Personal Experience: The Insane Asylum Nurse

Hayley Thompson
Mrs. Elliott
American Literature 2
April 5, 2014
The Insane Asylum Nurse Looking back on the events of my work, I feel regretful. Things have changed very much since the 1920s. They called us nuns and sisters, but we were not Godly. When I became a sister at age 21 and started working at the giant castle known as the Winchester Mental Asylum, I knew it would be hard work. I also knew that God had called me to the work, but it was nothing like normal Christians. They were called to help the people in need, and the patients in the asylum were not seen as people. They needed to be housed, and we believed God called us to contain and hide away the mental illnesses. The rooms and cells were overcrowded and we did not have
I woke up in a long white nightgown next to a hundred other nuns in beds lined across a long room. I changed into my habit, a tunic held at the waist by a belt. Then, pulling my scapula and veil over my head, I stepped out the door and through the metal bars into the patient’s asylum. Mass was held at this time in the back chapel by Father Francis, also the doctor, a huge grey man with the knowledge of all the creative ways he could punish the patients and help community. Patients were frightened by him, and rumors of terrible torture and practices danced around the walls. After mass,my job was to pass out pills in tiny paper cups and make sure they were swallowed. When they refused, they were restrained. The patients wandered around one big room with music playing, but it was drowned out by the frustrated groans of people unable to communicate. Some of them cried and told us over and over that they didn’t belong here, but if society didn’t accept them than they had to be here. After everyone got the medication, we served stale bread and cold coffee for breakfast. Morning time was when most bad things happened because this is when the patients were released from the rooms for the first time since the night
Afterward, the little clothes owned were taken and washed while the patients went back into the sitting room. They were not allowed outside because it was unnecessary. I watched and made sure no one escaped while guards secretly searched the rooms for anything dangerous.Fights were common but rarely physical and never stopped. This continued until the community came back together at dinner. Dinner was cold tea and leftovers served at six and the patients were to return to their straw beds directly afterward for lights out. If they didn’t sleep, we were to sedate them. They were expected to do simple things such as eat and sleep and the rest was up to them and not the nurses and