#AKOMP
I dunno, look up "refrigerator mothers" if you want a 20th century analogue ... I wrote about this in AKOMP some ... bookshop.org/p/books/a-ki...
A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia
A True Story about Schizophrenia
bookshop.org
October 28, 2025 at 10:12 AM
apropos of nothing but for any AKOMP fans ... I just found this *amazing* Uncle Bob shot ... #AKOMP #ishmallhadwon
October 20, 2025 at 10:58 AM
no matter what else anyone else FTR l got the first AKOMP fan tattoo, a few months before it published. i'm still arguably the book's biggest fan.
August 19, 2025 at 8:01 PM
(what's more AKOMP than taking care to include a joke probably only 1-2 people will get?)
June 10, 2025 at 2:45 PM
welcome (new followers) to this, my pinned post!

if you're new to my work, consider:

subscribing to my (free!) newsletter: whats-helping-today.beehiiv.com

reading AKOMP, my book: tinyurl.com/mrrn4cxz

if you ... like or appreciate my work, maybe tip me? 💸

buymeacoffee.com/sandyallen

thank you!
A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia
A True Story about Schizophrenia
tinyurl.com
July 5, 2025 at 11:48 AM
it really matters: who gets to label whom

this was Uncle Bob's main gripe, as #AKOMP readers know ...
Whilst I was mainly busy dealing with the fallout of that little adventure I did manage to slap them around enough to get "detransitioned" put on my medical records out of spite.

There are some v. good reasons I despise little gods in their offices. FWIW DIY FTW :D
July 1, 2025 at 1:48 PM
AKOMP is my book, just for anyone following who's not read ...

bookshop.org/p/books/a-ki...
July 17, 2025 at 11:32 AM
also i love hearing from akomp readers, truly always have...

can feel free to write me:

www.sandyernestallen.com/contact
Contact — Sandy Ernest Allen
www.sandyernestallen.com
June 10, 2025 at 2:41 PM
frequently i get asked why don't i "just" become a therapist (as if that's easy),

I've been asked this since soon after AKOMP published...

my answer, truthfully, is I couldn't lie my way through such a program nowadays. i'm way too neurodivergent to lie so easily.

and I just know too much now.
my next book will offer much more in the way of practical advice to us all — including those facing dire choices, right now.

i don't offer individual such counseling — even though people of all sorts have sought my help anyway, for years. since AKOMP published. even mh professionals themselves.
June 23, 2025 at 12:43 PM
when in 2018 I published a book i'd worked on for ~8 years about my late Uncle Bob, a relative I barely knew in life (which you know if you've read AKOMP) and many wondered ... why? what motivated me to do so?
July 27, 2025 at 10:44 AM
THANK YOU!!! for reading, and for saying so. it's never too late to read AKOMP in my view. AKOMP was built to last ...
I am belatedly reading this now and it is gorgeous and challenging and feels like a narrative resource for folks in the field who do care work too.
buy my first book, speaking of which. i still dream of overcoming all this, however naively ... bookshop.org/p/books/a-ki...
July 30, 2025 at 2:00 PM
the book, forget about it. had a new friend finally finish it last week and flip out and yeah, what a feeling, the first AKOMP ride. when it hits, it really hits.
August 19, 2025 at 7:55 PM
another SUPER HELPFUL way to help me out is to request AKOMP at your local library and/or favorite bookstore, especially if they don't have it on the shelf already ...
just repeating (for new folks especially, hi!):

i'm freelance. if you want to support my work:

buy AKOMP. which as i sometimes say but is worth repeating: it's really good. if more people read it, we'd have a better shot at a better mental health care system and world, IMO ... www.akomp.info
July 24, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Those readers of #AKOMP will know this is ironic perhaps because Uncle Bob was also someone who held many hateful views, himself. So in finishing that book about him, after his death, I had to reckon with like, yeah, some distant family member whose views I REALLY didn't want to think about.
April 21, 2025 at 12:05 PM
And yeah, it really helps if you've read AKOMP ...

www.akomp.info
A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise
Official site for author Sandy Allen's nonfiction book, "A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia" (Scribner)
www.akomp.info
August 16, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I'm someone whose career has involved working with ... many sources who are really complicated ... for many reasons. That Believer story probably being the highest wire I've walked, other than my book, AKOMP ...
July 28, 2025 at 5:43 PM
AKOMP fans will get this but given what my book *is*, it's just so funny to me this troll chose "over-written and couched in babble" as his line

truly can't stop chucklin'
June 10, 2025 at 2:43 PM
wanted to mention again ... I'm teaching a writing workshop online this fall for The Workroom ...

if you're interested, please learn more here. share with your writer friends?? signal boosts greatly appreciated

www.theshipmanagency.com/classes/work...
August 3, 2025 at 1:01 PM
father's side. mother's is told in AKOMP, the lineage from norway at least.
July 29, 2025 at 7:23 PM
it sure would make MY trans heart happy if my book, AKOMP ...

found an even wider readership thanks to my new @assignedmedia.org piece

www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
Diagnoses like “Gender Dysphoria” May Not Be Medically Real — But They Sure Are Politically So — Assigned
In Skrmetti, the court’s legal logic hinges upon a medical disorder, which has never been proven to exist— an “open secret” that applies to all psychiatric diagnoses.
www.assignedmedia.org
July 9, 2025 at 5:36 PM
just repeating (for new folks especially, hi!):

i'm freelance. if you want to support my work:

buy AKOMP. which as i sometimes say but is worth repeating: it's really good. if more people read it, we'd have a better shot at a better mental health care system and world, IMO ... www.akomp.info
July 24, 2025 at 1:48 PM
my 30+ live AKOMP events back in the day were full of such people, and also psych patients, usually former, and also their families.

they were a ton of fun, my events. truly something.

www.akomp.info
June 22, 2025 at 11:21 AM
I'm chuckling to myself because I was about to say, my personal tradition of taking this day off began years ago now when I happened to have to read through the literal final proofs for AKOMP that day ... July 4, 2017 ...
July 4, 2025 at 12:44 PM
i'd also read and watched heavily re: scientology and l. ron hubbard's history (as someone who also has a niche research interest in people who've had 'first-person' type experiences with angels and energy beams and such, and he was one such type)

(this makes sense if you've read AKOMP.)
August 6, 2025 at 3:45 PM
In the course of writing AKOMP, I was interviewing like dozens of people who'd been in the bay area in the 60s and such about my uncle, sure, but also we'd wind up talking about all of it. And so I heard a lot of peoples' perspectives, beyond all those I knew from my childhood amongst such types.
May 5, 2025 at 2:21 PM