Mental Illness In Silver Water

Mental illness is a taboo concept in society that no one is truly sure how to properly cure for the ill or understand how their mind is working. Because of this major grey area, people are destroying themselves and their families through all the misunderstood suffering. In Amy Bloom’s short story “Silver Water”, she uses Rose to show that the taboo idea of mental illness can cause self and family destruction due to society not knowing how to or wanting to confront the illness.
Rose has her first breakdown when she is 15 years old and proceeds to run off into the woods by herself. Rose’s mother hears about the incident and states to her husband, “What’s there to say? David, she’s going crazy. She doesn’t need a heart-to-heart talk with Mom, she needs a hospital” (1). Rose’s mother is already labeling her daughter as crazy and says that she doesn’t need the love of a mother but to be put in a hospital, and this is the automatic incorrect response to mental illness. Most people believe that putting the affected person in a hospital and letting someone else deal with them is the answer but this seems to be the issue, as shown in this short story.
Later in the story, the whole family is sitting with the therapist and trying to have a session for Rose.
The family has gone through many therapists but none of them seem to try hard enough and they can not understand Rose. Showing the difficulty of trying to find someone to work with Rose, the narrator states, “After fourteen minutes, Mr. Walker decided that our time was up and walked out…”(2). People are not understanding Rose and her specific needs so they walk away from her, and this can be carried out into the real world. Too many people are walking away from people affected by a mental illness who need the help of professionals to end their destruction on their self and their families. Having a constant support system could be one way to start helping these patients, and Rose could've really used
one.
Towards the end of the story, Rose begins to have a dangerous temper tantrum as soon as her sister returns home. The scene is saddening for everyone in the family and her sister describes it, “She knelt down and began banging her head on the kitchen floor with rhythmic intensity, throwing all her weight behind each attack” (4). Rose is experiencing self-destruction and it is leading her to such extremes that may lead her to committing suicide. If people start being more aware of signs and the needs of victims, then maybe there will be lives that can be saved by properly treating each individual specifically to how that person will benefit.
There are many people suffering everyday from mental illness who need a constant support system because their family and self-worth have slowly deteriorated during the long journey of their life. If people become more aware of mental illnesses and start to care for others then lives will be saved, and many more people will get to stay with their family instead of being institutionalized and lead happy lives.