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Everything About Us Without Us

Mad in America

T his historical record of Oregons first state hospital, the Oregon State Insane Asylum, from its opening in 1883 until the mid-1950s, will focus on the experiences of patients there. The guiding principle for the hospital during these seven decades, whether recognized or not, was Everything About Us Was Without Us.

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When the Help Becomes Part of the Problem

Mad in America

M y first encounter with the psychiatric system in America was at the age of 18. With each step I took into the building, the kilos of shame I had felt since the age of five built up upon my back. I was to be escorted to one of the hospitals surrounding the university by a young police officer. 5 on the 4.0 I was a failure.

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“It Is What It Is” — Learning From the Past Without Getting Stuck in It

Mad in America

In that moment, in that mental-ward room alone, I felt I was the helpless target and it was my enemy bent on my destruction. A castaway in the hospital with pneumonia five times from age three months to five years, my only “rescue” was as an infant (presumed to be at d eath’s d oor).

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‘It Was a Joint Effort’: Deborah Kasdan on Bringing Her Late Sister’s Story to Life

Mad in America

She was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 23, and she was ultimately hospitalized many times, right? She was in and out of the hospital. When she was first hospitalized, and what were some of the changes that you might have seen affecting your sister after she was first put on drugs and committed? She was still feisty.

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The Making of a ‘Madness’ That Hides Our Monsters: An Interview with Audrey Clare Farley

Mad in America

Her second book, which we will be discussing today, Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America , explores the lives of the four women behind the National Institute of Mental Health’s famous case study of schizophrenia. He sets out to study the genetics of schizophrenia, through twins.

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Not Just a Dream: Finding the Mental Health Community I’d Been Longing For

Mad in America

S everal weeks after being committed under the Mental Health Act, still dopey from mandated antipsychotics, I had a dream. They were shatteringly vivid then—usually involving fleeing from hospital staff who wanted to lock me up and inject me with sedatives. They’re too entangled with control, coercion, sanism, and violence.

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“Impairment: Says Who?”: The Fundamental Question of Mental Health Treatment

Mad in America

O ne of the defining features in the socially constructed mental disorders in the DSM is the concept of “impairment.” In order to get a diagnosis for certain mental conditions, significant distress or disturbance in functioning in certain areas of life is required. When is someone impaired in functioning?