It's Happening to Me - Softcover

Rosealine Allen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847471005 ISBN 13: 9781847471000

Publisher: Chipmunkapublishing, 2007

Synopsis

By Rosealine Allen

ISBN: 9781847471000
Published: 2007
Pages: 229
Key Themes: ethnic minorities, schizophrenia

Description

This is a poignant, surprising and claustrophobic autobiography on schizophrenia. The reader must ask him/herself whether there is a conspiracy against Rosie, or whether it's all her imagination and is simply a further manifestation of her illness. The book takes the reader through Rosie's school years, her leaving home and then pursuing a course at polytechnic, where things start to go horribly wrong. Wherever Rosie goes she finds people are conspiring against her, as a result she becomes chronically stressed and paranoid. She starts to hear voices and eventually concludes that there is a conspiracy against her orchestrated by the intelligence services and that what is happening to her is part of a wider assault on the black community.

About the Author

Rosealine Allen was born in May 1967 in London. She is a black woman born to West Indian immigrant parents. She spent her early years moving between grim council estates first in East London. At Polytechnic she studied psychology and she is now training to be a teacher on the Graduate Teacher Programme. Rosealine currently lives in Basildon, Essex. Whether Rosie's troubled youth was typical of a Black British girl growing up in the seventies, she cannot say, but she does believe the problems that existed between her parents and her were common for West Indians families at that time.

About this title

From the Author

I tell the story from my childhood because as a black girl
growing up as a minority in Britain, we hear so little about each other.
This is particularly true when we branch out and become involved in the
social institutions that form the backbone of British citizens - school,
university, the work place, the media. The majority of us black Britons
have been ghettoized, and as a result, those that were children of
immigrant parents, have had remarkably scant, utilitarian lives. For
example all of my siblings were expected to work on leaving school rather
than pursue experiences that would cultivate and enrich their lives such as
pursuing an education which is a convention in middle England.

The truth is, we all have interesting stories to tell and sharing them is
important to our cohesion as a community, to our survival and to our growth
and development.

If we are to heal ourselves of the wrongs done against us both outside of
our communities and within them, we need to start telling our stories, so
that we can objectify our experiences and leave them open to comment both
from ourselves and others in order to decide how best to pullulate from the
experience.

I suppose in light of what I have said in my conclusion, we must all assess
our lives now and decide whether 'God' is for us or against us. If we
decide 'they' are against us, we must look at how best we can go forward to
make the most of what we have or persuade those who have influence with
'God' to change their attitude to us.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chipmunkapublishing
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847471005
• ISBN 13: 9781847471000
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232