Loony-Bin Trip - Hardcover

They have come to make a bust. But they call it "talking." My legs shake. The terror in my mind is like a machine out of order. But I must talk. I must look good. I must answer the trick questions perfectly. Maybe I can dissuade them. A bust is an examination-which I am fool enough always to imagine I can pass. A life-time of passing tests has never prepared me for the kind that are rigged, for the ones that cannot be passed, were not meant to be.

Of course there is no denying the misery and stress of life itself: the sufferings of the mind at the mercy of emotion, the circumstances which set us at war with one another, the divorces and antagonisms in human relationships, the swarms of fears, the blocks to confidence, the crises of decision and choice. These are the things we weather or fail to, seek council against, even risk the inevitable disequilibrium of power inherent in therapy to combat-they are the grit and matter of the human condition. But when such circumstances are converted into symptoms and diagnosed as illnesses, I believe we enter upon very uncertain ground.

Dedicated to "those who've been there," The Loony-Bin Trip is the brilliantly written memoir of a period in Kate Millett's life when she was diagnosed as "constitutionally psychotic" and the thirteen years she spent using prescribed drugs that deadened her mind and obscured her consciousness. With scrupulous detail, she think-talks us through the disbelief; the terrors of betrayal, restraint, incarceration, isolation, drugs, and shock treatment; the despair when her fears of betrayal prove real; and her urgent need not to forget: "It is the integrity of the mind I wish to affirm, its sanctity and inviolability." This insider's look at what happens to people diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic depression, paranoia, and personality disorders, "all illnesses which are established upon behavioral and not physical grounds," reveals a body of law that allows people to be deprived of "any and all rights, civil, constitutional or human." But stripping institutionalized "patients" of all legal rights and depriving them of elementary human needs such as privacy, cleanliness and meaningful activity is not "treatment" enough, they are also routinely forced to take such drugs as Thorazine, Stelazine and Haldol which cause permanent, irreversible side-affects - involuntary spasms, physical disfigurements - or lithium, which threatens the kidneys and the heart. Readers are lucky that Kate Millett is one of the fortunate ones: a caucasian scholar and writer with enough money, influential friends, and guts to survive, get out and write about it. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Jesse Larsen