It is diabolically clever, because the more you protest, the more agitated and insistent you appear, and agitation and insistence can themselves be dressed up as symptoms.

An old woman calmly presenting a neurological evaluation is one thing.

An old woman shouting that she is perfectly fine is quite another, and Michael was counting on the second.

So I gave the court the first.

I did not shout.

I proved it, on paper, with a board-certified specialist’s name attached, before he could ever make my defense of myself look like the very confusion he was alleging.

Chapter 5 — That Doesn’t Prove She Isn’t Hurting Herself