Voluntary Madness - Norah Vincent

Voluntary Madness - Norah Vincent (2009)

This book was recommended to me by my father, an avid non-fiction reader who plows through ten books a week.  He talked about how it taught him a bit about mental illness, that there is not an definitive test for each type and that it all depends on the symptoms that the patient describes.  In other illnesses you can take a blood test, biopsy or sample to determine what is going on.

In the book I learnt that it takes a patient going to the doctor, describing their feelings, and then according to the author the patient is then locked up and has to convince the medical staff that they can then go home.  Also that the patient has to want to accept help and participate in their own rehab.

After suffering from depression, and then a breakdown after the finish of her latest book, Norah checks into a psychiatric ward for treatment for real, and then decides to write a book about three different types of facilities.  Her experience is wildly different in each three and each experience is peppered with a range of characters in the wards, both staff and patients.

3/5 - it was interesting but made me feel sad reading it.  It did give me insights into mental health treatment, and made me challenge what I thought about treatment, and anti psychotic drugs.