by maudmac » Thu Sep 26, 2002 11:24 pm
I've been reading this incredible book, [i:e81d9d9948] Della Raye: A Girl Who Grew Up in Hell and Emerged Whole[/i:e81d9d9948] by Gary Penley. It's killing me. From the back:
[i:e81d9d9948] Imagine that you are a normal, intelligent child of four. During the darkest period in the history of the American mental health care system, and in the midst of the Great Depression, you are taken, with no warning, to live in a mental institution. Your mother, aunt, and older brother, who are mentally disabled, are taken also. You will see none of them for a long time, but when you do, your mother will beat you at the insistence of the guards. How will you survive for twenty years? What will you be like when you leave?[/i:e81d9d9948]
This is a true story. Della Raye's uncle sent her and a good chunk of her family to Partlow State Asylum for Mental Deficients (as it was called at the time) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, because there was no way to feed them. He felt he had no choice. Maybe he didn't. I couldn't say. Desperate times, and all that. And few places and times in America have been more profoundly desperate than the rural South during the Depression. I know folks who survived that, and I cannot even begin to imagine what it must have been like. And I don't want to.
Some members of the Partlow staff considered it their [i:e81d9d9948] raison d'etre[/i:e81d9d9948] to break Della Raye. They did everything in their power to make her CRY, including forcing her own mother to beat her. That's what finally worked, but Della Raye didn't surrender.
This book is an indictment of the shameful history of mental health care and also of the concept of eugenics, which powered a lot of the commitments that occurred at the time. The thinking was, if you had relatives who were in any way challenged, mentally or physically, your genes were polluted and you shouldn't be allowed to propagate them. Few people today realize how prevalent this attitude was in America in the 30's. It's most closely associated with Nazism, but it made its way quite easily here and was embraced by American physicians and psychiatrists, and to some extent, the general public.
Despite the unbelievably horrific conditions in which Della Raye grew up, she forgave every single person who wronged her, who [i:e81d9d9948] tortured[/i:e81d9d9948] her. In fact, the book opens with her in the present, visiting a woman in a nursing home, a woman who had been one of her most determined adversaries on the staff at Partlow. The woman cannot comprehend why Della Raye cares, all things considered.
[i:e81d9d9948] "I still can't imagine why you'd come to see me, Della Raye. I mean - the way I was."
"Hush that now," Della Raye says, patting her hand softly. "I don't worry about all that anymore, and you needn't either."[/i:e81d9d9948]
She wasn't without advocates, though, and she eventually was released. She went on become a beautician and have a nice, big, happy family. She's still visiting folks in nursing homes and institutions. She's forgiven them [i:e81d9d9948] all[/i:e81d9d9948].
This book is one of the most beautiful, moving things I've ever read.
I [b:e81d9d9948] need[/b:e81d9d9948] this book.
