Increasing awareness of mental health and erasing the stigma around it is long overdue.
My great-grandmother, who I never met, probably had her share of external challenges, living at the time and in the place she did. But she apparently suffered inner turmoil: according to my father, she spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. The thought of her suffering haunts me today.
My great great-grandparents, James Balls Braithwaite (1851-1941) and Elizabeth Huntington Wilson Braithwaite (1860-1915) were both born and raised in Egremont, Cumberland, England. They married in 1881, and immigrated to America–directly to Kansas–in 1885.
James, who was a miner in England, came to southeast Kansas to work in mines in that area. He and Elizabeth had seven children, including my great-grandmother, Anne Braithwaite Williamson (1891-1942.) Anne was born in Pittsburg, in Cherokee County, Kansas.
Annie married David Williamson (1888-1974) on November 1, 1911, when she was twenty. They had two children: James, born in 1912, and Elizabeth Ann—my grandmother, in 1915.
David worked in the local mines and, later, he and Elizabeth ran a small lunch counter across from the high school in Pittsburg. At some point, they were given the job of doing the food service and running the cafeteria at the local country club.
Other than that, I know very little about her. That’s one reason I was particularly surprised when my father told me that she had been hospitalized in a mental institution. I wondered why I had never been told about such a major life event in our family.
Once my father shared this information with me, I immediately had all kinds of questions for him, none of which he could answer. He said that his own mother never talked about it. He could not even tell me which hospital Annie went to or how long she was hospitalized.
(born 1937): my father.
I have tried to find answers about what happened to Annie, but so far I have not come up with anything. I know that there was a fine mental health clinic in Topeka—the renowned Menninger Clinic—established by Dr. Karl Menninger and his father in 1925. However, I don’t know if Annie was hospitalized after 1925 or if she was even hospitalized in Topeka. I have had no success in finding patient records, in part because her given and married names were very common ones.
Having read a bit about how little was understood about mental illness in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the somewhat arbitrary way in which doctors arrived at psychiatric diagnoses, I fear that it is possible that she could have been wrongly diagnosed and hospitalized. She may not even have had a mental illness.
I recently read a truly disturbing non-fiction account of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard. Ms. Packard’s parents had insisted she marry a strict Calvinist minister fifteen years her senior. To this domineering husband, the fact that Elizabeth thought for herself, questioned his strict religious authority, disagreed with him on how to raise their children, and supported abolitionist John Brown were all evidence of insanity. He was able to convince doctors of his faulty “diagnosis,” and in 1860, Elizabeth was wrongly put into what was then called an insane asylum in Illinois. After three years in the asylum, during which time she refused to change her religious views and defended her sanity, she was deemed “incurable,” and was dismissed. Elizabeth Packard not only regained her freedom, she secured the release of her fellow patients who had similarly been wrongly hospitalized.
The biography reveals the prevailing ignorance of and disturbing attitudes about mental illness of the time. Elizabeth Packard went on to be something of a celebrity, advocating for women’s rights and asylum reform. She also wrote numerous books including The Prisoners’ Hidden Life Or Insane Asylums Unveiled (1868) and Three Years’ Imprisonment For Religious Belief, By The Arbitrary Will Of A Husband (1870.) I found her biography a fascinating read and highly recommend the book: The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore.
Even if Annie really had been in need of psychiatric treatment, I fear that she might have been given medications that were useless, unnecessarily sedating, or had debilitating side effects. She might have undergone procedures that were stressful and perhaps even harmful.
This ancestor “stays with me,” and I think about her often, especially because I have had my own struggles with mental health.
Following the birth of my child, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. I had a healthy, beautiful baby, a supportive husband, and I had immersed myself in educational material on caring for an infant. Clearly, the depression was not situational. But I was in a very dark place that was way beyond trying to keep a positive attitude or getting a little more help or lack of sleep. I knew I needed professional help.
I responded to a combination of talk therapy and medication. I began feeling like myself about eight weeks later. Six months later, and then again on two later occasions, I tried tapering off of my prescribed antidepressant—an SSRI–that had given me the relief I had so desperately needed. Each time I did so, however, my depressive symptoms–lack of appetite and motivation, trouble sleeping and staying asleep, and feelings of overwhelm and anxiety–promptly returned.
Because of the sensitivity I had previously exhibited to monthly hormonal fluctuations, my psychopharmacologist suspects that, rather than my depression being merely a postpartum event, the plummeting hormone levels immediately following childbirth had, for me, been a chemical “shift” of permanence. The fact that the medication was obviously playing a major role in helping me feel like myself again told me, and my therapist, that the cause was organic in nature. She is not concerned with my taking the drug indefinitely, especially at the relatively low dosage I am on. She is pleased that it is obviously very effective, as am I, in controlling my chronic depression.
I have had no side effects, and the medication has been a life-saver for me. I cannot help but imagine that, by contrast, whatever “treatment” my great-grandmother received was insufficient at best and harmful at worst, and that the stigma associated with her hospitalization would have haunted her well after her treatment.
It is because of the stigma still associated with mental health care that, after I’ve fawned over a friend’s or acquaintance’s newborn, I always find a moment to address the mother privately and look her squarely in the eye and ask her, “How are you doing?”
I also find opportunities, such as this essay, to be completely open about my struggle with depression and the real benefits I have received both from talk therapy and medication.
Written for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge: Week 25–“The Ancestor Who Stays With Me.” PROMPT: Sometimes you find something about an ancestor, and their story lingers with you. They end up in a special place in your heart, even if you never met them. This week, share that person and why you feel so connected to them. (You could also take this prompt more literally and write about an ancestor who has lived with you.) Remember, there’s no wrong way to interpret the prompts!
