Behind the Walls of the World’s Psychiatric Hospitals

Ep. 33: The People of Denbigh Asylum, Part 1

September 04, 2023 Dr. Sarah Gallup Episode 33
Ep. 33: The People of Denbigh Asylum, Part 1
Behind the Walls of the World’s Psychiatric Hospitals
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Behind the Walls of the World’s Psychiatric Hospitals
Ep. 33: The People of Denbigh Asylum, Part 1
Sep 04, 2023 Episode 33
Dr. Sarah Gallup

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Episode 33 tells the stories of three patients who resided at Denbigh Asylum, as told in the book Dangerous Asylums, edited by Rob Mimpriss. The stories are written by Welsh writers and are entitled "The Elves and the Shoemaker" (by Carys Bray), "Going Back" (Manon Steffan Ros), and "Imagining Angels" (by Glenda Beagan). 

Trigger warning for child death, suicidal ideation, and death by suicide in this episode.

I have a new Beacons page! Access all my links to the podcast and support the show here: https://beacons.ai/behindthewallspodcast

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Episode 33 tells the stories of three patients who resided at Denbigh Asylum, as told in the book Dangerous Asylums, edited by Rob Mimpriss. The stories are written by Welsh writers and are entitled "The Elves and the Shoemaker" (by Carys Bray), "Going Back" (Manon Steffan Ros), and "Imagining Angels" (by Glenda Beagan). 

Trigger warning for child death, suicidal ideation, and death by suicide in this episode.

I have a new Beacons page! Access all my links to the podcast and support the show here: https://beacons.ai/behindthewallspodcast

The Silver King's War
The Silver King's War is a series of World War II plays (The Silver King, Marauder Men,...

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Hometown Ghost Stories
Hometown Ghost Stories dives into the history of haunted locations and investigates why...

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the Show.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to Behind the Walls of the World’s Psychiatric Hospitals! I’m your host, Dr. Sarah Gallup, and today we will do something a little different to feature patient stories at Denbigh Asylum. But first! I want to make a quick correction about an oops I made in the last episode. When I was discussing the history of the hospital’s name, I meant to say that Denbigh Asylum was never a formal name of the hospital. Instead, I said Denbigh was never a formal name. Of course, Denbigh is the name of the town in Denbighshire, Wales, where all this takes place, and it is most definitely a real name. I don’t know if anyone else caught that but me, but I wanted to clarify, just in case.

 

One of the ways I’ve been promoting the show and getting to know people who live in the area around the hospitals I’ve discussed is by joining Facebook groups in and near the cities where each hospital is or was located. Perhaps some of you have joined me from one of the groups in Ionia, Michigan; or Waterloo, New York; or my hometown of Dallas, Oregon. I reached out to folks in Denbigh via one of these groups, and I got a recommendation for a book called Dangerous Asylums, which a collection of stories about real patients at the North Wales Hospital that were written by Welsh writers and edited by Rob Mimpriss. So what I will be doing today is reading a couple of those stories and telling about the project that became this book. I don’t remember who recommended the book, but thank you – it’s been a very good read! I’ll be sure to include the book information in the episode transcript, so you can check it out for yourself. I won’t be able to get to each of the stories, so I encourage you to pick up a copy. The stories are moving and tragic and poignant, and the different styles of writing make each story as unique as the person or persons the story features. 

 

I do want to give a trigger warning that one of the stories contains death by suicide. It doesn’t go into graphic detail, but I recognize that some people may not be in a good space to listen to it. I will give you a heads up beforehand if you’d like to skip past that one.

 

So for now, come on in and get comfortable as we go behind the walls of Denbigh Asylum…

 

The first story is written by British writer Carys Bray. Editor Rob Mimpriss points out that “Bray’s debut short story collection, Sweet Home, won the Scott Prize in 2012. Her debut novel, A Song for Issy Bradley, was short-listed for the Costa Book Awards and the Desmond Elliott Prize, won the Utah Book Award and the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and was serialised by BBC Radio 4. Her latest book, published in 2016, is The Museum of You. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Edge Hill University” (129).

 

Carys Bray used old patient records to create and compile this story. For reasons that will become evident as we read it, we don’t know what this patient’s thoughts may have been during his time at the hospital, but Bray nicely narrates in a way that imagines how he may have experienced the asylum. And two quick warnings before I read this: first, there is some Welsh language in this story…I will do my best. And second, uhhhh…this one got me. You may want to make sure you have a tissue nearby. 

 

This is the story of “The Elves and the Shoemaker”:

 

I know the doctor by his footsteps, the knock and brush of his shoes, the favouring of one foot as he walks the corridor to Ward 7.

“How are you today, David?”

I hear his words but my tongue is buckled to the sole of my mouth.

I know the doctor by his footsteps, slower, more measured than the others. 

“You’re shoemaker by trade, David?” He consults a clutch of papers. I catch glimpses of the script but cannot lace the letters into words. “You lived in Llanaber?”

I nod, these are not really questions – he holds the answers in his hands.

“Are you sleeping well?”

I shake my head. The other inmates cry in the night, and the nurses’ shoes tape scales up and down the corridors. When I sleep, I dream, and in my dreams I am home, pulling an upper over the last, attaching it to an insole, smoothing out the wrinkles and nailing it in position; I am surrounded by my tools: pincers, hammer, lapstone, rubbing sticks. And from my table I can see our own shoes, lined beside the door. Seven pairs.

I know the doctor by his footsteps. Sometimes he is accompanied by an older man – another doctor, whose keen, stamping gait thumps a warning on the floor. He is not so kind.

“You remember why you are here, Mister Lewis? No? You haven’t worked for months and care nothing for your children…”

The younger doctor taps his shoe against the metal leg of my bed. “And the trembling in his hands,” he ventures.

“You tried to strike your wife with a tree,” the older man continues. “You put your coat on back-to-front and did not comprehend your mistake.”

“His difficulty walking and his difficulty speaking.” The younger doctor’s foot beats time with his words. “These ailments are also noted on the medical certificate.”

I stare at their feet, at the young doctor’s ill-fitting, square-toed shoes and the wrinkles in the leather of the older man’s boots that should have been smoothed with rubbing sticks.

They have reached an impasse, yet neither is wrong.

 

The men from the asylum came for me in the spring. They came quietly, I didn’t hear their footsteps. I was too much trouble for Anwen, they said; too difficult to tend, unsteady on my feet, unreliable, forgetful. They led me away, past the line of shoes – seven pairs; past Anwen – crying, past one babi and the other – crying in time with their mother; past the tree in front of the house.

The horse’s shoes cracked against stones on the road as the carriage bore me away. I looked across the bay at the mountain of Pen Llyn, I opened my mouth to let the salt crust my tongue and I tried to hold it all in my head; the smell, the taste, the squawk of the gulls; my house, my family, my childhood memories.

“Listen for footsteps in the night,” my father used to tease when I was a boy. “It will be the elves, come to help the shoemaker.”

When the trembling first overtook my hands I listened in the night and, after Anwen and the children and the babis slept, I returned to my bench to exercise my grip and practice cutting positions, using my elbows, rather than my unsteady fingers to hold the leather and the wooden template still. Temporary modifications, I thought, until I recovered.

As the trembling worsened my work rate slowed and nocturnal preparations became necessary. One night I knocked a hammer to the floor. Anwen and the babis slept on but the quiet was interrupted by the patter of bare footsteps – Evan, Gareth, and Huw, my dear little boys.

“Go back to bed, bechgyn bach.”

“What are you doing, Dad?”

I bent to retrieve the hammer but my hand was locked in a spasming knot.

“What’s wrong with your hand, Dad?”

“Why are you cutting the leather by candlelight, Dad?”

“Shall we help you, Dad? Shall we?”

The younger two held the leather still while Evan edged the knife around the wooden template. His cut was rough but better than mine.

In the nights that followed they slipped out of their bed and while Anwen and the two babis slept, my three little elves worked like the elves in my father’s story, cutting the leather with their small, steady hands.

 

The nurses discuss my case as they feed and change me, wondering about my physical condition and my domestic affliction – which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Sometimes they address me directly in sing-song, babi voices and I remember Anwen and home and other things. I remember the Scarlet Fever. I remember my dear little boys, tongues bright red, pitted like strawberries, their skin toughening with the rash as it spread. I remember the shivering, the vomiting, and the barking cough that scuffed their throats.

Seven pairs of shoes by the door. One pair, two pairs, three pairs – empty. 

The older doctor’s keen, stamping gait thumps its warning on the floor.

“Can you extend your tongue, Mister Lewis? No? Can you stand? You must make an effort. Help him, nurse. Note the tremors in his legs. Set him down again. No use talking to him, he’s utterly demented. You know his history? Sad case. Lost three children to Scarlet Fever. Didn’t take comfort from the fact that he had others; happy is the man that hath his quiver full – not so our Mister Lewis. Mister Lewis here became so depressed he was unable to work.”

The nurse lifts my legs back into the bed, she tucks the sheet around me like my mother used to and I listen to the stamping retreat of the doctor’s boots.

 

After the Scarlet Fever I cut the leather poorly and slowly by candlelight, thinking to hide my hands from Anwen. She said our misfortune was God’s will and we should be grateful He had let us keep the babis, grateful for their hungry mouths, blunt, pawing hands and sticky fingers – I wished he’d taken them instead.

The weeks of quarantine were quiet without my dear bechgyn bach. I sat the bench for habit’s sake; cutting, sewing, hammering, all beyond me. Anwen grew watchful. She paused beside the bench, occasionally reaching to steady my fingers. My hair fell out in tufts and she swept it away at the end of each day.

Sometimes I fell asleep at the bench in the afternoons and dreamed of my boys’ faces, marred by the sandpapery rash. Once I woke confused and, imagining they were still ailing in bed, I thought to smooth their spoiled skin with rubbing sticks. I put on my coat and went outside to break a branch off the cherry tree. It was the furthest I’d walked since the quarantine, far enough to be certain that the tremble leaked into my legs.

I tugged at a branch but it was soft and wouldn’t snap.

Anwen followed. “What are you doing, David? Bending the tree like that, your coat on backwards – come back inside.”

“For the boys,” I said. “For their skin.” I lost my grip and the branch sprang away, catching her cheek. “Sorry, sorry –“

“Come inside.” She tugged me back into the house.

When I saw the line of shoes I remembered.

 

            I know the nurses by their footsteps. They feed me bread and milk and beef tea.

            There are days when I am not attacked by vomiting and times when the bed is warm and dry and the horseshoe water cushion buoys the sores on my behind.

 

            My thoughts no longer reach my feet or fingers. My arms and legs have come unlaced and I inhabit an ever-shrinking space behind my eyes. Words mostly fly above my head but sometimes they float downwards and land in my ears as the nurses lift and change me.

            “The sores are bad again.”

            “This one’s sloughing.”

            “I’ll order more of the linseed meal poultices.”

            “Not long now, poor man.”

 

            This is all the life I remember. This ward, this bed, these sheets, these thoughts. 

            I sometimes dream of a small cottage by the sea. A shoemaker lives there with three bechgyn bach, a wife, and two babis

            When I wake I listen for footsteps. (Bray 81-88)

 

 

There’s a lot to unpack in this story, and as often happens each time I’ve read it, I pick up something new. I’m not a medical doctor, of course, but I’m curious about David Lewis’s illness, which is apparently fatal. He has progressive tremors, muteness, and hair loss. Certainly the muteness and hair loss could be related to the tragedy of losing his sons and feeling helpless and overcome with grief. But I’m curious what those of you with more medical training think about his symptoms. I wondered about maybe multiple sclerosis? Parkinson’s? Of course, these are modern labels put on a patient from the early 20th century. The author doesn’t directly give us his diagnosis because David Lewis may not have known what it was, but she certainly gives us a glimpse into his experience. The writing is lovely.

 

The second story was originally written in Welsh by Manon Steffan Ros and translated into English by Rob Mimpriss. Her biography in this collection reads as follows (and I will use the English titles in lieu of the Welsh names this time): “Manon Steffan Ros was brought up in Rhiwlas, Bangor, north Wales. She won the Drama Medal twice at the National Eisteddfod (2005 and 2006) and her first novel, Like a Bird, was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award in 2010. She won the Tir na n-Og [teer na nog] prize for children’s literature twice, in 2010 and 2012, with Through the Waves and Prism. Her novel Blasu [bla-see], published by Y Lolfa to critical acclaim in 2012, won the 2013 Wales Book of the Year Welsh Fiction category, and was published in English translation as The Seasoning by Honno in 2015. Her third novel for adults, Llanw [lan-oo], was published by Y Lolfa in 2014.

 

This story is about a newly released patient from Denbigh who discovers she no longer fits in at home. This contains references to suicidal ideation and death by suicide. If you’d like to skip ahead, fast forward about seven minutes. This story is called “Going Back.”

 

            I am going back.

            A new day, and the pebbles under my boots are little blades the colour of bruises. Every step sounds like thousands of beautiful, fragile things breaking. Every step leads me back. 

            And I had believed so fervently that I could give up the clean smells of the hospital for the fragrance of supper on the stove. That the dust of the quarry would be cleaner than the white walls. That my tranquillity would be willing to yield to the nimble bodies and grasping hands of my children. That I would be better…different.

            I am homesick for Denbigh, just as I was homesick for Bethesda before. Still in pain, still longing for home. And home some insignificant place, on a train journey somewhere, I don’t know where. Somewhere between Dyffryn Ogwen [Def-rin Ogwen] and the asylum, perhaps; between leaving the asylum full of hopes, cured and made whole, and returning to the gaze of cold, curious faces fixed on me. As though they no longer know me, cannot remember who I am, although I have always been one of them. My smile washed away in a sweat from the heat of my shame.

            I can hear the train in the distance, jetting its hot fumes at the blue sky. It sounds as though it were breathing. Like something that lives to save people from the cruel places of their youth. It will take me today, if I hurry… It will take me back.

            The sound of the pebbles seems louder under my soles. With every step I am cracking the world.

            Last night, in the bowels of the night, with nothing to light the attic room but the delirious bloated moon, I watched the children sleeping. Everything was black and white in that light the colour of milk, and the two as peaceful as corpses under their bedclothes.

            I have done my very best. Worked hard to train and nurture my will: to change for the sake of my children. But my best is a weak and paltry thing, and I can see nothing in the beds besides the unsufferable weight of their bodies, a burden too heavy for me to bear. Swollen as flesh and blood and hair and nails from my bowels, my children are nothing to me.

            I cannot love them.

            I can see the steam from the train rising in the distance beyond the woods. Soon it will be here, and I will make my escape. In front of me, like a scar across the path, are the tracks, hard and firm amidst the tenderness of the woods. Stay. Stay. The engine will come to take me away: I am leaving again.

            Already I feel a kind of longing for the things I will leave behind. John, and the clouds in his eyes when he looks at me. The laughter of the children rising from the back yard, wild with joy. The breath of the Ogwen river from the shadows at the back of the street, wanting to whisper words that have no meaning.

            Myself. In the bedroom mirror, and my face pale like the moon last night, expressionless. The mirror will be empty now: revealing nothing but the neat outlines of the room, and somehow, it warms and comforts me to think of this. To think of all the empty places I will leave behind. An empty chair in the kitchen, an empty place in the bed, clothes hanging empty like spirits in the wardrobe. All will be cured and made whole. 

            The train.

            It glitters in the sun, and it rushes fiercely in my direction, the fire in its belly driving its scorching, impassioned bulk at my tranquillity.

            The tracks are so clean, so straight, so steadfast. Like the horizon. Like a boundary. One step brings me peace in the path of the train, and the pebbles under my soles sound like thousands of beautiful, fragile things breaking.

            I am going back. (Ros 103-106)

 

 

As heartbreaking as this story is, what I like about it is                                 how it shows that hospitals – in the early 1900s and today – sometimes serve as the closest place someone has to home. Most patients, I would say, don’t entirely identify with the woman in this story because they want to get out and return to some sense of normalcy. But what many do struggle with is that life has gone on without them, and they have to reintegrate into their families and back into their lives. It can be really challenging. I’ve heard of so many people – not just former psychiatric patients but former inmates, as well – who have reoffended or violated parole just to be sent back because the real world can be scary and overwhelming. And I think that’s what we see in this story: a mother who feels overwhelmed by motherhood, who no longer feels like she belongs anywhere, and a desperate search for peace. I’m curious to know more about the actual patient – the very real life this story was based on – but I think we get a good glimpse of it here.

 

If you are having any thoughts of suicide or feeling overwhelmed by life and your responsibilities, I encourage you to reach out for help. If you’re in the U.S., call the new mental health crisis line at 9-8-8. If you’re in Wales, dial NHS at 1-1-1 or at 0845 46 47. For all other international listeners, find your local helpline at the website findahelpline.com. Because your life matters.

 

The third story has more of a happy ending, but it also shows the many ways that mental illness affects a person’s life. This was written by Glenda Beagan. Her biography says she is a “native of Rhuddlan, where she still lives. As a mature student she gained a First Class Honours in English at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth [aber-rist-with], followed by an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Lancaster. She has published three volumes of short stories, including The Great Master of Ecstasy, and a collection of poems; her work has also been broadcast on radio, translated and widely anthologized. She has won prizes in literary competitions, including the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition. She was awarded the Trewithen Poetry Prize in 1999.

 

This story is called “Imagining Angels.”

 

            I lie awake and wait and listen.

            The shadowy dark at this end of the ward means I can’t see the clock on the wall. It doesn’t matter. I’m a bit like clockwork myself because I wake at the same time every night. Just ten minutes or so before three in the early hours I wake up bright and sharp. How do I know it’s just before three o’clock? Because I soon hear the three icy chimes of the clock in the tower.

            The clock rings out on the hour throughout the day’s twenty-four but usually the hospital’s too noisy for one to make it out. At night there may be crying and snoring along with the occasional scream, though not so much on this ward, thankfully, as it’s fairly quiet, but generally the night is blessed by a rich silence. And then the chimes come.

            For each chime I imagine there are angels hovering above the roof of the hospital. (Perhaps I should say asylum though for me the word no longer possesses the sense of refuge and safety it should.) At four o’clock I imagine four angels. And so it goes on until chimes are lost among the bustling sounds of morning. These angels are the most extraordinarily lovely creatures you could imagine. They wear long robes of white and gold brocade exquisitely fibrous like jewelled cobwebs. Their wings match: the same white and gold, the same detail. But please note that word: imagine. I am not deluded. I don’t think there are really angels up there above the roof. Though they help me and comfort me as if they were real.

            I told you it’s dark at the end of this ward. Not so the other. There sits the senior attendant, Ann, at a small round table with a large oil lamp. Beside her sits Lizzie, her junior, with a lantern. When she makes her round, checking every sleeping patient as she walks along the aisle between the beds, she tips the lantern towards each patient’s face. I pretend to sleep so it’s likely other patients might be doing just the same. I don’t want to be offered more mist chloral. I want to lie awake and think of my angels.

            One of the first things I learned on the ward was that the most distressed or disturbed patients invariably sleep near the doors where the attendants sit. On our ward the most sick patients are undoubtedly Emily and Esther May. I can see Emily clearly now. She is sitting up against her pillows clutching her baby. Does she really believe it’s a baby? It’s hard to say. In reality it’s not even a doll but a button boot wrapped in a crocheted shawl. Sometimes she holds it against her bare breast to “feed” it. A few weeks ago a new doctor came on to the ward and tried to make the staff remove the doll, saying they should not encourage Emily in her deluded state. The nurse on duty told him that would be cruel, that Emily’s “baby” was all she had. I was pleasantly surprised when the doctor accepted what she said.

            The gentle light from the oil lamp bathes Emily in half shadow. There is almost a Madonna and Child quality about her and she looks quite beautiful, the fine bone structure of her face shining through. In the cold light of day, however, you see how ravaged her face is, loose living and hard drinking have taken their toll. She is a sick woman with some sort of internal ulcers and she regularly spits blood and is wracked by pain. Emily is a walking tragedy. I suppose we all are really, though I find some of these women far more sympathetic than others. I much prefer Emily to Esther May.

            Strangely her name seems to enshrine her condition, which, from what I’ve learned, is utterly conflicted. Esther I see as a stern name, controlled and righteous. May is a filly name, coloured pink and sweetly scented. Both these names clamour for attention, though I have seen little indication of the latter. Apparently – and this I have gauged from gossip on the ward – Esther May is a farmer’s wife who has been known to go into town, frequenting public houses and dallying with young men. Many a husband would have lost patience and disowned her, but hers is remarkably forgiving, aware perhaps of the contrasts in her character, and realizing her mental illness moulds her erratic behaviour. I have seen the Esther side of her nature, and how strong her influence is on women who are easily swayed. She brings them together and calls upon them to beg the Lord’s forgiveness for their sins.

            This evangelizing happened in the refectory on one occasion. After Grace had been said she stood up and called upon everyone present to confess their sins. She then announced in a strong resonant voice that the Second Coming was imminent and that God had called upon her to spread the good news. Next she called the women from their seats and asked them to kneel on the floor. Some did. Some started to shout Hallelujah and sing psalms. I could see the staff were worried that things were getting out of control. At this point I would like to say I spoke out to distract attention from the growing sense of hysteria but if I am honest I think was more probably filled with a rare sense of mischief.

            Why has God chosen you to be his evangelist? I asked her.

            Esther May looked shocked. I am a sinner who has confessed her sins, she said, glowering at me.

            Are you the only one? I asked.

            If she could have summoned up a flash of lightning to strike me dead I’m sure she would have delighted in doing so. Fortunately our steps do not cross during the bulk of the day as she attends the sewing room and I work in the laundry. Staff were puzzled when I opted for this occupation, thinking my education would result in my choosing the more ladylike pursuit. Not so. My nature is of an impatient kind. I am irritated by the close concentration involved in sewing, the minutiae of embroidery being particularly irksome. The large physical demands of the laundry suit me well: the noise, the scent of soapy cleanliness, the crisp discipline of the press where sheets and pillow cases are rendered smooth and wrinkle free. My conscientious work has been praised and I can only hope that these comments have been recorded for the doctor to see. As soon as is possible I want to leave this place.

            But there is one nagging fear. When I became ill I was teaching in a school for young ladies near Basildon. It was my parents who ensured that I was brought back to North Wales where they could visit me. I realise I shall never teach again but I know they are ready to take me home. Of my crisis I remember very little, hardly anything in fact. This truly frightens me. What did I do? What did I say? Is this forgetfulness customary? Will I eventually remember and will the knowledge of what I said and did be more than I can bear?

            The icy chimes from the clock tower ring out their benison. There are five precious peals this time. Five angels appear above the roof in their glorious garb. I see that each face is identical, each body elongated, each wing a precious fabric of encrusted gems. Once I am able to leave this place, and that is my only wish, I shall draw my angels, their white and gold shining on black card like the night sky. I shall never forget them. They have kept me sane. (Beagan 62-68)

 

 

I love how this last story not only gives us a good idea of the narrator’s life and experience at the hospital, but also the symptoms of two other patients. This story seems to have the most hope of recovery, although it is worrisome that the narrator doesn’t know what happened that sent her to the hospital. This might make it more difficult in the future for her to recognize that her symptoms are increasing or worsening. Something that I am always working with my patients on is developing insight into their mental illness and the connection between their symptoms and their behavior. They’re expected to know their diagnoses, even if they don’t agree with them, along with what they have subjectively experienced and what others have objectively observed in them. They also need to know what triggers their symptoms. For instance, if they are someone who hears voices, is there something that makes the voices worse, like louder or more derogatory? Is there something or someone that worsens their anxiety? What may make them more likely to use substances? And then if their symptoms are triggered, what do those early warning signs look like for them specifically? By the way, this isn’t only helpful for patients at state hospitals; this is important for all of us.

 

So I often use myself as an example and choose something relatively benign. I want to give a real example without giving away too much personal information. So I’ve used the example of running late to work being a trigger for me. If I’m running late, that will trigger my anxiety. And my anxiety shows up in the early stages as me moving too quickly and knocking things over or not being able to remember where I put my keys (even though they’re always in the same place) and then if I don’t intervene, I might end up getting angry at myself and yelling out something like, “Why are you always late?” Sometimes it can set me up for a bad mood all morning.

 

All that to say that this last story of the angels really nicely connects to some of the work that I do on a daily basis. I help my patients learn what helps “keep them sane” to quote the narrator of the story. For her, it was imagining the angels in the garb when the clock strikes on the hour, but for others it’s learning to undo years of conditioning. For men in particular, that’s not so easy to do. Many of them have internalized the belief that if someone wrongs them, they have to settle the score, one way or another. Or they have to appear tough and scary in order to get respect. So it takes time and a whole lotta practice.

 

I think that’s where I’ll end this episode today. Again, each of these stories comes from the book Dangerous Asylums, edited by Rob Mimpriss – M – I – M – P – R – I – S – S. The book as a whole has eight different stories. I read three of them today, and I plan to read one that on the longer side next week. So if you enjoyed these, and I hope you did, I encourage you to find the book. It’s about 10 bucks on Amazon right now, and the stories are so moving and, of course, based on real patients who lived at the hospital in Denbigh.

 

Last item of business: I am working on building a Beacon page, which will be one place where you’ll be able to find my Buzzsprout page, my YouTube page (that I’m hoping to expand), the Instagram page, my email, a place to sign up for a newsletter, and whatever else I figure out how to add on there. Hopefully, it will help you find whatever you need to connect to the show and stay in touch. So once that’s up and running, I’ll add it to the Facebook group and Instagram page and probably to the show notes, too, just to make sure you can find it wherever you listen!

 

As always, please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you’re listening right now. That’s what Brittany Deanna did recently by leaving a very lovely review on Apple Podcasts – thank you so much! And Molly aka Lollipop, thank you for your review, too. That means a lot to me. You too can get a shout-out by posting a review on Apple Podcasts or emailing me and letting me know where else you’ve submitted a review.

 

And remember: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” Until next time…

 

 

 

Mimpriss, Rob, ed. Dangerous Asylums. Bangor: North Wales Mental Health Research Project, 2016.

Find it on Amazon: https://a.co/d/gOotuX4

 

 

 

Beagan, Glenda. “Imagining Angels.” Dangerous Asylums. Ed. Rob Mimpriss. Bangor: North Wales Mental Health Research Project, 2016. 62-68.

 

Bray, Carys. “The Elves and the Shoemaker.” Dangerous Asylums. Ed. Rob Mimpriss. Bangor: North Wales Mental Health Research Project, 2016. 81-88.

 

Ros, Manon Steffan. “Going Back.” Dangerous Asylums. Ed. Rob Mimpriss. Bangor: North Wales Mental Health Research Project, 2016. 103-106.

(Cont.) Ep. 33: The People of Denbigh Asylum, Part 1
(Cont.) Ep. 33: The People of Denbigh Asylum, Part 1

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