The Asylum of Her Own Mind

by Riven Noor

Riven Noor is a first-time independent writer. Please forgive any imperfections in this work—it may not be as polished as those by seasoned professionals, but it is written with sincerity and truth. This novel is not just fiction; it is a reflection of Riven’s lived reality. For over fourteen years, she has battled severe mental illness. What kept her breathing through the hardest days was journalling, writing, and the quiet hope that perhaps her story might help someone else feel less alone.

What if healing didn’t look like triumph, but survival? What if your own mind became both prison and pilgrimage?

The Asylum of Her Own Mind is a hauntingly lyrical novel that blurs the line between internal reality and metaphor. At its heart is Velora, a woman trapped inside a surreal mental landscape—an Asylum built not from bricks and iron, but memory, trauma, and silence. Within this symbolic world, she must confront the avatars of her fear, grief, and buried selves: a faceless Black Veil, a Great Dane who watches everything, and rooms that remember what she cannot.

Through fractured mirrors, unfinished letters, and corridors haunted by memory, Velora journeys not toward healing in the conventional sense, but toward understanding and acceptance. She meets echoes of her childhood, loved ones, and the versions of herself she abandoned in order to survive. Each chapter is a reckoning. Each room, a revelation.

Inspired by Riven’s own experiences with severe mental illness, this novel is not a tale of overcoming—it is a meditation on coexisting: with pain, with memory, and with the quiet hope of becoming.

Through this book, Riven Noor shares something deeply personal: not everyone with mental illness will 'heal' completely—and that’s okay. The Asylum of Her Own Mind is a gentle reminder that there is still life after diagnosis, still beauty in the broken, still light in the dark. Sometimes, hope means living alongside your condition, not erasing it. Sometimes, healing means learning to breathe again—slowly, imperfectly, but honestly.

And always, please seek professional help if things become too heavy. Medication is not weakness—it is a tool. Therapy is not failure—it is courage. This story was born from pain, but it is offered in love.

May it bring you comfort.

May it remind you:

You are not broken.

You are becoming.

Riven Noor hopes this book meets you in your darkness, and reminds you: you are not alone.