Voluntary Madness

My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin

By: Norah Vincent

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man ended on a harrowing note. Suffering from severe depression after her 18 months living disguised as a man, Vincent felt she was a danger to herself. On the advice of her psychologist she committed herself to a mental institution.

Vincent's journey takes her from a big-city hospital to a facility in the Midwest and finally to an upscale retreat down south, as she analyzes the impact of institutionalization on the unwell, the tyranny of drugs as treatment, and the dysfunctional dynamics between caregivers and patients.

©2008 Norah Vincent (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Vincent's discussions of daily life, treatment approaches, observations of patients and staff, and commentary on the over-reliance of medication and the nature of mental illness itself are fresh and valuable." ( Library Journal)

Halfway there?

I had to read this for a class I'm teaching, I would have stopped reading if it were not required. I struggled to complete the first 3/4 of the book because of the narrator's tone towards fellow human beings. It was honestly hard to get through some sections with such a hateful, derisive tone towards other patients in the institutions and the staff. I saw the narrator as exceptionally arrogant, and though the end of the book somewhat explained that attitude I still would not read anything else by this author. This book does show some good points about how our healthcare system works but it lacks hard facts to do back up the personal narrative really effectively. I wish it would have either been a heavily researched account on healthcare systems and evidence of how and why they operate how they do, or a full memoir on personal struggles with mental health, but it was neither. The end chapter essentially concludes that people don't get better unless they want to get better, which just re-emphasizes the idea that the narrator simply dislikes fellow human beings and doesn't have any insights on how mental health systems can be improved.

Not quite Cuckoo but makes me glad I'm sane!

I got this audiobook after reading Ms. Vincent's prior book, Self-Made Man. After months impersonating a man to infiltrate male-centric societies, Norah was so shaken by the experience, she checked herself into a mental hospital. While there, as an immersive journalist, her thoughts naturally went to: "This would make a good book!" And off she went...

She did not use that first experience in the book except to explain why she wrote it. So this book covers her experiences in 3 hospitals: an East Coast public hospital, a Midwest private hospital, and a West Coast private new-age spa-like hospital. As the prices went up, so did the services and the level of therapy. There was virtually none at the public hospital - Norah got 15 minutes of therapy per day there, which I found almost laughable. This place was also the one most focused on medicating patients. The Midwest hospital had a great psychiatrist who gave Norah daily off-campus passes and who didn't prescribe meds for her that she did not want. The third hospital had a lot of different kinds of therapy but most importantly, had a kindly, caring social worker who gave Norah insights she wasn't expecting.

I think that was the most interesting part of the book for me, and the most unexpected for Norah herself. She went into the project not wanting to lie, therefore she used her own name and her own medical records with their history of depression. However, she thought she was going to these hospitals purely for book research, and she wasn't expecting to get anything out of it. In the end, she got a lot (although not from the public hospital.) I found it interesting how even the most intelligent and educated among us can still be in serious denial about how much help we can use.

Initially I wasn't crazy about the narrator. I'm not sure why but her voice didn't match up to what I was expecting or it wasn't fitting with the emotions or something, but by the time I was halfway in, that wasn't a problem at all anymore. She'd grown on me. And one little negative about audiobooks in general: sometimes in paper books I will skim a little bit, such as over a section about how disgusting it was to eat with some of the highly medicated insane patients in the public hospital, but in an audiobook you can't, so I was thoroughly grossed out when if I'd been reading the print version I would have only been mildly grossed out as I would have glossed that section. I've listened to other books where the problem of not being able to skim came up but not in this way. It's interesting how listening to audiobooks really can be a very different experience from reading print.

Eye opening

Her truth shines through her words. I finally realize that maybe our system to help people is completely broken. I loved that she was able to share her journey.

Critical and relatable!

I really enjoyed this book! Norah is insightful and observant. She sees people for who they are. I've had my own struggles with "mental illness" and I relate so much to everything she says about the system of care and current psychiatric approaches. Her experience is shared by so many and we need more people like her willing to say it. It was difficult reading it knowing she later killed herself, always hoping maybe the next chapter she finds the help she needs but knowing ultimately that she doesn't.

No one can help you but yourself

While I've never been to a bin myself, this story does mirror several I've heard from those who have. Norah's a captivating writer and the narrator does a superb job of conveying the emotions behind the words. I would highly recommend a listen along with Norah's Self Made Man.