Let Me Out: A Madhouse Diary

While I was expecting a bit of the "hilarity" Stanhope and others on his podcast promised, it was absent. That would be a complaint, were it not for the impact this powerful diary deals out. Bingo fans know of her trials and struggles (and her remarkable ability to recover enough sanity to have, yet, another shot at happy), and this book reveals a detailed slice of her life as adventure. It won't likely make the NYT bestsellers list due to minimal promotion, but it deserves to be read by everyone.

I met Bingo briefly in NY and just taking in her quiet beauty and punk rock spirit you’d never imagine she’d been through so much. This is a New Testament for anyone with mental health issues or the “Robins” who love and care for them. Mental health... addiction... anyone who has felt the fear of being out of control of their person or the person who loves them but has trouble understanding their plight... this book is for you. Honest, wide f’ing open, funny, touching and a manifesto for the desperate need to demolish and rebuild our mental healthcare system. Bingo... you ARE the Joan of Arc.

The madness depicted in this book isn't that of mentally ill patients. This book illustrates the madness of the medical system touted to be the solution to societal nightmares as diverse as depression/suicide to mass murder. We are shown however, in the words of the artist and author Amy Bingo B"A strong, happy, healthy human being would crack under these circumstances."This is true for our inpatient mental health facilities; this is true for our society in general.This book is chocked full of raw, uncensored truth. It's rich with hard-earned wisdom and insights, and, as such, it is a painful and poignant read.This book is a glimpse into the bowels of society. A moment of clarity; bravely captured and bravely expressed. We get to witness, voyeur-like:Autonomy recaptured from the feeble jaws of the systemThis from someone who admits that she'd never read a book before writing this masterpiece. Words and sentences which bounce around the page with rhythm and rhyme. They took your pride, Bingo, four times a day. Feeding you pills you didn't consent to take. Because "that's just how it is".But little things come with a large sequel. And throughout the book your mantra remains,"Let me out"They never had you. You were always free of the hell realm in which those health care workers were trapped. The realm of "this is just how it is".You never accepted that and scribbled DIGNITY on your back.Never will you become like nurse TC with the yard that seems to grow like cancer; the family photo with fake smiles; self-loathing meatloaf and sugar free shits.And you kept your promise to do something. It took 13 years to gestate, sure. But this was worth the wait.Lasternight's dream of checkin' the as neededs wasn't evidence of an ailing encephalon, no sir. You saw clearly the madness of the system and defiantly wrote it down.It's all quite biblical, truth be told:Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of psychI shall fear no FeelerFor my pen and dollar store dictionary they comfort meMy insight runneth overAnd the chickens most definitelyeventuallyCome home to roostamenYou biblical little brash rash fly: bright red, itchy and defiantHonoring Hannah in all her palindromic splendorThis book is not a soiled and foul effigy to be burnt into one's memory. It is triumphant alchemy, turning degradation into gold. You have spun truth from imprisonment and medicine from poisonous, hopeless, certainty.The descent into the old hospital, into the bowels of the inglorious history of psychiatry; the lobotomy days, the more honest days. A time when we directly destroyed the frontal lobe, instead of this sneaky chemical castration of higher function that is the "anti-psychotic" , the "mood stabilizer" highly lucrative pharmaceutical chemical lobotomy. Such a poetic way to end the book. Descend into hell with your fellow crazy and emerge shaking with adrenaline and defiantly alive.When a lock attached to a metal door and frame got in y'all's way? Break through the wall!!!A story so rich with metaphors, that my soul got diabetes just reading it.You speak of lancing pus from your tortured mind. LET ME OUT becomes the secret recipe and commandment from lucille. Venting her rage and unfiltered truth frees you from her clutches and twists illness into insight.It was glorious and ugly and beautiful and awe-inspiringAnd , yes, I am amused.The system does not like amused one bit. The amused are detached and uncagable.Thank you for letting us into the core. The glimpse is burned into the retinas of the collective consciousness.Bravo BingoBravo

Bingo! Yes the numbers will come up for anyone brave enough to read this terrifying account of an institution housing humans no matter where on the spectrum of sanity they lie. Your sense of humor and wit is truly amazing in such a dark period. Thank you Amy for being courageous enough to let us all in on this world that can only be imagined.Bingo is also a wonderful musician

I felt crazy whilst reading this. A roller-coaster 1st hand account of sanity and delusion. Loved it !

The Pulitzer Prize committee should pay attention to this book. Amy “Bingo” Bingaman has created a special work that simultaneously exposes the dreadful treatment provided to those in need of mental health treatment and elucidates the first hand experience of someone going through a mental break down. Amy Bingamon strikes out against the hypocrisy of those in control at the looney bin and at the same time exposes her huge heart and love for the people trapped in the mental health system with her in Wyoming.

A beautiful memoir - it feels natural to place your self in Bingo's shoes as she takes you along the frightening path of mandated mental healthcare. My heart ached for that version of the narrator, but I was also hugely moved by the loveliness of her prose. I'm grateful for this book.

Thanks Bingo! You'll always be #1 tard to me.

Raw, at times violently visceral, startlingly lyrical and surprisingly full of humour and humanity; this book will take you to some dark and disturbing places, but following some fascinating and oddly beautiful routes.There's a disarming candidness to the writing, a vulnerability and intimacy, as Amy Bingaman (or is it lucille?) narrates her despair, delusions, terror, mania, and fragile hopes. It sensitively, but uncompromisingly explores not only the realities of living with mental illness, but the absurdity of having to fight for emotional and spiritual survival in an institution that purports to be helping, even as it crushes.Bingaman writes self-effacingly, and I honestly don't think she has any idea how talented an author she actually is. She has a poet's skill for language and a storyteller's instinct for narrative, which combined with the sense of urgency and authenticity, made this book as gratifying as it was challenging. I hope it was as cathartic to write as it felt to read, and I hope we see more books from Ms. Bingaman some time. We need more voices like hers.

I'm so glad I smoke because there are some pages that are so difficult to read that I had to put it down, light up and do something else for a while. I'm so glad I smoke because there are some pages I read that made me hack up tar from laughing, and that's coming from the gut. Do I recommend it? Sure I do, and advise readers to read it again if they didn't understand it the first time. I've only read it twice and I'm still confused, amused, and I think I need to put some flowers in a peach pie...

It reads like a broken diary. That is what it is. There are some moments of clarity and deep thought but overall I was left unimpressed by this book. I compare it to Carrie Fisher's last book when you get to the actual diary. Reading someones diary was interesting as a kid, not now.

I had listened to her album while at work, along with the Doug Stanhope podcast which used one of her songs as an outtro. It's a great book if your feeling "mixed up" and think no one knows what you're going thru, it makes you feel a little less insignificant.

cheers bingo, great job.