Just came from reading Maggie O' Farrell's The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. A young girl spent 60 years in asylum for being hysterical, which later is discovered was because she was raped and didn't know how to explain to her already wary parents, didn't even know that this caused her to be pregnant and is then forced to let her baby go. The father knew everything and did nothing. Maggie writes in the book how easy it was to send a woman to an asylum and claim she was a lunatic. Refusing to speak, not ironing her clothes, for arguing with the neighbors, for not wanting to marry someone, for wanting it too much, daughters who don't listen, wives who leave their husbands, husbands for wanting to get rid of the wives for convenience. I was horrified.
I came across this article by The Guardian. Maggie shares some even more absurd reasons people has had to spend their lives in the asylums. I'm in my early 20's. I never knew it was this bad. But I see no reason for these women to make things up. The same can't be said about my significant other unfortunately. He refuses to believe things were this bad. Where can I find the evidence? How do I convince him to even consider the idea that these might have been true stories?
Can someone please share stories from survivors, link URLs anything so I can confirm it for myself and my guy?
I'm an infrequent redditor, please excuse any mistake I made or suggest some other appropriate subreddit for this post. Thanks for reading.
Here's The Guardian article from 2006.
When I was doing some archival research at a former state hospital, the thing that made is tricky is that these sorts of claims are based on notes such as ‘reason for admittance’. For example, one person was listed as ‘kicked in the head by a horse’. Obviously, they weren’t admitted because they were kicked by a horse, but they suspected the kick led to whatever got them admitted to the hospital. This was a common format for forms at the several hospitals whose records I looked at from that era and so when you see a claim like that is good to consider it through that filter. In general, the reasons for admittance written down is often vague and unreliable. While there were definitely different standards then, it’s not quite like it first appears usually.
I can't speak to European asylums, but I can give you a little information as to asylums in the United States. By the mid nineteenth century, Dorothea Dix had been campaigning in various states for asylum reform, seeking better treatment of patients. As a result, a lot of states passed new laws and built state-funded asylums which were open to patients. These laws would have varied from state to state, but the laws gave guidelines to the admittance process. A lot of the records from the 20th century aren't available because of laws related to privacy, but the records from the late 19th century are available, so I'll tell you what I know about the asylum I've been studying in the hope that it can give you some insight into what admission and patient demographics were like in the late 19th century.
I've been studying some state asylums in Ohio, and in the 19th century, this is what the admissions process was like. If someone was believed to be insane, they were brought before the court. A physician had to fill out an affidavit certifying the patient was insane. The affidavit from the physician asked the following: “First, that the patient is free from any infectious diseases and vermin. Second, the age of the patient, and a concise history of the case. Third, the duration of the disease, dating from the first symptom. Fourth, the supposed cause of the disease, whether it is hereditary. Fifth, whether the patient is subject to epilepsy. Sixth, whether the patient has made any attempt to commit violence on himself or others. Seventh, the medical treatment pursued in the case, as near as the same can be ascertained, to which the witness shall add any other information or circumstance known to him, which may tend to throw light upon the subject.” The judge would deem the patient insane. The court documents were then sent to the asylum's superintendent, who would respond with whether the patient could be admitted and when.
As far as the reasons for admittance, the records can at times be vague, and even some of the men's records can be bizarre compared to what we would consider reasonable now. I've seen a lot of women admitted for issues following childbirth, for issues related to menopause, "disappointment in love", and "family troubles", but a lot of the cases of love and family matters listed in the record set I'm looking at are listed as having harmed either themselves or others. Certainly women were perceived as different in terms of what caused their mental illness, but the state-funded asylums weren't overflowing with women. The Athens Asylum admitted 152 men and 145 women in 1877, 99 men and 113 women in 1878, 106 men and 67 women in 1879, and according to the report, a total of 929 male and 892 women total as first admissions between the asylum opening in 1874 to the beginning of 1880. While I won't claim that this system was great with women, what I'm getting at here is that the numbers are close to equal for male and female patients, so they're not skewed to mostly hold unruly women.
Sources:
(All of these are pulled from the Athens Mental Health Center Collection, maintained by the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections.)
"An act to provide for the uniform government and better regulation of the Lunatic Asylums of the State and the care of Idiots and the Insane," Acts of the State of Ohio v. 53, Athens Mental Health Collection, Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, OGA 1.13
-Inquest of Lunacy Records, Series 1.1.
- Fourth Annual Report of the Athens Hospital for the Insane, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, for the Year 1877, p. 9
-Fifth Annual Report of the Athens Asylum for the Insane, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, for the year 1878, p. 17
-Sixth Annual Report of the Athens Asylum for the Insane, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, for the Year 1879, pg. 57