Famous Patients

As mentioned in the story one of McLeans hospitals most famous patients was Ray Charles

I have uncovered some information about this famous piano player and his reasons for seeking treatment


The most grandiose structure on the McLean Hospital campus in Belmont, Massachusetts, is Upham Memorial Hall, a brick mansion larger than many hotels but built to house just nine mental patients. Now abandoned, it was known as the "Harvard Club" because "at one time, each of its majestic corner suites was said to have been occupied by a graduate of Harvard College," often found among McLean’s clientele, writes Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam in Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America’s Premier Mental Hospital (PublicAffairs, $26). In the 1950s and ’60s, Upham became "a dumping ground for chronically ill, elderly patients—practically all of them rich—whose families had cut lifetime financial deals with the hospital. There was little incentive to ‘cure’ the Uphamites because their families had paid good money never to see them again." One day in 1966 the residents had a surprise visitor. Bluesman Ray Charles, then 35 years old, came onto the hall for a week-long "observational" visit.

Courtesy of : http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/01/ray-charles-plays-the-ha.html

I found this very interesting how one of the most famous musician of all time had spend time at a mental hospital. It really is fascinating how even the people we believe to have mental disorders and have to stay at a hospital such as McLean.

Checks

While the patients were in their rooms, a nurse would would check up on them periodically throughout the day. Susanna describes how it's a continuing pattern- click, swish. It didn't even stop at nighttime. Sometimes they would be every half hour or every five minutes, so it would have been hard for them to get away with things.This rhythm was their "lives measured".

Brianna Rosenberg
Summarizer

My Suicide

Towards the middle of the book, there is a chapter called "My Suicide", when Susanna attempts to kill herself by oveverdosing, taking fifty asprin. Then, she went grocery shopping for her mother, which she was supposed to do before she took the asprin. When she got there, she passed out by the meat department, which was why she became a vegetarian. She associated meat with death. Before she overdosed, she called her boyfriend, Johnny, to tell him and he called the police, who found her at the supermarket.

Brianna Rosenberg
Summarizer

The Taxi

This chapter is in the beginning of the book, when eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen is automatically sent to McLean Hospital after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before. She thought she spent twenty minutes in the doctors office when the doctor said it had really been three hours. The doctor probably sent hr away so quickly because he thought she had serious problems or, since this takes place in the 1960's, a lot of mental illnesses were new to people so there were no clear treatments. Also, if a woman had any kind of problem like this she was set away immediately.

Brianna Rosenberg
Summarizer

Setting of Girl, Interrupted

Literary Luminary

This book takes place in a psychward during the 1960's. The psychward is called McLean hospital, and it is located at 64 Wendell street, Cambridge Mass. I found this out before the book even started, there are copyrights of records or files in this book which I find pretty interesting. This exact file also tells you her mother and fathers name, the day she was born, and other information. This was needed by the doctors at the time to accept her in to the hospital in question.

Shannon Doran.

Beyond Boredom

Pages 101

On this page Susanna once again describes her experiences in the hospital as series of boredom.
Her and her follow patients decided to make a schedule that would keep them busy.

"Lets just spend one hour in the living room and the one hour in front of the nursing station and so on. At least it will be schedule. -Polly Page 101

I found their ways of keeping themselves busy amazing. It put a spin on how they thought that a hospital was an escape.
This hospital can realate to a nursing home. The eldery I am sure find it extremely boring to have to spend all their time in a hospital.

Allison OHagan
Role:Researcher

Biography of the Author

Kaysen was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Kaysen the Cambridge School before being sent to McLean Hospital in 1967 to undergo psychiatric treatment for depression. It was there she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She was released after eighteen months. She later drew on this experience for her 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted, which was made into a film in 1999, her role being played by Winona Ryder. All her books draw on her own personal experiences to varying degrees. Her most recent book, The Camera My Mother Gave Me, is a memoir that was published in 2001. Kaysen has one sister and is divorced.

I found it very interesting that Kaysen was able to depict her novels from her own experiences. I have seen the movie of Girl,Interrupted but I never knew she had came up with the concept from her own experiences.