the In(Complete) Arc: A Patient's Perspective on Living with Schizophrenia and Gaps in India's Mental Health System

What does schizophrenia feel like from the inside?Not as a diagnosis. Not as a case study. But as a lived, continuous experience.The In(Complete) Arc is a reflective account of navigating psychiatric care in India from a patient's perspective. The title reflects its central idea: each part of the system may appear complete on its own, yet together they can still leave the patient feeling unfinished.The book explores treatment, recovery, consent, and autonomy, along with the balance between protection and choice in mental health care. Alongside personal experience, it examines the structural gaps within India's mental health system, where questions of consent, trust, and autonomy are often overlooked.It also engages with the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, considering how these frameworks translate into real experiences for patients and families.Blending lived experience with ethical reflection, this is not a clinical manual or a conventional recovery narrative. It is an attempt to understand what care feels like from within systems that are still evolving-and an invitation to open conversations, share perspectives, and collectively address what still remains incomplete.The narrative remains intentionally focused on experience, care, and reflection, without centering graphic depictions of psychosis.At its core, this is not a story of resolution, but of finding steadiness within an In(Complete) arc.