In The Beginning: St. Dymphna's Mental Institute For Girl

Fellow patients Polly, Cynthia, Lisa, Lisa Cody, Georgina, and Daisy contribute to Susanna’s experiences at McLean as she describes their personal issues and how they come to cope with the time they must spend in the hospital. Susanna also introduces the reader to particular staff members, including Valerie, Dr. Wick and Mrs.

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is a short story focusing mainly on the changes and influences the main characters experience while adapting to the principles imposed on them by the nuns of St. Lucy’s.  While transitioning from the werewolf lifestyle to humans, Claudette becomes challenged learning about the consequences of nonconformity through the success of Jeanette and the struggle of Maribella. In St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell uses word choice to build character development and interactions.

My legs are shaking with pain, but I need to know where I am and what strange things lie outside of that door way. Slowly I am making my way there, I hear people having a conversation just outside. I haven’t a clue what they are saying, it seems to be in some odd language. Finally I’m at the door. Terrified, I grab the knob and start to open it. It squeaks when I swing it open. In the hall I see no one, just white walls with white tile. “What the,” I say to out loud. I could have sworn I heard someone. My eye catches my room number, 387, it has my name on it. I look right and left, but see nothing expect florescent lighting and shut doors. I go to the door across from mine and try to open it. Locked, that’s odd. I try the next one, locked once again. I keep going, now at room 365 I give the knob a turn and it actually comes open. I hesitantly wander into the area. It looks the same as mine, minus the painting on one of the walls. It is an extremely abnormal painting. It depicts an out of the ordinary creature. “Why would this be in a hospital?” I whisper to myself.

D-Meet the patient for a 1:1 session. The patient provided clarification on her living arrangment with this writer. According to the patient, she resides at her mother house in New Britian, CT, but sometimes stay with her daughter in Bristol. The patient then discussed the issues at her mother's residence about her sister and her children living rent free and not contributing to the household. The patient says, " I lost it.....i had enough." The patient expressed her frustration to the family and says, " The next day, everyone was acting like nothing had happen......being nice to me." This writer discussed with the patient about different ways she could have handled it without losing control of her anger; however, the patient reports she normally

Hello journal. I am Bromden. I live in a mental hospital. I do not talk very much, so I usually just observe everything that is going on around me. Everyone thinks I am deaf and dumb, but I just fake it so I do not have to talk to people. The hospital is run by Nurse Ratched, but she is also known as Big Nurse. She is the boss lady of everyone. She is really strict and liked everything to go exactly her way. If anything is out of order, she makes sure she fixes it. She molds the people she hires into the person she wants them to be, which is why it takes her forever to hire people that she wants to keep for a long time. Not too long ago a new Admission came in named McMurphy. He is rebellious of Nurse Ratched’s rule and he is very different

similar to the movie, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. In my mind I had pictured patients

     The author’s has 2 main points; one point is about her two-year stay McLean hospital. The second main point talks about how she handles and gets treated for being depressive and suicidal.

Mrs. Galb’s mindfulness class was usually boring. However, today was rather interesting because we were discussing everyone’s greatest fears. Most kids were afraid of clowns, spiders, and heights but I was afraid hurting the people I love. The thought of killing my mom, my dad, or my best friend Caroline made me sick to my stomach, even though I knew I was a good person. Mrs. Galb asked the class to imagine what we would do if our largest fear became reality. I was so overwhelmed by the idea of it, that I passed out. I woke up and saw the school nurses circled around me. They asked me what my name was, when I was born, and how many fingers they were holding up. I answered the questions with ease but I still didn’t feel like my normal self. My fingers kept twitching, my body felt heavy, and I heard eerie voices whispering and laughing. I figured it was a mere coincidence until they started talking to me. The voices told me to visit the

My mind was going one thousand miles per hour, those words haunting my head. Hot tears flowed down my face as the words sunk in. I slumped in my seat feeling exhausted and too cold for this warm house. My father’s arms reached for me, trying to comfort me. He wouldn’t understand the mental loss that was turning into physical pain. My chest heaved for air, trying to get this drowning feeling out of these thoughts that envelope me bringing a soft cloak of anxiety. “Not again, please.”

The year started out as expected; girls would come up to me during lunch and ask if I would like to sit with them. I learned names through others’ conversations, but never used them. I never really had taken social opportunity, even when offered to me in such an upfront manner. In no time I saw the mistake. I should have taken their offers; for this school, the staff, the students - were ruthless. Garbage and harsh whispers met my face every day. Prior to attending

Craig’s life was very stressful, dealing with mental illness, on top of 4 plus hours of homework every night, and trying to spend time with friends. Craig has this mental habit he calls “Cycling” and that’s what led him to kill himself, “Over and over again, a cycling of tasks, of failures, or problems. I’m young but I’m already screwing up my life.” It’s just a build up of all the stress that he represses or doesn’t deal with. He doesn’t know how to manage his stress, yet. “My brain doesn’t want to think anymore, it wants to do.” Craig realizes that he can’t just sit around thinking, letting his brain “cycle”, he just has to do. His perspective shifts. Craig learned how to deal with his mental illnesses.

“To some extent insanity is a form of conformity; people are always selling the idea that people who have mental illness are suffering. But it’s really not so simple…I think mental illness or madness can be an escape also” (qtd. in “John Forbes Nash”). To many “normal” people, the terms “insanity” or “madness” portray a negative connotation-- the unfortunate ones “suffer” from mental illness. However, brilliant mathematician and Nobel laureate John Forbes Nash, who has paranoid schizophrenia, cherishes his unique condition as a means of retreat from the brutalities of reality (“John Forbes Nash”). Since ancient times, people have observed the link between madness and creative genius. Indeed, research has proven that the two conditions of

Enchanted by her serene radiance, I did not disturb her. Suddenly she began to speak in a whispered hum that was more like a song, unique in a dwelling full of ranting outbursts. She spoke of years long past, swimming in the pond with her sister and dancing in the moonlight. I could picture all in my head, like I was watching a movie. Then she began repeating the story she had just told me, and I realized that she was merely talking to herself. Although this discovery disenchanted me at first, I soon realized that, although the woman was talking to herself, she still had so many fantastic stories stored in her mind. The residents of the home all had some life flittering in them and numerous stories to share; they just need someone to listen to them. After my experience at the home I knew that one of my goals in life would always be o help make sure that people were receiving proper treatment, and not merely stuffed away and drugged up.

At five years old, leaving behind my parents and my whole life back in America was quite a scary experience for me. My mom later told me that as she dropped me off at school, I stood at the school gate, I looked emotionally bewildered as I waved goodbye. I was led away from the gate by my Didi, the caretaker of me and five other girls in one dorm room. Being shy at the time, I let my Didi introduce me to the other girls in the room. Most of the girls knew few words in English, but they all spoke Gujarati, which was foreign to me. I did not want to be the “new girl” that no one talked to because I was different than everyone else. I soon learned that the girls in my room were also feeling the same way I felt about entering a boarding school. I learned that they were

I wake up in a white hospital room to the sound of continuous beeping that seems to be coming from some sort of monitor. Evertime my heart beats there 's another beep. The steady sound continues as I gaze intently out the open window on the wall opposite me. Through the window all I can see is the forest filled with trees that twist and wind up toward the sunlight. Usually the sight of the forest would comfort me since the past 12 years of my life were spent playing in those exact woods; laughing, joking, and making fond memories that should 've lasted a lifetime...But now looking out into those dark never ending woods they just remind me of her and what could 've been.