Greetings
my fellow Filthy Victorians and welcome to
The Asylum. My name is Elizabeth and I am here on
behalf of my fellow inmates to educate you in the ways of the insane.
Well, not really, but I am here to fill your mind with
the history/herstory of Victorian psychiatry.
Take a walk down the halls with me and see just what it was like for us,
girls mainly, back in the day.
You
can thank the truly wonderful and talented Emilie Autumn for the
contents
of this site, for it is she who has inspired me to
tell you all there is to know. And I'm sure, most of you that come
to this site are "muffins" and have the plague by
now. So, let's spread the plague some more, shall we?
Gentlemen, come one, come all!
See the lovely mad girls locked up for your protection.
Gaze into their mad eyes and see their lost souls.
Come see the "Ophelias"!
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Mental Illness During the Victorian Era
Mental Asylums Pre 1850
Before the
mid-eighteen hundreds, common belief was that those who suffered from
mental illness
suffered because they had a "disease of the
soul". Their madness supposedly stemmed from an evil within, and they
thus were
treated as animals. Patients in these early
asylums were kept in cages, given small amounts of often unclean food,
had little
or no clothing, wore no shoes, and slept in
dirt or hay. Because the patients could often live many years in such
conditions,
the caretakers became more confident that
these human beings were in actuality closer to animals and thus
deserving of such
abuse.
During the
mid-eighteen hundreds, a movement to reform the mental asylums began to
permeate throughout
society as popular belief began to change
about the mentally ill. Those who suffered from madness were no longer
suffering
because God deemed them ill, but because of a
disease of the brain, one that could be studied and eventually cured.
Thus,
reform began. Patients started being fed
well, were given clothing and shoes, and were removed from their chains.
Thus, this
humanitarian treatment and change in the very
perception of mental illness fueled scientific development.
Women during
this time were deemed to be highly susceptible to becoming mentally ill
as they
did not have the mental capacity of men, and
this risk grew greatly if the woman attempted to better herself through
education
or too many activities. In fact, women were
seen as most likely having a mental breakdown sometime during their life
as "the
maintenance of [female] sanity was seen as
the preservation of brain stability in the face of overwhelming physical
odds".
Thus, women often suppressed their feelings,
as to not appear mad and resumed the passive, housewife role. But
there
were always exceptions to the rule. You
could be a wife who was having symptoms of PMS and be considered "mad"
and
be sent away to an asylum for mood swings.
You could be sent away for not listening to your husband. Or a neighbor
could accuse you of free thinking and off you
go. Women were prey to the world of madness during this era.
Hysteria and the Wondering Womb
The idea of
the Wondering Womb developed during this time, as madness was associated
with menstruation,
pregnancy, and the menopause. The womb itself
was deemed to wander throughout the body, acting as an enormous sponge
which
sucked the life-energy or intellect from
vulnerable women. Thus, women became synonymous with madness, as they
were deemed
to be emotional and unstable. If a woman of
the Victorian era were subject to an outburst (due to discontentment or
repression),
she would be deemed mad. The word Hysteria
became the general term for women with mental illness and cures included
bed rest,
seclusion, bland food, refrain from mental
activities (such as reading), daily massage, and sensory deprivation.
Though these
treatments do not seem too appalling, they
were comparable to solitary confinement and would often drive a woman to
further
insanity.
Anorexia- The Fasting Girls
Anorexia, though prominent for many years prior, was officially recognized as a disease in 1873.
It
flourished during the nineteenth century as women wished to exemplify
their femininity. In denying food, a woman could
truly be passive and become a weightless
accessory for her husband. The physical and spiritual ideal of anorexia
also became
a status symbol for many women. Working class
women had to eat in order to have energy to work. Thus, only middle to
upper
class women could afford to be anorexic.
Cures included being admitted to an asylum where women rested and were
excessively
fed.
Nymphomania
The idea of
nymphomania developed during the Victorian era. One-third of all
patients in Victorian
asylums suffered from this mental illness. It
was described as an irresistible desire for sexual intercourse and a
"female
pathology of over-stimulated genitals".
Nymphomania included much more than a simple sexual drive, however, as
it was also
associated with a loss of sanity. It was
described as an "illness of sexual energy levels gone awry, as well as
the loss of
control of the mind over the body" and
included women who allowed their bodies to become subject to
uncontrollable movement
as nymphomaniacs "threw themselves to the
floor, laughed, danced, jumped, lashed out, smashed objects, tore their
clothes,
grabbed at any man who came before her". It
was also believed that those who suffered from this madness would,
without treatment,
eventually become a raving maniac, robbed
over her mind. A
woman could be placed in an asylum for nymphomania if she was
promiscuous, bore illegitimate children, was a victim of an
assault or rape, was caught masturbating, or
suffered from man-craziness, a term used during this time period to
describe
flirtatiousness. When a woman was brought to
the asylum, she was subject to a pelvic exam where the doctor claimed
she had
an enlarged clitoris the size of a penis.
Upon later inspection if the clitoris had returned to its normal size,
she would
be released and deemed cured. Cures for
nymphomania included separation from men, bloodletting, induced
vomiting, cold douches
over the head, warm douches over the breasts,
leeches, solitary confinement, strait-jackets, bland diet, and
occasional clitoridectomies.
Spinsters and Lesbians
Spinsters
and lesbians were considered a threat to society during the nineteenth
century as these
women chose an alternative lifestyle. They
went outside the social norms of women as passive housewives, and
instead made
their own decisions. They were thought to be
mentally ill, as doctors claimed being without continued male
interaction would
cause irritability, anemia, tiredness, and
fussing. These women were also controlled by the term "frigid" which was
used
to describe them. Women did not want to be
"frigid" and thus married to avoid becoming labeled this manner. Those
who were
admitted to the asylum for being a spinster
or a lesbian were submitted to forced marriages by family members or
even encouraged
sexual encounters where patients were
sexually abused or raped under the care of their doctors. It was assumed
these women
could be cured by repeated sexual interaction
with men.
"Ophelia"
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