Helpful Score: 7
This is a fascinating story of one woman's experience with mental institutions. It shows how easy it is to be put away, especially when you are surrounded by problems that can conveniently be blamed on you, but how hard it can be to get any real help.
I've had friends who went through this type of thing when I was a teen, so her discussion of talking up her drug experiences to a therapist (to get attention for something new and draw it away from her other diagnoses) and getting put in rehab when she wasn't an addict, then having the other people there tell her she was just in denial when she didn't have anything to say in her AA meetings rings horribly true...
From her concluding chapter: "I still wonder why I wasn't treated for my depression, why no one noticed I'd been sexually abused, why the doctors didn't seem to believe that I came from a home with physical violence. Why the thing they cared the most about was whether I acted the part of a feminine young lady. The shame is that the effects of depression, sexual abuse, violence: all treatable. But where I stood on the feminine/masculine scale: unchangable. It's who I am."
I've had friends who went through this type of thing when I was a teen, so her discussion of talking up her drug experiences to a therapist (to get attention for something new and draw it away from her other diagnoses) and getting put in rehab when she wasn't an addict, then having the other people there tell her she was just in denial when she didn't have anything to say in her AA meetings rings horribly true...
From her concluding chapter: "I still wonder why I wasn't treated for my depression, why no one noticed I'd been sexually abused, why the doctors didn't seem to believe that I came from a home with physical violence. Why the thing they cared the most about was whether I acted the part of a feminine young lady. The shame is that the effects of depression, sexual abuse, violence: all treatable. But where I stood on the feminine/masculine scale: unchangable. It's who I am."
Helpful Score: 3
A girl whose sexuality is considered "inappropriate", i.e. "masculine", is kept in a mental institution from age 15 ot age 18 when her father's insurance runs out.
Seems like she is the sanest character in the book...
Wrinkled upper right corner om front cover and the fisrt few few pages.
Seems like she is the sanest character in the book...
Wrinkled upper right corner om front cover and the fisrt few few pages.
Helpful Score: 3
A rather unsettling account of teenage girl with Gender Identity Disorder. Unsettling because even in the early 80's, this was considered to be something that needed to be fixed.
Helpful Score: 2
What a sad tale. Thank goodness homosexuality is no longer a "mental disorder," and young people aren't locked up to cure them. I wonder, if Daphne had been left to sort things out for herself, what kind of person she would have become. Her psyche is scarred, and the abuse she suffered from her family, men, and health care professionas will never be forgotten.
Helpful Score: 2
Interesting topic, but I thought it was somewhat poorly written. Still worth reading though.
Helpful Score: 1
Amazing, sad, thought-provoking memoir. One of my favorite books of all time.
a real-life expose into the psychiatric treatment hospital modalites circa 1980s. Gut-wrenching and thought-provoking. This book "drags" at times, but is worth the read.
I first heard about Daphne when s'he came to speak at SC when. S/he read clips of the novel and I loved it. I bought it from Daphne that night (and developed a hug crush on Daphne!) It is a great story about being different and how our families and loved ones deal with it. Recommend it to everyone.
Not what I thought it would be. I did not finish it.
