Clare Allan 'wrote' herself out of an asylum.
She broke down in her 20s and spent a decade bobbing in and out of the mental health system, her head only just above water.
Her psychiatrists thought her writing was proof of delusional tendencies ("Now she thinks she's an author!"), and it took the encouragement of an astute social worker to propel her out of hospital and on to the 2007 bestseller lists with her first novel, Poppy Shakespeare - a black comedy set in the psychiatric ward of a day hospital, which has been likened to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
"What I've learnt from being in the system is that there's a seed of mental illness in everyone," says Clare, 39.
Claire Allen broke…
