important contribution to the mental health field, and her description of her work at NIMH was amazing.

Then the worst happens, which is the growth of metastatic tumors on her brain. I felt her panic as she realized that she couldn't see out the side of her vision, and her I understood her denial of what was happening even as I was screaming to her that she needed to get to the doctor now. The devastation she felt at having to put her life on hold was acute to me, and her journey was arduous and palpable. I will say that her writing felt a bit stilted, but I chalk that up to a background in academic writing which doesn't particularly lend itself to writing for the masses. (I know this well, as I can be pedantic myself if I don't watch it. See? I just used the word pedantic unironically.) However, her story was so fascinating that I was willing to look past the sometimes awkward narrative voice to dig deep into the heart of the story.