title: Hell on earth: textual reflections on the experience of mental illness.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Some people who by themselves or by others are understood as having mental health problems have written autobiographies about their experiences.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study is to explore how people write about their experiences of being mentally ill.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twelve Scandinavian autobiographies were studied using content analysis based on phenomenology and hermeneutics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Three themes were identified: feeling like a stranger in life and places, the transformation of life experiences into questions of disease and feeling ashamed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  People's experiences of being mentally ill might be understood as the result of medical constructions unsuitable for the persons themselves. We could instead say that mental problems are not diseases, but severe and painful phenomena in people's lives.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosocial Health, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Agder, Grimstad, Norway. anders.j.w.andersen@uia.no
authors.forename: Anders Johan W
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Andersen
authors.forename: Inger Beate
authors.initials: IB
authors.lastname: Larsen
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D001325:Autobiographies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012537:Scandinavian and Nordic Countries; D012752:Shame; D012934:Social Isolation