When the beautiful home that Janita Sakoschek had built for her family burned down it caused a catastrophic breakdown. She lost everything she owned: her clothes and furniture, her diaries and photographs, her antiques and paintings and, ultimately, her sanity. We find her rooted to a borrowed sofa, chain-smoking, and blackly depressed. Friends and family try to intervene but she only resents the intrusions and the humiliations.When she finally agrees to see a psychologist, she gets incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital in a matter of days. As she records her experiences in the hospital she threads in episodes from her past and present life and we soon realise that this breakdown has been a long time coming. In the meantime she is trying to be a good denizen of the psychiatric ward, which leads to adventures and misadventures with fellow patients and staff alike. A candid, open and highly entertaining account, uniquely written.