If we were living back in victorian years would we be locked up?

[GirlAfraid23]

Ok hear me out...it may be controversial but I was recently reading a book about bedlam and other mental hospitals and lunatic asylums. It's very interesting but a lot if these people seem to have anxiety/paranoia/ptsd/depression etc.
There are also the worse cases of psychosis and the like though.
Throughout my life I have had to see counsellors and psychiatrist s numerous times so was thinking back in those days I would probably be locked up or at least put into a mental asylum. Particularly when I'm going through a bad health anxiety patch.
Anyone agree? Comments?

[theharvestmouse]

I fear many people must have gone through all kinds of mental health problems and they never had them diagnosed. I have to say that without the internet I very much doubt I would have known that I have Social Anxiety/Depression.

[Wolfie]

I think it would have been very likely back then. Hence why the progress which is ongoing about breaking down the mental health stigmas, etc is undescribably important.

[BobbyDog]

Yep, completely agree. There seem to be so many more people with mental health problems in this day and age. I think the breakdown of families, religion and communities play a big part. In the workplace(most/some) we are treated like machines assigned a number instead of human beings.

Not sure what drugs people were given in Victorian times when they were sent to Mental Institutions, but I hope they were strong enough to block out their living conditions.

Girls getting pregnant outside of marriage were sent there along with a lot of other people that didn't fit in to society as it was back then.

[Lissa101]

Yep and I don't even think you need to go back that far. My gran (who sadly died before I was born) had anxiety. She was incarcerated in a mental institution in the 1950's when she had a nervous breakdown and given electric shock treatment. My mum and her sisters were put into care. I often think of how that poor woman must have suffered with what we now know is a common and treatable disorder.

In this respect we are very lucky. However, fast forward 100 years and I bet treatment will have improved 10 fold. People will look back on us with our horrible SSRI's and feel lucky not to have been alive with anx in the 21st century! :) xxx

[PanchoGoz]

I like to think that the ones with less severe anxiety managed to overcome it by learning Claire Weekes's techniques through experience and common sense. My granda had a nervous breakdown, she wasn't put away though thankfully they just left her on her bed a few months. She seemed to get over it ok though...

[Lilharry]

Yes, I was going to say somethin similar to Lissa - you don't need to go back that far. They used to do all sorts of awful things to anxious and depressed people like electric shock therapy and even labotomies, up until fairly recently. I read a lot of classic literature from around the victorian era and I'm sure many of the upper class women in those novels suffered from anxiety - a lot of swooning and freaking out all the time. It seems to have been acceptable, even expected within a certain class of female, but with men and lower classes it would have been frowned upon.

[Annie0904]

There was an interesting article in the mail online. This was about women.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2141741/Sent-asylum-The-Victorian-women-locked-suffering-stress-post-natal-depression-anxiety.html

[Pipkin]

I think you're probably right. We'd have been classed as hysterical or possessed!

Pip

[ricardo]

I found this article which gives a good insight into this, but note that it is mainly about women which says a lot about how inferior they were regarded in those times.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2141741/Sent-asylum-The-Victorian-women-locked-suffering-stress-post-natal-depression-anxiety.html

[Annie0904]

That is the same article I posted Ricardo. I think it was a more male dominated society then and probably more woman were put in asylums. Possibly because PMT, post natal depression Etc was seen as a crazy woman? Women who became pregnant out of marriage were also often seen as being an 'unsound' mind and their babies taken from them and the poor mother being locked up in an asylum. Very sad :( I am pleased progress has been made since then..still much more needed though.

[ricardo]

So you did Annie, apologies:hugs:

To be honest I only read the initial post and these sort of things interest me so I did a search.

[Annie0904]

Great minds think alike Ricardo :) No need to apologise :hugs:

[little wren]

Interesting article...sad, but like the article says it was progression from how mentally ill people had been treated previously. Perhaps it was viewed as cutting edge at the time. The label 'insanity' didn't seem to describe any illness but rather was used as a marker for sending you into the asylum. Thanks for posting Annie and Ricardo.
I imagine most people hid their anxieties to be saved from the asylum. I imagine a lot were simply hidden away from public by their families for shame and many more subordinated by the threat of being sent to the asylum. How many of us would have gone to the doctor if asylums were on the cards?

[Annie0904]

Also since it was very much a male dominated society many men would declare their wives to be 'insane' even if they were not. They would have them put in an asylum, thus enabling them to divorce their wife leaving them free to marry another women who they had possibly been having an affair with!