The Terror of the Victorian Insane Asylum

Life was anything but good for a woman during the Victorian era. Women had more to fear from the men of that time than they had to fear from vampires, werewolves, zombies, or any other supernatural creature that might be wandering around. It became even worse if you were deemed to be mentally challenged or insane. That would earn you admittance to a mental hospital, otherwise known as an insane asylum.

Down through history, women have always seemed to be thought of as the weaker sex physically and mentally. Displaying strong emotions—passion, grief, jealousy, etc.—was said to be a sign of mental illness. Of course, the ones who usually displayed such strong emotions were female. If I had lived during those times, the chances of me being locked away in one of these places would have been about a hundred percent. Then they would have thrown the key away.

Say you were bored with your marriage and indulged yourself with an extramarital fling. If discovered, you would be declared insane and locked up.

Is too much stress hitting you from every area of your life? Does this lead to an emotional breakdown? Again, you would be declared insane and admitted to an asylum. For this reason, most women attempted to suppress their true feelings.  I certainly can’t blame them for doing so.

Postpartum depression?  Well, you can pretty much guess where you would end up. It made no difference that you had recently given birth.

Physicians of the Victorian time focused way too much on a woman’s sexuality. Women were not supposed to like sex that much, so if you did, that was considered to be dangerous. Cold showers, cold baths, douches, and other applications of cold to the uterus were used to treat this dangerous behavior. Going through menopause?  You would have the pleasure of leeches being attached to your pubic area.

Conditions in asylums before 1850 were just horrible. Most “patients” were treated like animals. Their “rooms” would often be cages with no beds, so they would have to sleep in the dirt or on the stone floors. If they were lucky, they would have a pile of hay to curl up on. No clothing was given to them to wear, and only small amounts of food, often unclean, were offered to them. Cleanliness? The “caretakers” of these patients did nothing to ensure clean conditions for them.  They even thought that the “mentally insane” deserved to live in such squalor.

Often, the doctors would try to “reset” the afflicted woman’s brain. How was this done? The woman was strapped in the Rotary Chair. To me, this sounds like a ride at a carnival, one that is guaranteed to make you sick to your stomach. But this was definitely not a carnival ride. The patient was strapped in the suspended chair, which was then spun round and round. I’m sure the patient became scared and nauseous, but I highly doubt the brain was “reset”.

The insane were thought to be evil and morally sick. Straightjackets and physical restraints were used to keep them from escaping. At times, they were even chained to the walls. If one wasn’t insane when first locked up, insanity definitely could happen during time spent at one of these facilities.  Men were only committed to such facilities only if they had seizures or bouts of rage.

Not until it was discovered that mental illness was a sickness of the brain and not the soul did the treatment of the insane improve.

I’m just glad I didn’t live during the Victorian times.  Most of my life would probably have spent inside one of these horrid asylums.

Writing Prompts
Your character could be either a patient in a Victorian insane asylum.

Why was this person admitted?

How is this person treated?

Does she make any friends?

Does she have any family, and if she does, do any of them come to visit her?

What treatments does she endure?

Is she ever released or does she die while in the asylum?

Now tell this character’s story through her eyes.

Write this story in two more ways. Write it from the viewpoint of her caretaker and then write it from the viewpoint of her doctor.