mrshatnertoyou: >Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. The food consisted of gruel broth, spoiled beef, bread that was little more than dried dough, and dirty undrinkable water.
>The dangerous patients were tied together with ropes. The patients were made to sit for much of each day on hard benches with scant protection from the cold. Waste was all around the eating places. Rats crawled all around the hospital. The bathwater was frigid and buckets of it were poured over their heads. The nurses behaved obnoxiously and abusively, telling the patients to shut up, and beating them if they did not. Speaking with her fellow patients, Bly was convinced that some were as “sane” as she was.
>On the effect of her experiences, she wrote:
What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.
This is really a sad state of affairs, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy with those conditions.
FattyCorpuscle: And here I was feeling like I accomplished something today by actually making the bed for once.
LulaBelle728: She was also portrayed as a character in the Showtime show “The Knick”… Good watch for anyone who hasn’t seen it.
GoingBackToKPax: I don’t think I would ever try to voluntarily go into an asylum undercover. I think they would never let me out.
The balls on this woman!
TooShiftyForYou: Bold move to convince doctors you’re insane and then spend 10 days in the asylum with you big reveal to say “I’m actually a journalist, you can let me go now.”
NoesHowe2Spel: She sounds like an incredible woman, Abbey. I’m particularly impressed that she beat a fictional
record. If she goes twenty-one thousand leagues under the sea I’ll name a damn school after her.
Local_Human: What a bad-ass
Clay_Statue: That’s one bad-assed bitch. She’s got bigger balls then me.
DesMephisto: Yeah! Well…I play video games!
XtremeGnomeCakeover: If I lived in the same era, I would have been dead by 40.
kurosen: She also had an amusement park named after her in Brooklyn, NY – though it’s since been renamed to something more generic.
420_inject_it: Kinda hot for the era, I wonder if she has any gw posts?
JillyanJigs: Crazy! I just heard of her on an episode of tv today (Smallville S4E2)
DrZuess_PHD: I woulda tapped that socially progressive ass
Skeeter65: I saw that episode of the West Wing, too.
scaredybat: Didn’t care to read the article. Upvote for empowered female… am I being a good male specimen yet?