Today I’m joining the blog tour for Inside The Madhouse. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of the book.
Blurb:
Inside The Madhouse gives a bitterly honest account of life on a modern psychiatric unit including the incredible camaraderie and the often unintentionally funny day-to-day routines.
Hope Daniels became a poster girl for surviving abuse and the care system, thanks to her 2014 Sunday Times bestseller Hackney Child.
Despite everything, Hope grew up determined to have a career and after the release of Hackney Child, she went on to have more successful books, building a loyal fanbase, while also becoming an ambassador and role model for others like her.
However, in Inside The Madhouse, her new and most raw memoir to date, Hope reveals her new life was not quite as rosy as many thought.
In 2022, when a difficult relationship came to a toxic end and her unresolved trauma of being abused as a teenager began to resurface, she tried to take her own life.
It resulted in her being forcibly sectioned and spending three months in two very different psychiatric hospitals – one NHS and one private. Now, against a backdrop of rattling keys, slamming doors, and the shrieks of patients resisting treatment, Hope reveals what life is really like on a psychiatric ward today – celebrating the unexpected camaraderie amongst the patients and the moments of dark humour which helped her through.
She met countless women who, like her, were haunted by the memories and effects of a lifetime of cruelty and neglect. Their stories are rarely told, they are the shadowy figures who often exist in the margins of society – far from family and friends. In this powerful memoir, Hope shares her own lived experience, and that of her fellow patients, and documents their joint journey towards redemption and recovery.
Review:
I gave Inside The Madhouse 5 stars on Goodreads, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. It’s such a visceral account of the author’s experience in a psychiatric hospital that I could smell every smell, hear every noise and feel every painful “needle rape” (the term used by the patients for enforced sedation). Hope Daniels describes her thoughts and feelings during her psychosis in great detail and it gave me such strong insight into how terrifying this was for her.
I don’t have experience of treatment in a psychiatric hospital, but I found Inside The Madhouse incredibly eye opening as to the standard of care in some institutions. Hope Daniels’ descriptions of the first hospital in which she stayed made me feel physically claustrophobic (even though I was reading in my own home and free to go outside at any time) and I was horrified by the lack of care the patients experienced here. I felt so frustrated on their behalf.
However, there are some hopeful moments in Hope Daniels’ story and I found these really heartwarming. She has a lovely relationship with Joan, her advocate, and her son and daughter, and I am so glad these people were able to speak on Hope’s behalf, as this is not something which many of the other patients were able to access.
At the end of some of the chapters, there are case studies of some of the patients Hope met in the hospitals in which she stayed. I found these fascinating, but incredibly sad, and they are an eye opening insight into the way in which mental health can affect any of us.
I hope Inside The Madhouse will educate people about the reality of living with mental health conditions and I can only commend the author for writing such an honest and raw account of her experiences.
Inside The Madhouse is available from Amazon.
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