Amy Bingaman

"In April of 2004, the long downward spiraling of Amy Bingaman's mental illness could no longer be hidden or ignored much less written off as a side-product of a colorful and quirky character. With no family able to help and no resources, she was involuntarily locked up in the draconian, archaic labyrinth that is the Wyoming Mental Health System. Armed with only a pocket dictionary and any paper she could find to write on, Amy wrote not only as a journal but at times as her only coping mechanism to salvage what was left of a breaking mind in a love/hate relationship with her alter-ego who she'd come to call "lucille." Over the course of her first 33 days she kept copious notes of her time there, detailing treatment (or mistreatment) befitting a prisoner rather than the sufferer of a psychological disorder. These diaries roller-coaster between terrifying and hilarious, chronicling from her first morning waking up confused in a disheveled ball gown, living at the mercy of staff who range from inept to cruel and with fellow patients who's light, hope and brilliance are twisted with the daily wrestling of their own debilitating psychotic breaks from reality. What results is an unedited, in-the-moment take-down of what consists of mental health care in this country, as lived from the inside by its weakest links, those it is intended to protect. And for all the dark humor and vivid humanity, she hopes you will be left with the knowledge that since that time, little or nothing in the system has changed." -DOUG STANHOPE

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