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Unbroken: Learning to Live Beyond Diagnosis
Alexis is a gifted UK athlete, scholar and teacher who falls into crisis after the unexpected death of her brother. Overwhelmed by her response to grief, she comes to realise she is not like others in her reaction. Alexis is powerless to stop her capture by the mental health system. Tortured by a system meant to heal, her story details what it’s like for an autistic woman living in a society unwilling to accommodate difference. Armed only with her late diagnosis and a remarkable memory, she survives three and a half years of physical abuse, forced drugging and seclusion. Facing a life behind locked doors, Alexis manages a daring escape to Africa. She begins to rebuild her life, and speak out for those still being victimised.
326 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 24, 2018
23 people are currently reading
252 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 2, 2022
As a registered mental health nurse I will be recommending this to all my colleagues along with friends I have in the police force.
It’s the voice of people like Alexis that we need to stop and listen to so we can create better mental health care services.
It’s the voice of people like Alexis that we need to stop and listen to so we can create better mental health care services.
January 7, 2019
Amazing! Should be read by everyone. Alexis tells a terrible, heart-rending story that anyone with experience of the NHS mental health service will unfortunately know to be true. She survived, escaped and at the end of her tale provides a very rational explanation for the way she and many like her are treated.
June 24, 2022
I watched an online discussion on autism and mental health recently. One of the panelists was the author. She mentioned a bit of her story and I was intrigued so I got her book.
Let me just mentioned before I give my review, I have two children with autism. Their father has a formal diagnosis. I am also on the waiting list to be assessed by the neurodevelopment team (3 1/2 years and counting). I had a nervous breakdown last year and ended up in an acute unit, but it wasn't a formal section. I was there for two months before coming home. This book was difficult for me to read in places because I recognised my situation in parts. My case was a pale shadow of what Alexis went through but it was still hard for me. I only found out months later that I had a diagnosis of EUPD. I am not happy with that, especially since no one has ever discussed it with me.
My 13 year old daughter has also had brushes with the mental health crisis team. When Alexis describes how her autism affects her, I see how it affects my daughter, especially when staff at school bombard her with questions and wonder why she gets upset. There is so much I can take from this book, but at the same time, uneasiness at what would happen to my daughter, or myself, if either of us were to fall apart.
I found this book very compelling and read it within a few days. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand autism and how autism is seen by mental health and the police. For anyone who acts a bit different, there is very little understanding. I don't think most people do it on purpose. It's how they were taught. There needs to be an education drive to help those in a position of care to understand what autism is. For someone in meltdown, traditional methods of talking and touching do not work. It's not fair then to tell the individual later that they need to try harder to be more normal.
As for Alexis, she was fortunate to get away from a system that caused her more trauma than they were able to heal. I am grateful that she has told her story. I hope that things improve, but it's hard when the system isn't flexible enough to change when new evidence is presented. I wish Alexis and her family a better future.
Let me just mentioned before I give my review, I have two children with autism. Their father has a formal diagnosis. I am also on the waiting list to be assessed by the neurodevelopment team (3 1/2 years and counting). I had a nervous breakdown last year and ended up in an acute unit, but it wasn't a formal section. I was there for two months before coming home. This book was difficult for me to read in places because I recognised my situation in parts. My case was a pale shadow of what Alexis went through but it was still hard for me. I only found out months later that I had a diagnosis of EUPD. I am not happy with that, especially since no one has ever discussed it with me.
My 13 year old daughter has also had brushes with the mental health crisis team. When Alexis describes how her autism affects her, I see how it affects my daughter, especially when staff at school bombard her with questions and wonder why she gets upset. There is so much I can take from this book, but at the same time, uneasiness at what would happen to my daughter, or myself, if either of us were to fall apart.
I found this book very compelling and read it within a few days. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand autism and how autism is seen by mental health and the police. For anyone who acts a bit different, there is very little understanding. I don't think most people do it on purpose. It's how they were taught. There needs to be an education drive to help those in a position of care to understand what autism is. For someone in meltdown, traditional methods of talking and touching do not work. It's not fair then to tell the individual later that they need to try harder to be more normal.
As for Alexis, she was fortunate to get away from a system that caused her more trauma than they were able to heal. I am grateful that she has told her story. I hope that things improve, but it's hard when the system isn't flexible enough to change when new evidence is presented. I wish Alexis and her family a better future.
February 12, 2025
Having worked in inpatient settings for the last 4 years, I’m so pleased Alexis has shared this story and shed light on the impact mental health services so often have on autistic people. I have seen this sort of treatment time and time again: long term segregation used as a punitive measure, anger at, and misdiagnosis of, “revolving door patients”, and neurodiversity being treated as an illness- the system is truly broken. Inpatient environments are not adapted for those like Alexis and yet a high proportion of the people I have worked with in these settings are neurodiverse. We HAVE to do more to support EVERYONE experiencing mental health crises and work towards reforming the system so that understaffing and poor funding do not cause more harm. Thank you Alexis for your courage in sharing this with the world!!!!!
February 16, 2020
As autistic myself and with years of experience of the mental health system it was good and bizarrely reassuring to read someone else's experience and thoughts on why the system is the way it is.
The vast majority of mental health professionals has no sound knowledge of autism, yet by way of their position has some degree of power to make (life-changing) decisions for people with autism.
It felt good but also disheartening to read, e.g., that someone else also was told "you need to talk"; that someone else struggled with and suffered from the unpredictability of crisis teams ("we will be visiting tomorrow"); that treatment decisions were made based on "symptoms" without taking into account why these symptoms arise in the 1st place.
The author nearly died. Others do die, killing themselves for lack of support/the right "treatment"/hopelessness. Something has to change but I am not hopeful that it will.
The vast majority of mental health professionals has no sound knowledge of autism, yet by way of their position has some degree of power to make (life-changing) decisions for people with autism.
It felt good but also disheartening to read, e.g., that someone else also was told "you need to talk"; that someone else struggled with and suffered from the unpredictability of crisis teams ("we will be visiting tomorrow"); that treatment decisions were made based on "symptoms" without taking into account why these symptoms arise in the 1st place.
The author nearly died. Others do die, killing themselves for lack of support/the right "treatment"/hopelessness. Something has to change but I am not hopeful that it will.
November 10, 2020
Wow! This is a frightening insight into the mental health system.
Thank you Alexis for sharing your heart wrenching story. There are lots of lessons to be learnt in this book. I think it needs to be in the stocking of every psychiatrist this Christmas!
Thank you Alexis for sharing your heart wrenching story. There are lots of lessons to be learnt in this book. I think it needs to be in the stocking of every psychiatrist this Christmas!
November 8, 2019
Spectacularly insightful. As a Social worker and AMHP this brought (and continues to bring) challenge on a daily basis.
July 1, 2022
Totally unexpected content, confirming some of my worst fears. When someone is challenged with mental health issues or mental health issues and a learning disability it can happen that they are torn away from an exhausted and loving family environment for something as relatively straightforward as respite care or an assessment of their needs. Perhaps family breakdown from the pressure of caring without appropriate support has precipitated their mental illness.
What ensues, many cannot speak of because they are unable to write, verbalise or too emotionally upset to revisit their trauma. Thank you Alexis Quinn for this insight. A must-read for professionals involved in care and monitoring standards. An opportunity to see each person as an individual, not a case history, must not be missed. Be aware of window dressing in care facilities, ask probing questions, see both sides of the story.
What I'd anticipated reading was how a person copes and thrives following diagnosis of an ASD, not how the condition is apparently a mystery to the people charged with their care due to inadequate training. The consequences for someone needing help and compassion can be greater trauma and a failure to ascertain and honour real needs.
Given what is described, I almost feel bound to ask where is the benefit in a diagnosis of an ASD and how can someone possibly find the right placement? It seems it is a lottery.
Alexis Quinn, brave, resilient, articulate and resourceful in the face of grave challenges. Thank you.
What ensues, many cannot speak of because they are unable to write, verbalise or too emotionally upset to revisit their trauma. Thank you Alexis Quinn for this insight. A must-read for professionals involved in care and monitoring standards. An opportunity to see each person as an individual, not a case history, must not be missed. Be aware of window dressing in care facilities, ask probing questions, see both sides of the story.
What I'd anticipated reading was how a person copes and thrives following diagnosis of an ASD, not how the condition is apparently a mystery to the people charged with their care due to inadequate training. The consequences for someone needing help and compassion can be greater trauma and a failure to ascertain and honour real needs.
Given what is described, I almost feel bound to ask where is the benefit in a diagnosis of an ASD and how can someone possibly find the right placement? It seems it is a lottery.
Alexis Quinn, brave, resilient, articulate and resourceful in the face of grave challenges. Thank you.
May 1, 2022
This should be a compulsory reading for anyone considering working or already working in mental health services, and services for autistic people and people with a learning disability.
February 6, 2023
This book was very interesting and showed just how important it is to diagnose and recognise autism especially in the mental health system. It had a lot of triggering parts so I would read with caution for anyone vulnerable.
July 16, 2023
Heartbreaking, but important story that will leave you in shock. It's important to listen to the voices of the neurodivergent and hear their stories. It's the only way we will be able to move forward and improve.
March 19, 2023
An insightful, powerful and upsetting read. Alexis is an amazing woman, this book should be on the reading list for every person working within Mental Health.
December 31, 2024
Insightful true story, read into the experiences of an autistic woman and misdiagnoses
December 3, 2025
must read for anyone in mental health
January 22, 2026
I think everyone working with or who knows a vulnerable adult should read this.
April 2, 2019
This book, as the publisher warns us at the beginning (but I would rather they didn't: I'm a big girl) is mostly pretty harrowing. It is the autobiography of a university-educated, athletic young mother who undergoes a breakdown after losing a much-loved brother and who then spends several years being incarcerated in various mental hospitals against her will for several years.
Ah, so you thought the traditional asylum had gone the way of all flesh, did you - the ones described in One Through over the Cuckoo's Nest, so much more prison than place of healing, and where care is frequently punitive?
So did I.
But apparently not. In the second decade of this millennium, it seems that patients may be sectioned indefinitely, with no hope of release. Patients are drugged more as a method of control than anything, as well as subjected to humiliating examinations and procedures if they do not conform and treated like children rather than adults at every turn?
This writer has a way of making Nurse Ratched look positively benign. There are the staff who promise a walk in the part and then renege because the chance to enjoy watching the subsequent meltdown is apparent too beguiling. Where dissension, asking questions about human rights and the right not to be humiliated are seen as maladaptive behaviour to be 'treated' with enforced medication - and always with clothes pulled down, into the buttocks.
Where there are padded cells in which the patient has no choice but to evacuate bowels and bladder straight onto the floor and in front of coldly observing eyes. Where appeals to warm a freezing cell are ignored until hyperthermia becomes a real issue?
It is still possible that a large, assertive woman over of over six foot, who does not mince words with their fascination with death and suicide and refuses to cooperate, might frighten seem to be a tough case. Many more nurses and doctors in the future too, may want to protect themselves against something they fear, or fear being blamed should a tragedy in fact take place.
Alexis Quinn's problems do not improve either once it is ascertained that her problems have nothing to do with either neurosis, nor even psychosis, but neurology. She is diagnosed autistic, after being triumpantly told that she is not, in fact, ill. This means that she then happily and voluntarily admits herself to a specialist unit, intended to assess her autism.
The nightmare starts again as soon as she is forbidden from taking exercise in the environs. Neurosis or neurology, the treatment is the same: drugs, more drugs, until the patient stops questioning and plays the game. She is sectioned again, no excuses are made for her difficulties in managing basic life skills. She is repeatedly told again that she is ill. She continues to deteriorate until, when her section is renewed after just having been promised that it wouldn't be, she makes a successful escape to overseas.
That last part reads more like a thriller, where the French authorities see her passport has been flagged. At this stage though, our heroine has learnt to talk her way though difficult situations, rather than have a meltdown.
The writer does remind the reader not all the professionals she met were abusive or coercive - many were genuinely kind and empathetic, especially on acute rather than observation wards. However, this book certainly serves to prove that the asylum may still, rightly be a place to be feared.
Ah, so you thought the traditional asylum had gone the way of all flesh, did you - the ones described in One Through over the Cuckoo's Nest, so much more prison than place of healing, and where care is frequently punitive?
So did I.
But apparently not. In the second decade of this millennium, it seems that patients may be sectioned indefinitely, with no hope of release. Patients are drugged more as a method of control than anything, as well as subjected to humiliating examinations and procedures if they do not conform and treated like children rather than adults at every turn?
This writer has a way of making Nurse Ratched look positively benign. There are the staff who promise a walk in the part and then renege because the chance to enjoy watching the subsequent meltdown is apparent too beguiling. Where dissension, asking questions about human rights and the right not to be humiliated are seen as maladaptive behaviour to be 'treated' with enforced medication - and always with clothes pulled down, into the buttocks.
Where there are padded cells in which the patient has no choice but to evacuate bowels and bladder straight onto the floor and in front of coldly observing eyes. Where appeals to warm a freezing cell are ignored until hyperthermia becomes a real issue?
It is still possible that a large, assertive woman over of over six foot, who does not mince words with their fascination with death and suicide and refuses to cooperate, might frighten seem to be a tough case. Many more nurses and doctors in the future too, may want to protect themselves against something they fear, or fear being blamed should a tragedy in fact take place.
Alexis Quinn's problems do not improve either once it is ascertained that her problems have nothing to do with either neurosis, nor even psychosis, but neurology. She is diagnosed autistic, after being triumpantly told that she is not, in fact, ill. This means that she then happily and voluntarily admits herself to a specialist unit, intended to assess her autism.
The nightmare starts again as soon as she is forbidden from taking exercise in the environs. Neurosis or neurology, the treatment is the same: drugs, more drugs, until the patient stops questioning and plays the game. She is sectioned again, no excuses are made for her difficulties in managing basic life skills. She is repeatedly told again that she is ill. She continues to deteriorate until, when her section is renewed after just having been promised that it wouldn't be, she makes a successful escape to overseas.
That last part reads more like a thriller, where the French authorities see her passport has been flagged. At this stage though, our heroine has learnt to talk her way though difficult situations, rather than have a meltdown.
The writer does remind the reader not all the professionals she met were abusive or coercive - many were genuinely kind and empathetic, especially on acute rather than observation wards. However, this book certainly serves to prove that the asylum may still, rightly be a place to be feared.
December 16, 2018
This is a beautifully written, totally gripping and immensely important book that lifts the lid on what it’s like to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Alexis Quinn, a high functioning Autistic woman, suffers an emotional breakdown following the suspicious death of her beloved brother (call me stupid, but isn’t this ‘normal?’: it’s called GRIEVING). She agrees to voluntarily go into a psychiatric hospital for ‘care’ and what follows is 4 years of hell under Section in a variety of facilities staffed by the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. NHS Mental Health Care is constantly hitting the headlines due to appalling examples of negligence, which in the main are put down to a lack of funding. How much money does it take to buy compassion? Basic humanity? Animals being transported for slaughter are treated better than this woman was during her time in ‘care.’ The fact that the author has come out of her experience with a desire to open the dialogue on Psychiatry in England & Wales rather than one to to dismantle it speaks volumes on her intelligence, compassion & humanity (she has far more of these than nearly all the Psychiatrists she encountered).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 8, 2019
7/8 of the book is about the authors experience in the NHS mental health service which does not make for happy reading, so I did find it a difficult read. However I finished it because I felt it would have been rude not to, and you have to give the author credit for her story
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews