If that photo is haunting enough...About ten years ago Willard State Hospital in New York state was officially closed after operating for over 100 years as a mental institution. This book chronicles the lives of some of the patients there, as pieced together from the suitcases they brought with them. Apparently, after their arrival the patients never had access to their belongings again; the bags were stored in an attic in one of the buildings and essentially forgotten.
What is discovered about ten of the individuals whose suitcases were found is that none of them was particularly 'crazy' in the modern sense. The amazing thing is that with few exceptions everyone who came to Willard stayed until they died decades later. So, one woman was placed in care in her 30s because her neighbors thought she was odd stayed until she died...in her 90s! For all of the problems surrounding today's mental health care, keeping someone in a sanatorium for 50 years because they were depressed after the death of a family member is not one of them.
This is a sad book, about sad people whose lives were taken away from them. It's an indictment of the medical field as a whole, and also of our culture. It was (is?) quite easy for society to believe that women and minorities who speak up about their mistreatment or who don't 'fit in' generally must be crazy (or criminal). While some great changes have come about in the past few decades, the closure of Willard State Hospital only happened in 1995. That's not that long ago, really.
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