Its Happening to Me

Book excerpt: 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.