The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic
by Darby Penney, Peter Stastny
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Book Summary Information
Author: Darby Penney, Peter StastnyPhotographer: Lisa Rinzler
Foreword: Robert Whitaker
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-01-01
ISBN: 1934137073
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Book Reviews of The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic
Book Review: A Must Read...
Summary: 5 Stars
"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.
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