Insane Asylum

The New Orleans City Insane Asylum has posted a record of patients between 1882-1884 and 1888. I always find these things fascinating.. I'm not sure why. I've always been interested in psychiatric patients, but not enough for me to enter the actual field of it.
Some other interesting reads along the same line would be Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, which of course was made into a movie with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. The book is ten times better and the people more interesting. That movie had basically nothing to do with the book except the names and the chicken thing.
There's also I Never Promised You a Rose Garden which I got off a free book rack in a used book store years ago. I read that book cover to cover a few times. It's about a 16yr old girl who creates a world "Yr" due to her schizophrenia and has moments of clarity while living in a mental hospital.
The other one is She's Come Undone, which doesn't necessarily deal with schizophrenia or paranoia but massive depression.
All fascinating reads... but of course truth is much better than fiction. Sadder too.