5150 - The One Who Flew Into the Cuckoo's Nest

by Kathi Stringer

New expanded 2013 version and professionally edited. This story is mainly about a dramatic inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. 5150 is the California code for a psychiatric hold.

Pat Risser: "A true story about a woman caught in a life or death struggle with a psychiatrist whose ego feels he must defeat her at all costs. The psychiatrist forgets all about healing and enters into combat with the patient -- it's his will versus hers. The battle scenes are vividly captured through Kathi's eyes as well as through the chart notes that reveal the terrifying specter of the thoughts of the staff as they try to force their will upon Kathi."

The reason I expanded this book with over 60 pages from the 2007 version was because one of the feedback reviews indicated he wanted to see more of the advocacy that was accomplished. At the time of the first writing, these things had not yet occurred. However, I feel good about presenting them here now. In addition, this expanded version has been professionally edited.

Dr. Sam Vaknin writes: "This time it's a winner: taut, tense prose; a plot as captivating as any thriller's; a real-life story that reads like a nightmare and that ends in personal redemption. Couched in a lean and muscular text, all the important themes are here: self-discovery, one against the many, iconoclastic rebel faces down the system, justice for all, mental illness as a mechanism for social coercion. What a ride! What a treat! Brilliant."

5150 is a true story about personal journey in the following domains: Psychiatric Hospital(s), Dissociative Identity Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Transsexualism. First time a book is published that resonates with the psychiatric hospital notes.

Paula Minegar: "This book goes to a different level, I haven't read anything like it. I felt a different emotion with every turn of the page. When I could put it down, I recapped the previous pages over and over in my mind. I wish I had a tenth of the strength this author has. A great read, a shocking education."

Genres: Classics, Fiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Melaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Novel was a really good book and had many ups and downs in some of the chapters. The book was very heart breaking,funny and upsetting. The book for me made me sad at the end, and I loved how Ken Kesey created the novel to show people how individuals were treated during that time inside Mental Institutes. What I didn't like is how the women in the book were portrayed as uniformly terrifying and threatening. Nurse Ratched had the most power over everyone and made everyone feel lower about themselves and Manipulated the patients and even the Ward doctor, she used her powers in the wrong way. The ending of the book was really upsetting to me, because of how Nurse Ratched used her Manipulative powers against Billy and McMurphy and what she did to McMurphy at the end to show him as a lesson, but Chief McMurphy's friend couldn't let McMurphy stay there to look like Nurse Ratched lesson and couldn't let Nurse Ratched have the power over what she did to McMurphy. The novel was heartbreaking because your reading and feels like almost witnessing humanity's struggle to have a decent life and not always feeling like your insane or crazy. I gave the book a 4-star rating because of some of the themes that I caught in the novel like conformity, mental illness,authority, and how the women were portrayed and how the Nurse Manipulated everyone. One quote that caught my attention in the book was "We are here because we can't deal with our business" (Harding) "The patients of this ward can't deal with the real world and their place in it" and what that quote and saying is that's a way of describing the discomfort some people feel when they say they don't quite fit in the way the rest of the world and other people wants them too. Overall the book was great, very sad and happy ending, and a lot of laughs.

[Sara Bianco Muss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omg. What

[Wes]

Many highs and many lows, trials and triumphs in the authors life, and gut wrenching at times. Well worth the read.