Virginia Art

This is the story of Anne who from very humble beginnings in post war Britain during the 1950's where she was raised by struggling working class parents went on to experience a colourful childhood. Not without happiness and love but where she encountered troubles and sexual abuse and dangers throughout school and a six week stay in an orphanage run by nuns. She recalls the swinging 60's as a teenager going onto join the army and later in her early 20's becoming part of the 1970's Manchester jet set. There came along job opportunities and travel to Italy working as an au pair but from the age of 17 and for the rest of her life she suffered from mental ill health. Nevertheless although being trapped within the psychiatric system from the age of 23 onwards in 1979 she settled in the beautiful town of Newtown in Mid Wales and was married for 33 years to a manic depressive and brought up a wonderful son who has struggled with his own mental health issues. This book is about the story of Anne and the experiences she encountered before and after being embroiled in psychiatry, the way her condition has affected her life and how it actually feels to find yourself having heightened states of reality and emotional overwhelm. She reasons out the complexities of a lifetime with mental health issues the treatments and the effects of how a person can be totally changed and the direction this may lead a person's life to become.