Unbroken

After being wrongly diagnosed following her brother's death, Alexis struggled with care for several years before escaping to Africa. She shares the story of her experience in order to promote neurodiversity and end stigma surrounding mental health.

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'Alexis's description of the Kafkaesque horror of being an autistic person trapped in a mental health system that doesn't understand our needs left me breathless'
Katherine May, bestselling author of Wintering

Alexis Quinn has always known she was different. Academically and athletically gifted, she soared through her years in education but failed to socialise adequately with her peers. Somehow, social norms just passed her by. But her difference had always been her strength, until the birth of her child and the death of her brother, Josh; then her difference became her downfall. Unable to deal with the reality of what happened with Josh, Alexis was detained under the mental health act against her will. She found herself struggling for years, with diagnosis after diagnosis landing on her shoulders. Told repeatedly by doctors that she was dangerous, Alexis tried to become the person the system wanted her to be: someone normal. But it seemed that normal was always just out of reach.

As time went by, she realised that the care she thought was going to help her might just be the very thing that would destroy her. Raw and honest, Unbroken tells the story of a strong woman learning how to live beyond diagnosis.