True - Rated 
Schizophrenia is not an easy one and a book by the person with it is far from easy.
The book is written in plain terms and exploring many issues, issues often ignored; sexual dysfunction, violence, `care', and what he calls - "real life running alongside things imagined or any sort of symptom."
An often comic and enjoyable read although the writer does not beat about the bush regarding the things important.
Although there is a vernacular aspect and some swearing it isn't overly done and quite often amusing.
The author believes in life and love, and he has hope for the future despite the cards he has been dealt in "the game".
This book should be in every library alongside the great and the good if we are to get a truly representative picture of mental illness.
A golden nugget for anyone interested in schizophrenia - Rated
What can we make of schizophrenia, or psychosis? Ugly names for a potentially devastating disorder. Clinicians and researchers still have no clear understanding of what causes it and no good treatments to cure it, although much continues to be published. At the end of the day, the fact that it is a disorder of the mind is what makes it so difficult to understand and, at the same time, so important to listen to the stories of those who have suffered it. This book is the best account I have ever read of a travel into psychosis and back.
It is an extraordinary book from all the right viewpoints. Firstly, it works as a piece of arresting narrative. At the start of all good books, the reader should have the sense that he or she has stepped onto a moving train. This happens here. The story begins with a job offer in 1990, then cuts back to a difficult childhood in 1970s Manchester, rich in detail and atmosphere. The poverty, the violent, alcoholic father, even the sexual abuse suffered in care, all are related in a personal, non-judgemental style tinged at times with sympathy and affection. The writing is clear and honest. As the writer grows into adolescence, the reader becomes more and more immersed in a world with many reference points: the clothes, the music, the football, the politics.
Secondly, the book works better than any textbook in its description of the gradual emergence of psychotic symptoms. There are vivid descriptions of so-called ideas of reference coalescing and becoming systematised into paranoid delusions, culminating in an act of attempted self-destruction. The writer is utterly compelling in his description of how these ideas took hold and took over through their relentless logic.
Thirdly, the book offers an unparalleled user's-eye view of the state of British mental health services. Starting with his being sectioned into hospital in his first episode of psychosis, the writer describes the individual and institutional callousness he experiences, through which acts of professional kindness occasionally gleam. On diagnosis, on psychiatry, on hospitals, on drug treatments, he has reached the kind of multilayered, un-dogmatic conclusions that can only be reached through personal experience and reflection.
This book should certainly be read by all mental health professionals, students and policy makers. Even more importantly, it should be read by everyone with an interest in what makes us human and sane and how part of that is a resilience to deal with profound, unplanned personal redefinition.
Shon Lewis MD FRCPsych
Professor of Adult Psychiatry
University of Manchester
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