last_asylum
Taylor’s description of her experience with mental illness is open, honest and eye-opening.
As a reader, I felt as though I was joining her through much of it, empathising with her struggles before, during and after her stay in Friern Hospital shortly before it closed for good. The author clarifies in her prologue that the book portrays the misery she went through, but “…what this emphatically is not is a tale of victimhood”. It is essentially a book about the gruelling but rewarding road to healing.
I felt her hitting rock bottom with drugs and alcohol, her reliance on her psychoanalyst, low self-worth and subsequent ascent to living life in the world again. Her connection to other people played a valuable role throughout her experience: parents, lovers, psychotherapists, doctors, nurses and friends. She writes “We become who we are through relationships. The ‘I’ is born at the interface between self and other, the helpless and help-giver, infant and parent”. She takes responsibility for her life choices and is clear about her own path of self-destruction and the way this has impacted on others.
She depicts her experience at the hospital with overall gratitude, aware of its history and the many shortcomings in the healthcare system, and she identifies with her fellow inmates, rather than viewing herself as an outsider who doesn’t belong there.
Unpretentious, informative, humorous at times and quite compelling.
Penguin paperback £9.99