Darby PenneyThe Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic

"The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic" is a book any sympathetic and understanding person should read who has a genuine interest in people less fortunate than themselves. No person is immune from psychological despair resulting in some form of mental complication resulting in some form of a personality change. This book examines the lives of 10 ordinary people prior to entering the psychiatric arena, and once they have been committed to a psychiatric institution. This is achieved through the contents of their suitcases, supposedly to accompany them in the institution, but rather, being stored in an attic, where the owners will never have the opportunity to receive them.The book is well written and we, the reader, and sympathetic person, can "feel" for these unfortunate people. We feel their psychological terror, and we cry inside of ourselves, the injustices which these people and the countless thousands of other mentally ill people, feel. We see, but can not understand, a psychiatric system who, instead of trying to help these people, decided to lock them up in mental institution zoos, and basically throw away the keys, letting these poor souls sink further, and further into their psychosis and despair, with the thoughts of escape from this system an imposibility."The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic" is an important book which we need to read, understand and prevent from happening ever again. Thousands of people are still incarcerated in mental institutions today, and although drugs are the method of treatment, our understanding and actions to help people with mental despair has NOT really changed for hundreds of years. We, society, would rather lock up these kinds of people,and forget about them, lose the keys, let them worsen in these institutions, than understand and try to honestly help them. "Out of sight, out of mind" is the attitude society takes today.The unfortunate plight of the mentally ill person, locked away, condemed to a life of misery, is the norm in society. "The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic" tries to show, and achieves, that these people, locked up and forgotten, are not forgotten and they are people, with certain problems, that, had they been given understanding, could've been happier people in life.In conclusion, we can safely say, and assume, that their are countless other "suitcases" in countless other state hospitals, throughout the United States and other countries of the world, today, which tells stories of people, like us, who have fallen on bad times, and ended up in worlds they can not control, in worlds where society, due to its own ignorance, has put them, thrown them, and forgotten them. "The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic" tells these people, of yesterday and today, alive and gone, that they are not forgotten, and their lives do and did mean something for all of humanity to learn from.

Based on historical facts, this book is brilliant and insightful from the perspective of the incarcerated patients who most often died at Willard State Hospital, NY, after decades of wrongful imprisonment and abuse. The authors give a voice to human beings who were no longer able to "speak for themselves"; whose personal struggles were turned into pathologies instead of challenging life situations that were improperly dealt with by psychiatry. Simply locking them up was a genuine dis-service to the numerous patients featured in this book. Most were confined illegally, warehoused in filthy violent environments, often assaulted, drugged, electro-shocked and kept in the dark cold Back Wards of a hospital that offered no sunlight, intelligent stimulation or hope for recovery. Even after many patients refused to work in accordance with the hospital's free forced labor systems, and repeatedly demanded their own release, reasonable pleas were ignored and civil and human rights were violated time after time. Many thanks to the authors and photographer of this poignant book for exposing the "truth" so honestly. The stories show how psychiatry has dehumanized and ruined the lives of far too many individuals who could have otherwise led healthy and happy lives. ~ Rhonda Thomas, artist. Flagstaff, AZ, USA

This is a wonderful book. From start to finish, it pulls you in and makes you feel for those depicted on its pages. The authors begin and end with brief histories and speculations about the founding of state hospitals and the current state of things. But those are only bookends to the lives of ten former Willard patients.I appreciated the stories the authors decided to tell. It was a great cross reference of lives from the 19th and 20th centuries. So many times, while reading, you could see the true state of things which, in a different time, would’ve rendered a state hospital stay irrelevant. Was this person just a manic depressive? Did this patient suffer from what we would today deem, narcissistic personality disorder? Was inmate status directly tied to a language or cultural barrier and nothing else? Dmytre Zarchuk’s story broke my heart (as each one did). Why did he think he was Jesus Christ? Staff didn’t seem to truly wish to get to the bottom of things. For Madeline Cartier, when do you pay attention and rethink the diagnosis? Her demands to be set free seemed eloquent and true in many ways, but doctors just wanted to believe it was all an act of a deranged mind.I gave this book four out of five stars for two reasons:1. There are some discrepancies in dates and ages.2. Though the pictures included are wonderful, they are flat and dull. For a book published in 2008, one would think they could’ve been more dynamic. Glossy pictures would’ve helped. I assume they were taken utilizing color film or a digital camera (or digital transfer means). Why couldn’t they have been done better? Sometimes, especially in the case of suitcase contents, they were difficult to discern.Great book! I was intrigued and interested from beginning to end and wish more books could be written to highlight those whose lives were forever entwined with mental hospitals in America. Each story really painted an unfortunate picture. 427 suitcases were found. I would love a follow up book or more information on all of them. Simply, a wonderful publication.

This book puts in to perspective how much we have advanced in psychiatric care in the last century. After reading this i fully understand the stigma and fear people had of acknowledging any mental illness they or family had. When you learn of some of the patients histories you realize how easily you could have been locked up after suffering a loss or because your husband didn't want to deal with you anymore.

Fantastic, if sad, book, about the lives of psychiatric patients in an old hospital - and the inability of the medics and staff to agree that the patients were mentally improving - and also that some were not even ill. The gravedigger, who till he was 90, and was a patient there, tending the 500 plus graves, was so sadly given an unmarked grave when his end came - not after his well written letter to his psychiatrist asking for his "release" as he felt well - and indeed, as evidenced by his notes, was not showing symptoms of ill health and was physically fit. The psychiatrist felt it acceptable to not even reply - how obscene that the self assuredness of a so called educated professional sought to keep a man down.Well worth a read - if you have a heart, you will be moved - it is almost with traces of the times when prisoners in the camps at Auschwitz etc had their personal belongings removed, and with that, their personal expression, and never released, many dying there - although I do not mean to insult the memory of Auschwitz - the removal of the personal belongings, and the long term incarceration of people just struck a chord. Read it - you will not be disappointed in the openness of its content - but in the fact that these things happened....

This was a real surprise. I got to the book because I'd read about the associated exhibition which sounded amazing, I really just wanted the back story to the exhibition but what I was given will stay with me for a long time, probably forever.The discovery of suitcases full of former patients' belongings in the attic of an old asylum was interesting in its own right but thanks heavens they were found by people who could see their potential for narrative and social commentary. The stories that the researchers uncovered are moving to say the least and the wonderful photo's which were really excellent on my kindle fire are a beautiful scaffold for the biographies of the people involved. If you have ever wondered about societal and/or your own personal response to people who struggle with their mental health this book will certainly give you food for thought.The asylum was in the United States but the stories could have come from anywhere because they are so much about individuals, about real people. The stories are sympathetically but factually told and the narrative style is immediately engaging - you really feel that you get to know the patients, as people, not as the inhabitants of an asylum. You see photo's of the people involved and when you look at them in terms of 'before' and 'after' admittance to the asylum the results are truly poignant.There is some commentary on the treatment of mentally ill people at the time but the bald facts will be enough to have any ordinary person wanting change in this area. There HAS been change since the methods described in 'The Lives They left Behind' but when you see where mental health treatment has come from it's not really surprising that we are still struggling to deal with this area in most countries. If this book doesn't make you take more interest in mental health issues after you've read it you aren't going to be convinced anyway.

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What The Lives They Left Behind does is reconstruct - as far as is possible - the biographies of a few selected patients (mainly from the earlier part of the twentieth century) from the former Willard State Hospital, a psychiatric institution in New York. These reconstructions draw on the content of patients' suitcases, supplemented by any medical records or other documents that may have survived. What emerges makes grim reading, as these few unfortunate incarcerated patients are here acknowledged as real people with real histories.It is notable that almost all of the patients portrayed in this book are immigrants to the United States. Whether these few patients are truly representative of Willard patients in general is unclear, but if they are, there is a definite suggestion that factors such as nationality, social class and ethnicity played a role in deciding who was to be admitted to the institution. A little more clarity about this would have been helpful.It is certainly apparent that the psychiatrists who diagnosed these patients did so according to their own social and cultural assumptions. Where there was evidence of psychotic delusion, the doctors made no effort to appreciate elements in the patient's background - such as unfamiliar religious practices - that may have given rise to the delusions. Symptoms were observed and described, but no effort was made to understand them.Although the lives represented in this book are well reconstructed, I get the impression that the priority given to documentary facts and their interpretation sometimes gets in the way of letting these lost voices really speak. But, on the whole, the authors achieve a good deal in bringing these hidden lives to public attention, and also drawing lessons from past psychiatric practices in a critique of the present state of mental health services.