“They will not allow me to go home,” begins the haunting diary that Mary Huestis Pengilly wrote while locked up in the Saint John Lunatic Asylum, Canada’s first ever mental health institution.

She wrote vividly in a secret diary about her experiences as a patient in the Asylum in the 1880s, which she later published into a book. After her release, she became a high profile and outspoken advocate for reforming how mental health was treated in both Canada and the United States.

https://backyardhistory.ca/popular/f/secret-diary-in-the-lunatic-asylum