num_pages: 88
description: A Diary of Despairby Rosamund McCullain Published: 2006Pages: 88DescriptionThis book tells Rosamund's story as she journeys through experiences of mental distress and bad treatment at the hands of the mental health system. The book ends on a note of hope and survivor solidarity. A whole range of issues are covered, from conditions in in-patient facilities, drug treatment, stigma and discrimination, the impact of suicide and self-harm, the quality of community mental healthcare to the eventual partial recovery of the Rosamund's condition and how she has managed to achieve this.About the AuthorRosamund McCullain was born and grew up in Bradford, West Yorkshire in July 1964. Upon leaving school she moved to the Mid-Wales area to study English at Aberystwyth University, and currently lives in Newtown, Powys. When she first became a mental health service user survivor, Ros was appalled at the state of the mental health system and the treatment she received, and felt the public should be told what was being done with their money and in their name. To achieve this, she started writing 'The Dispossessed' in 1993, and finally completed it in 2002. Ros has a keen interest in creative writing, for her it has been a lifelong survival mechanism. She is an animal lover, and has two dogs, two cats and a horse. She works as a self-employed mental health trainer and consultant, writer and creative writing tutor. She is also involved in voluntary work as a survivor activist.Book Extract They have released me from the bowels of the Machine into "Care in the Community." They said they could do nothing to help me, having virtually forced me into the bowels of the Machine in the first place. I did have some choice in the matter. I could enter the bowels of my own free will, or I could enter the bowels under a Section of the Mental Health Act, but either way it was the bowels for me. So I chose to go "voluntarily."
language: English
title: The Dispossessed
titlecomplete: The Dispossessed
publisher: Chipmunkapublishing