He Spent a Year Paying a Doctor to Write Down a Fragile, Unstable Version of Me That Didn’t Exist — So When He Finally Set Me Aside, the Whole World Would Believe I’d Simply Come Apart on My Own

For some people it is a doctor.

For some it is a friend who says that is not normal, what he’s doing to you. For some it is a stranger.

But it is almost always one person, one voice from outside the sealed room, and it is almost always the beginning of everything.

Mine wore a white coat and was furious on my behalf, and I have loved her ever since with the particular love you feel for the person who handed you back your own mind.

Chapter 8 — The Recording