The Dialectics of Mania

The Dialectics of Mania is a raw and confronting lived-experience account of mental health decline, loss, and survival within Australia’s public mental health system.

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Written from inside the experience, the book traces Andrew Turtle’s psychological deterioration, the loss of employment, and his eventual hospitalisation in a public mental health facility. As stability unravels, Turtle finds himself navigating a precarious personal, social, and institutional landscape—where autonomy is fragile, systems are opaque, and rights must be actively fought for.

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Beyond a personal narrative, the book documents the everyday realities of psychiatric wards, capturing the voices, stories, and struggles of fellow patients whose lives intersect briefly but powerfully within the hospital system. It exposes the tensions between care and control, support and coercion, insight and pathology.

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The Dialectics of Mania is both memoir and social critique—offering an unfiltered look at what it means to lose ground, to resist erasure, and to reclaim meaning and dignity within a system that often speaks about people rather than with them.