Voluntary Madness by Norah Vincent

() This book gives good insight into the differences of treatment and services provided in various mental health facilities in the U.S.

Also, the author analyzes mental illness, hers included (depression), to exhaustion. Her writing is straight-forwarded and piercingly honest.

This novel is interesting in that it can make us more aware of specifically how the mentally ill are 'cared for' in this country, and thus form our own opinions about the best treatment options available. Furthermore, we can deduce some of the problematic areas that need more attention. Vincent's writing can also help us see alternative perspectives based on different psychological afflictions. She details many of the "patients" or "clients" as well as the institution's staff.

She goes to three different facilities, starting with the least appealing and ending with the most appealing. Of course the first is a public city hospital. She compares the three treatment centers to each other, and concludes her ideal way of healing.

It's not the most exciting, enthralling read, but it's informative, and not boring if you've got a curiosity about the topic.

The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett

() Not just bipolar, not just schizophrenic: schizoaffective. Lori, one of the authors and main character of the novel, starts hearing voices and hallucinating in her preteens. She knows something might be wrong, but isn't sure what. At one time she even believes that she must be possessed.

She's able to hide her "voices" and extreme moods fairly well until her late college years. At this time, the symptoms become increasingly worse. She becomes depressed and tortured by the voices. Her 3.9 GPA, highly admired and seemingly sociable, happy life comes to a screeching halt with a suicide attempt. She couldn't take it anymore.

From here on she is transferred in and out of hospitals and clinics. She is put on various medications at different times. She does have a period or two where she seems to get better. (But she began to self-medicate with coke.) Ironically, she even starts working at hospitals, including the one she stayed at. Nonetheless her disease becomes increasingly worse. However, she is brought to an alternative program and given experimental medication. Sorry to spoil the ending, but with therapy, she becomes better. She along with her family, friends, and doctors all compile this book. True story.

"When I heard the Voices yelling such terrible things, I grew afraid to make eye contact with the people I was with. I was afraid they had heard the Voices and now knew the terrible secrets about me that they were revealing. [...] I became extremely self-conscious in front of everyone for fear they too would nail me to a taunting cross." (pg. 22 - Lori)
"'You are going to kill yourself driving like that,' he said. I began to laugh hysterically. Right before my very eyes, the state trooper with his hat and sunglasses and uniform had changed into a fantastic creature with bugged-out eyes and hair standing up wildly on end." (pg. 25 - Lori)
"None of us at college could put our fingers on what was wrong. At first, it simply seemed as if she [Lori] was depressed because she was so fun-loving and we were all such grinds. [...] Some of our friends weren't sympathetic at all. In fact, a lot of guys thought she was just bullshitting us." (pg. 30 - college roommate)
"Poor people are crazy, they say, and rich people are eccentric. My mother was rich, and so she was allowed to be eccentric. But now, looking at Lori, I realized that my mother hadn't been eccentric. She had been sick. And now I saw that sickness repeated in her granddaughter. For if Lori was schizophrenic, then so was my mother." (pg. 82 - Lori's mom)
"In fact, I knew they were trying to trick, trying to torment me into madness. I knew they could read my mind and hear all that the Voices were saying about them. The doctors and nursing staff told me repeatedly that the Voices weren't real. But if they weren't real, then how did the staff know they were there?" (pg. 90 - Lori)
"It seemed so strange that my fellow patients could enjoy the Voices they heard in their own heads. On my unit one young man had Voices who told him he was the Messiah. Another young woman always sat by herself, laughing happily. Once I asked her what she was laughing about. 'Hubert is telling me jokes,' she said. [...] I was jealous. There was nothing about my Voices that was friendly. I had tried to make them my allies against the hateful staff. But in reality the Voices terrified me. Sometimes I told the staff they were gone, but I was lying. [...] The Voices yelled so loud they woke me up, leaving me shaking and frightened." (pg. 149 - Lori)
"And as for my newfound 'cure,' that was all a matter of control too. Everyone needs to breathe, but people can still hold their breath underwater. If you practice, you can hold your breath for much longer than you ever believed possible. That's what holding my Voices inside was like. Sure, I could hold it for a few seconds longer. But the explosive rage was building inside all the more for not being allowed to be expressed." (pg. 165 - Lori)
"Was this really my brain? Was this really the same brain that had achieved for me a 3.9 average at one of the most competitive high schools in the country, and a 3.3 average at one of the most competitive colleges? Was this the same brain that learned to speak Spanish? That wrote papers the professors praised?" (pg. 184 - Lori)
"Dr. Fischer and Dr. Doller explained, there weren't really voices that other people could hear. It was just my own thoughts getting blown up out of proportion inside my brain. I listened. I thought about it. No way, I thought at first. I don't have horrible thoughts like that. Those thoughts aren't me. It's those Voices who are the crazy demons, not me. Besides, the Voices were so clear, so real, so vivid. It seemed impossible to me that they were simply figments of my own imagination." (pg. 221 - Lori)
"Finally out of mental exhaustion I collapsed. But I relaxed. The more times I marched myself into the Quiet Room the easier it was. The Quiet Room became a place to chill out and deescalate, rather than to be punished. Finally, the Quiet Room really became quiet." (pg. 224 - Lori)
"Despite all the progress I had made, how could I go out and live in the real world when I couldn't tell what was real from what was not real?" (pg. 227 - Lori)
"We weren't looking for a psychological cause of the illness. None of us disputed the biological cause of schizophrenia. We were, instead, looking to understand the experience of schizophrenia, and to try to help our patients learn to tolerate the experience better. [...] What is there in any human being's experience to prepare him or her to cope with a broken brain? Who can understand what a catastrophe this break is for the human soul? For the thing that is broken is the person's ability to relate to another person." (pg. 237 - Lori's doctor)
"My head kept clearing. Thinking was less of an effort. The scrambled-eggs unscrambled, the mixed-up spaghetti strands of thoughts unraveled. [...] When the Voices reared up and roared, it was as if they hit a glass shield, crashed and fell away. [...] Their noises were muffled and remote. [...] Clozapine was standing between them and my brain. Denied the nourishment of my thoughts, they were perishing. [...] But the biggest change was in the return of something I hadn't realized I was missing: I began to feel connected to other people." (pg. 252 - Lori)

Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher

() Bipolar 1 at it's finest. Marya dialogues her life, especially that as it is enveloped by her disease.

Throughout her existence she is continually in motion, in and out of manic, depression, mixed, and various other extreme episodes. She's harbored all the bad behaviors - at their worst - to "cope": alcoholism, eating disorders, self-injury, drug use... She's been in hospitals and clinics innumerable times. It's hard to believe she's still alive with what she's been through.

She uses this book to help communicate the very real symptoms, and dangers, of the disease. The chronicles of her own struggles helps educate us on the nature of the disorder, and perhaps help us see the humanity that is still present in those strongly afflicted by it.

Yes, I did listen to this as an audio book. I used Google E-Reader to find the few quotes I noted.
"I want to be superwoman, and the fact that I'm not makes me hate myself and constantly wonder why I'm such a waste." (pg. 106)
"I don't deserve him. He's too good. I put my head down on the table and cry. Because it's happened again. I'm found out. I'm damaged. Fucked up. Broken. A fraud. I knew he would find out sooner or later that I was impossible to love." (pg. 103)
"Sometimes, I get the uneasy feeling that I'm fooling everyone. In the middle of a gathering of friends, at a party, at a show, on a walk with Jeff, I'll remember the past. It leaves me a little shaken, bewildered by how I've gotten from there to here. I feel it in the pit of my stomach, the shame of it, the feeling that I am getting away with something, living a life I don't deserve. [...] and everyone loves the woman I'm pretending to be, not me. Who would love me? I hate the person I was. She disgusts me, [...] she was a monster. She was sick. Suddenly I can feel her in me, like bile in my throat. I can't let her out. The spell will break, and she will take over again. I want to forget her. I want her dead. [...] If I am very good, they'll let me stay, and soon, if I work hard enough, I will belong." (pg. 162)
"I'm a little overwhelmed, so I keep smiling, figuring it can't hurt." (pg. 163)
"2.8% of U.S. population has bipolar disorder [...] 25% of bipolar patients have attempted suicide." (pg. 281)