We're All Mad Here

Penis shocking, porn watching, Gatorade drinking- just a few of the suggested treatments to banish homosexuality from your mind and body. While being gay was once considered breaking the law, it eventually became regarded as a mental illness. Often blamed on a child’s parenting, conversion therapy became a popular way to make your kid “normal” before it was too late.

Note: Around 4 mins, I say “North America” when I meant “North Korea”

THE TREVOR PROJECT

CRISIS TEXT LINE

NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE

VETERAN’S CRISIS LINE

CRISISCHAT.ORG

LGBT NATIONAL HELPLINE

PFLAG List of Hotlines

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In the late 1800s, Dr. Franz Gall published his ideas on the physical human mind. He believed that the brain was divided into seven different “personality” organs, and that the size of each organ dictated the strength of the trait. He called it “phrenology.” These “findings” catapulted the Western world into a frenzy, with phrenology becoming a part of academia, law, and medicine, even being used to decide human beings’ fates.

Alcoholics, horse thieves, non-conformists, and yes, those with mental illnesses were all people who were committed to the Hiawatha Insane Asylum, otherwise known as the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. Run first by a clueless superintendent and then a cruel one, Canton Asylum was a mess from the start. Patients were chained to radiators and refused life-saving surgeries. The conditions at Canton were well known- so why was it open for decades?

Misnumbered in the beginning and co-starring the crickets in my backyard.

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In the mid 1800s, a strong-willed Elizabeth Ware married Theophilus Packard, a Calvinist minister. After moving several times due to Elizabeth expressing “outlandish” religious ideas, Theophilus conspired with two local doctors to have his wife institutionalized. Even after she was released, Elizabeth was forced to take her husband to court to keep her money, possessions, and children after Theophilus abandoned her. What happened in that court room changed history and set laws that we still follow today.

In 1972, Geraldo Rivera investigated Willowbrook State School. What his cameras and microphones picked up distressed not only the Staten Island community, but people all over the country. It was discovered that for 14 years, the “students” at Willowbrook were experimented on by doctors from Yale and NYU, who gave the children hepatitis in order to study its growth. Rivera’s expose prompted some changes to be made in the system, but was it enough?