Without getting into the details, I was hospitalized last year, off & on, for two weeks because I had a relapse of mental/emotional depression. This, however, was my first trip to a mental health care facility in a hospital. At the time, I knew I needed help and treatment, but I didn't know what to expect, having heard about those people "kicked out of society", and who never could go back sanely.
Fortunately, I was spared the nightmares one may associate with these facilities; for example, I avoided electroshock therapy. It scares me to death because of how powerful it can be. One wrong move, and you forget everything. Within a month of being admitted, medication worked and I am progressing forward: slowly but surely.
I was appreciative of all the medical staff did. I did not see any evidence of patients being tampered with or overpowered. That warm feeling became a sickening thud in my stomach the minute I happened upon a website detailing psychiatric films of yesteryear.
The specific one I quote here was 1967's "Titicut Follies" by Frederick Wiseman, which showed how a mental ward of those days operated while trying to point out the brutality that was everyday occurrences back then. Treatments were not as advanced and people weren't as nice as they are now. But seeing just the photos from this movie made me ill. It can be found on the website www.cinemaniastigma.com and the review is partially quoted:
"Through the unobtrusive presence of the camera, the viewer becomes a witness to dehumanizing practices such as the strip-search of the new arrivals in the large admissions hall of the hospital, which was filled with dozens of men in various states of dejection and upset. Over and over, the viewer is tempted to put a halt to this humiliating process, but finds himself thwarted by the unswerving determination of the hospital staff and the immutability of the camera... Wiseman’s film was perceived as so damaging to the institution’s practices that it became subject to a legal injunction preventing its public screening for over twenty-five years."
-Peter Stastny, M.D.
Now this makes me more likely than ever to disguise any recurring symptoms I may have, because now I fear a trip back to that hospital, in case I run into anyone who's out for blood & guts, not my own clean bill of health. If fear could ever end up with a positive situation resulting, this is my best proof.
