Paula G. (Paulathegreat) reviewed on 9/17/2024 + 146 more book reviews

It was a good book, well written. May have been better if she had waited to have more distance before she wrote it.

The facility she was in was not a "snake pit". She lost some of her rights, which is terrible, but it was more infantilization to protect her from herself (she was perceived to be and acting psychotic) than abuse.

She was in an upper class psych hospital where the doctors knew their patients and did their best to help them. She was misdiagnosed, but not through malice or neglect, but through the lack of neurological knowledge of the 80s.

By the end of the book Ms. Deitrick comes off somewhat unlikeable because of her immaturity. For example she and her friend have a party where she stomps ice cream bars all over the floor of the common room. I wondered how often state hospital patients get ice cream bars and if they would waste them so childishly.

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