The Loony-Bin Trip

Millet seems more concerned with the problems in greater society. Indeed this is Ireland in the 1980s so it's really still the dark ages for women but she refuses to look at her illness for what it is a medical diagnosis. She's concerned with the Troubles and Irish society and the myriad of pointless rules must have been oppressive. But this is a good study of a person who is traumatized by everything except having an illness with a stigma. She doesn't think she's crazy and her lack of insight is maddening. She doesn't even know what public fracas brought her here.

As a person with manic depression, I can identify with some of the things Kate Millett had to say. However, I found her attitude about mental illness rather annoying. In this book, it is clear that she finds a diagnosis of manic depression infuriating and shameful. She finds lithium, a drug that has saved countless lives, to be nothing short of political oppression. She ends by saying that the illness does not really exist. I cut Millett some slack because the book was written in the 80s and our society had not yet crossed over from Freudian thinking into brain science (we are still making that journey). I'm wondering if she has changed her mind at all in the years since the publication of the book. I, myself, am not ashamed or infuriated by my diagnosis in the way Millett was. I insist on my right to proper treatment, where she felt wronged by the notion of treatment at all. While I did not agree with most of what Millett had to say, this book is captivating. She is clearly a brilliant woman and a fantastic writer.

Millet carefully unpacks the historical events surrounding her "breakdowns." Her family and many friends think she is crazy to buy a farm and turn it into an artist's retreat. As readers, it's hard to know whether she did or didn't have a breakdown. However, regardless of whether it even can be determined in such a black-and-white manner, we feel an incredible empathy for her as she welcomes us to experience her hurt, her feelings of jealousy and loss, and her moments of profound joy. For anyone who has ever been diagnosed with a mental "disorder," this is a wonderfully affirming book.

Written between 1982 and 1985, The Loony-Bin Trip is overwhelmingly an effort to revert common notions of depression so that, like "grief," it may be allowed to enter the popular vocabulary. Millet achieves her foremost intent through her undeniably exquisite prose supplanted by already-changing attitudes toward depression among the public. However, The Loony Bin Trip is much more than a diatribe against prevailing stigmas of depression - it is a tender account of a talented, intelligent women's relentless desire to be accepted and understood by her contemporaries. Traumatic accounts and vivid self-reflection can occasionally prompt the most neutral reader into turmoil, thus rendering The Loony Bin Trip a cross-reference somewhere between memoir and horror. Her gut wrenching appeals for sympathy may provoke anger in some readers, reinforcing her real-life role as that of a "crazy" woman, but ultimately, her wealth of writings prove her to be a functional, if not creatively contributing, member of society. Reading Kate Millet's The Loony Bin Trip is a trip in itself. (Review written for Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal," a publication of the Claremont Colleges.

The Looney Bin By Kate Millett shares with us her experiences, ranging from dispair, to terror, and finally inner peace, after being diagnosed Manic Depressive. The book is a strong indictment against the treatment of the mentally ill here and abroad.

i liked the part where she came back to NYC and lost her way and fell into the illness everyone, almost, had said she'd had and she was now 'mad' , but still she knew she wasn't and so did we