My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum By a Sane Patient

"My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum" by Herman Charles Merivale is a memoir where the author recounts his disturbing time locked away in a mental institution, despite being of sound mind. The story dives into themes of sanity and injustice, highlighting the flaws in how mental health was understood and managed back then. The narrator shares the strange and often cruel realities of asylum life, paints pictures of other patients with unusual behaviors, and digs into the difficulties of mental health diagnoses. He deals with his own feelings, contrasting how others view him as insane with his own sense of reality, revealing how easily people can be wrongly imprisoned because of societal biases and medical mistakes. Through it all, the story is a strong critique of the mental health system failures and a call for fair treatment of those wrongly judged.