The Insanity of Being Sane - Essay Example

? The Insanity of being Sane Patients in the mental s must be given the treatment and not punishment. Treating public illnesses has long been a process of trial and error; dealing with medical theories and public attitudes. The commitment that must be given to mental institutions should be civil, not a criminal procedure, and therefore should not offer procedural safeguards compared to common criminal. This is what exactly these two literary books are trying to scrutinize; Nellie Bly’s 10 days in a madhouse and Nora Vincent’s voluntary madness which were written centuries apart. These two writers shared the same theme and experienced in almost same situations in two different eras and time frame. Both of these writers shared the same experiences of being insane, cast out, and maltreated just to unveil and uncover the true situations inside the mental institutions in the nineteenth century and the present time. These two literary books are inspiring and reveal the continuity of how mental institutions have been dealing with the mental patients for centuries. Nellie Bly wrote “Ten Days in a Mad-house” somewhere in 1887. She was a news paper reporter tasks to expose the brutality and neglect among the mental patient in the mental institutions. For ten days, Bly involuntarily committed to be lockup to the Blackwell’s Island insane asylum as she is saying that “My instructions were simply to go on with my work as soon as I felt that I was ready (Bly, N.)”. To be able to be admitted in the insane asylum, she had to check in a women’s boarding facility after which she acted irregularly. This instance ignited the whole plan for Bly to enter the facility (Time Staff, 2009). Just like Nellie Bly, Norah Vincent is also a journalist, a brave immersion journalist who lets her self lockup in the insane facility for ten days. Both of the two writers immersed in an insane facility. However, Bly involuntarily accepted the task being drawn to her while Vincent was required to be confined at the asylum as the author narrated “On the advice of her psychologist she committed herself to a mental institution” (Vincent N. 2009). Moreover, after ten days, Vincent decided to get out of the asylum with the promised to her self not to get back again, as she said, “I got home a wreck, and swore that, no matter how bad I felt, I would never willingly go into such a place again, never”. (Vincent N, 2008). Bly was able to convince the authority of the asylum and be confined for ten days was well planned. Bly, at first, fabricated to be mildly insane and begun the whole process by convincing her room mates as well as the owner by standing the whole night at the wall, talking a lot to never seen people, and doing strange things. The things she does were found out to be sufficient to be in front of the judge and as expected, recommended to stay inside the asylum where she had manifested the arbitrary and the vindictive rules in the asylum (Bly N. (2009). In the Contrary, Vincent was able to enter the asylum because she was diagnosed to have a mental illness that started way back ten years ago. Vincent’s depression were develop to be a sickness until she had never any choice but to enter the asylum. Nevertheless, she battled her own problems and made it a way to discover and continue her pilgrim in writing and exposing what life she had gone through inside the asylum “As her treatment and her symptoms improve, Vincent warms up to the idea that “the bin” might not be all bad, and she softens in her critique” (Vincent, N. 2008). The way she helps her self in battling her misfortunes have gone through the process of knowing her self, realizing where she was in, grasping the feelings about her situation, and how she can help her self to be out of the asylum, as Vincent states “I spent four lost, interminable days in lockup that first time in the bin, getting worse, weeping at the sealed windows, yelping for rescue through the pay phone in the soul-destroying dayroom, wrapping into my roommate’s seamless paranoia, and, finally, out of sheer rage, altogether losing what was left of my tenuous grip” (Vincent N. 2008). The instances that brought the two writers inside the asylum were different but the intension of writing the book were, nevertheless, the same and that is to reveal or to unveil what the true situations inside the asylum as a whole. Bly was tasked to immerse into the asylum to narrate and document how the patients inside the asylum were treated and managed. With an expected faith in her self, she had to act like one of those patients and finish the mission as being instructed and entrusted to her at the Blackwell’s Island (Bly, N.). Vincent is considered to be a no barred holds immersion journalist. The situations that Vincent went through along the process of helping herself fought her own sickness inspired her to write the book and to reveal the truth based on her own experiences inside the asylum, As she recounted, “Real lives and lived experience are the laboratory of the immersion journalist, and the journalist herself is the guinea pig. This is at once the adventure and the peril of what I do, and, for better or worse; it means I follow where the rabbit hole leads” (Vincent, N. 2008). Her experiences inside the asylum gave her the idea in writing her next book after the “Self-made Man”. She did her best battling her sickness and decided to be healthy to be able to study the effect of the treatment on the depressed and the insane (Vincent, N. 2008). Unlike with Bly who was tasked to do the job, Vincent made a way out of her self, independently, from conquering her sickness to writing the details of the accounts inside the asylum as she was said “And yet, there was the lure, the powerful lure of the spectacle, and the human drama, and what I saw as the outright wrongs of the hospitals, wrongs that I so longed to expose and ridicule, and hold up to public scrutiny” (Vincent N. 2008). Vincent had an independent decision of going back again and immersed to be able to write and finished her book about madhouse for around a longer period of time and in different institutions, as she had said “I wanted to immerse myself in that. Be the patient once more. It wasn’t a stretch, obviously, but it was daunting nonetheless. I knew that in order to write a book about madhouses, I’d have to spend much more time locked away, and in several different types of institutions” (Vincent N. 2008). The treatments that the authors received along with their immersion in the asylum were almost exactly the same considering the 122 years in the gap of the said immersion. Bly’s immersion, 122 years ago, are pointing out two major problems in he immersion; arbitrariness were very obvious with regard to the commitment and the cruelty of the nurses, and some of the women trapped in the asylum were not considered insane but only experiences nervous breakdown brought about by depression. The author reveals that psychotic patients around her were deprived of their freedom and instead, suffered from cruelty of the asylum management, as she recounts, “. They have no way to demonstrate their sanity and some are quite sane, only having suffered what might now be diagnosed as a bout of depression after a traumatic experience or a nervous breakdown. To say one was sane was to say one was insane” (Bly, N. 2009). In Vincent’s reveal that in Meriwether, a public hospital, there is no freedom among the patients, doctors who are supposed tom take care of the patients were narcissistic, there is no privacy among the patients, and staffs are indifferent with the patient. Vincent’s experience with St. Luke (private hospital), were better compared to the first hospital; long day passes, smoke breaks, there is an effective therapy, and the doctors as well as the nurses and the management cares well about the welfare of the patients. The methods of commitments among the two writers were very much different. Bly just did what is tasked of her but proves to be efficient in revealing the true circumstances inside the asylum while Vincent, at first, promised her self not to get back again but later decided to immerse for the second time and with a longer period of time. Patients in the asylum during the time of Bly and Vincent were almost the same, suffering from deprivation of what is really meant for them as an asylum patient “Bly recounted stories of spoiled food, nurses who kept patients awake all night, ice cold baths, beatings and forced feedings” (Bly N. 2009) . During the time of Bly, the way to get out of the asylum were assisted by other people as planned while during the time of Vincent, she made it alone and proved her self that she is not anymore sick or was not sick at all that time. It is, therefore, relevant to conclude that hope still exists in resolving the problems in the mental institutions that exists 120 years ago only if it will be addressed properly and with sincerity. These books that were written by two authors at a different times and period must serve as a reminder not only to all of us but most likely to the management of the mental institutions, to give to the patients what is due for them as a human being, and to respect the dignity they deserve. Works Cited Time Staff. “Ten Days in the Madhouse.” Time Specials. 12 April 2009. 2 August 2011. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1890856_1890855_1890771,00.html Vincent, Norah. Excerpt: Voluntary Madness. Smith. 22 December 2008. 22 August 2011. http://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2008/12/22/excerpt-voluntary-madness-by-norah-vincent/ Bly, Nellie. Ten Days in a Madhouse. bythefirelight. 10 September 2009. 22 August 2011. http://bythefirelight.com/2009/09/10/ten-days-in-a-madhouse-by-nellie-bly-a-review/ Bly, Nellie. Ten Days in a Madhouse. Elizabeth Jane Cochrane Seaman. New York: Ian L. Munro, 1992. 2 August 2011. http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html Read More