Life Inside: A Memoir

Life Inside: A Memoir

In 1967, Mindy Lewis was a rebellious fifteen-year-old, afflicted by acute shyness, nascent creative yearnings, and a growing distrust of authority. When Mindy started cutting school and taking drugs, her mother turned to the psychiatric profession for help. Remanded by the court to state custody, Mindy was sent to a renowned state psychiatric hospital, where she would remain until she turned eighteen. A richly textured exploration of life on a psychiatric ward, Lewis's memoir probes our culture's perceptions of the lines that separate craziness and creativity, power and powerlessness, self-destruction and healthy self-expression, clinical diagnosis and genuine, lasting healing.