Bleak Expectations - Lindy Kato

Depression sees Lindy entombed in a hammock over the antipodean summer of 1996/7. A final tragic event following incremental trauma from a psychiatric nursing career she only entered out of desperation, has pushed her over the edge. It's understandable that antidepressant treatment should be provided.

It is a terrible mistake.

Although Lindy makes a decent attempt at creating a façade of normalcy, everything is sliding away. Between rock bands in her head and body glitter - she is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a diagnosis she doesn't agree with but no one in the health service will listen. Denial is a symptom that simply confirms the diagnosis.

Despite educational successes and for the most part being fully employed - the mask takes over until the real Lindy barely exists. Yet still the world keeps turning, with disasters, natural and man-made, that can't be ignored, while a well-buried, but complex past penetrates the present. A catalogue of medications is wrecking her physical health without fixing her mind, and at the same time her relationships with those tasked to treat her, disintegrates. Eventually the latest psychiatrist steps up, but by then Lindy has given up caring.

Even so, all might not be as it seems. Phenobarbitone prescribed for her at three months old, and continued for five years, may have had long term consequences which science is only beginning to understand. A true story told in three parts, Bleak Expectations is a sequel to Desperate Times and followed by Acts of Defiance.