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.

More then a Professional Relationship

Usually a hospitals policy is that the doctors, nurses and patients obey a rule of having a professional relationship rather then becoming friends. At Susanna's hospitals this is not the case.

The nurses become very friendly with the patients and they talk to them about their problems.
An example from the book Page 91
"They loved to talk to us. We asked them about movies they have seenand how they 'd done on their exams
and when they'd get married. . ."

My guess is that the relationship these patients had with the staff must help their anxiety of being in a hospita where they are coped up all day. I can not imagine how lonely it must be to see the same people every day and see the same walls every day. It would be enough to drive me insane.

I am guessing evern today people in hospitals maintain relationships with the people that they help treat. There are many shows on that concept, like House, Greys Anatomy and General Hospital. I believe this idea proves to the patients that the nurse are not made of stone and have no heart. It proves that they had a personality and are not afarid to show it to a bunch of "lunies" as Susanna would call her and the other patients.

Allison O'Hagan
Role: Researcher

Hospital or Heaven?

On pages 94-95 I found how Susanna and the rest of the patients described the hospital as more of a refuge then a mental institution.
Susanna says that it was an escape from the requirements of every day life. Meaning that they did not have to go to work, school, they did not have to pay bills that most adults had to at that age. Their lives and actions were basically handled by the nurses which the patients did not seem to mind that much.
During that time Susanna said that the average rate for a room in a hospital like that was $60 a day for just the room. That money today could be used to buy a nice 3 star hotel room! The parents of these patients have shelled out alot of money in order to pay just in the hopes that their daughters would be taken care of and hopefully cured.

I personally would not have been able to survive in a place like that. I need to be outdoors. I am not one to be locked up in a cage. What caused Susanna to call a place like this great I will never know.
Allison OHagan
Role:Researcher

Getting It Straight About Borderline Personality

In this book Susanna is diagnosed with a disorder called "Borderline Personality."
Since in the book Susanna does not really describe what her "illness is , I thought I would do research on it so we can have a better idea of what it is.

Research taken from http://www.nimh.nih.gov

"Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior."
This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individuals sense of self-identity. Originally thought to be at the "borderline" of psychosis, people with BPD suffer from a disorder of emotion regulation. While less well known than schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), BPD is more common, affecting 2 percent of adults, mostly young women.1 There is a high rate of self-injury without suicide intent, as well as a significant rate of suicide attempts and completed suicide in severe cases."

Overall I think this mental illness is really just a mental issue where the person has difficulty dealing with their image. I believed this disorder kind of relates to teenage life today. Experts always say that the teenage years are the most difficult of your life. Your are faced with many choices as to what you want to do and who you want to become.
I also found it interesting how it says "BPD is more common, affecting 2 percent of adults mostly young women"
I wondered if this is the reason why so many girls today deal with things like anorexia, bulimia, hurting themselves (such as cutting) and even teen suicide.
If you remember in our class discussions how we said how we believed Susanna was maybe having difficulty dealing with the fact that she was now all grown up and not wanting to take on adult responsibilities. We also said how maybe she was insecure about her personality and appearance.
Whats do you think?

Allison OHagan
Role:Researcher

I thought since we are reading a book a female patient in a mental hospital I thought I would research abotu society's attitude toward female mental patinets.

Heres a passage I found that describes society outlook on female mental patients in the Victorian Age, which I think connects to women in the 1960s

"Women during this time were deemed to be highly susceptible to becoming mentally ill as they did not have the mental capacity of men, and this risk grew greatly if the woman attempted to better herself through education or too many activities. In fact, women were seen as most likely having a mental breakdown sometime during their life as "the maintenance of [female] sanity was seen as the preservation of brain stability in the face of overwhelming physical odds" (Ussher 74). Thus, women often suppressed their feelings, as to not appear mad and reassumed the passive, housewife role."

)Taken from:http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/femhist/madness.shtml#attitudes)

I found this quote to be sexist in a way where society back then believed that women were somewhat more prone to being reguarded as mental unstable. When in reality I find that something like having a mental disorder isnt biased and is more based on the person themselves then their sex.

I also found some reason why women back then would have put in a hospital:
-Hysteria (madness was associated with menstruation, pregnancy, and the menopause)
-Anorexia
-Nymphomania (irresistible desire for sexual intercourse)
-Spinsters and Lesbians

I found it interesting how lesbians were put into mental hospital when today in 2010, many people are for "gay or lesbian" marriage between two people of the same sex.
What do you guys think?
Posted By: Allison OHagan