Scan barcode
libraryofjess's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Classism
seeceeread's review against another edition
Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could, and I would, and I did. [...] Crippled, blind, old, young, homely and pretty: one senseless mass of humanity.
Bly agreed to figure out how to get onto Blackwell’s Island, which the National Park Service says was
home to a complex of workhouses, a general hospital, an almshouse, a hospital for 'incurables,' and —for a time— a smallpox hospital.
Her intended destination was the then-40-year-old lunatic asylum. Not sure how to feign mental illness, she practices being wide-eyed in a mirror at home and revisits ghost stories. The next day, she leaves almost all her money at home and opts into a charity institution for desperate women. Anti-social, repetitive and somewhat nonsensical, she convinces the residents to shun her, then seals the deal by refusing to sleep. Taken to the police the next day on the pretense of finding her origins and lost belongings, she is assessed by a physician and soon transported to Blackwell’s.
The journalist loses faith in contemporary medical models:
I felt sure now that no doctor could tell whether people were insane or not so long as the case was not violent.
It is not the attendents who keep the institution so nice for the poor patients, as I had always thought, but the patients who do it all themselves, even to clean the nurses' bedrooms and caring for their clothing.
After a week of gruel and icy baths, listening to women being beaten in closets and talking with fellow patients, meeting with doctors and absconding from cruel nurses ... Bly happily accepts the offer from friends to have her "convalesce" with them.
This reveals plenty about pervasive common misunderstandings and myths about mental illness. Poverty, sleep deprivation, oblique respect for social or gender mores, immigrant status, a strong accent ... these are the 'sure markers' of a lunatic that marginalize hundreds of women into violent workhouses and rampant family separation. Bly spots some more indicators that align with contemporary conceptions of psychosis: Women who experience and engage sensory input that others cannot detect. But she also shares a bunch of vague impressions that are at least unfounded in the text and seem to carry forward harmful stereotypes: whereas people with mental illness are more likely than others to be victimized, Bly talks about them as if they are at high risk of physically harming others. If you can get past the white savior lady tone, it's a very interesting historical document.
Graphic: Ableism
slowly_dying_inside's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Eating disorder
Minor: Death, Drug use, Blood, Dementia, Colonisation, and Deportation
jetpackdracula's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Ableism, Forced institutionalization, and Medical content
Minor: Racial slurs
angstyweeaboo's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Ableism, Chronic illness, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Moderate: Death and Gaslighting
geerbeer's review against another edition
1.0
Graphic: Ableism, Mental illness, Misogyny, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, and Classism
Moderate: Chronic illness, Confinement, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Violence, and Xenophobia
Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis
pipettesandpages's review against another edition
4.75
Moderate: Ableism, Mental illness, and Forced institutionalization
lycheeteareads's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Mental illness, Physical abuse, and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Violence
Minor: Ableism, Death, and Medical content
displacedcactus's review against another edition
This is a very quick read -- I read most of it just waiting for a slightly-late doctor's appointment. You could probably read it in an hour or less in a single sitting. The black and white artwork is just detailed enough to set the scene, without being so detailed that you get lost in it.
Graphic: Ableism
Moderate: Sexism, Violence, and Xenophobia
besotted's review against another edition
3.0
Minor: Ableism, Confinement, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, and Medical content