To be shocked at the appalling treatment of Rosemary Kennedy?

[IfyouseeRitaMoreno]

And even more shocked that the Kennedys never suffered the consequences for what they did to her (well the father to be more precise).

I’ve just found out about her story and can’t stop being horrified. Sister to JFK, she had minor developmental issues, was considered mentally deficient because she had sexual liaisons (the horror!) as a teenager.

Her father, Joe Kennedy, took her without the consent of either her or her mother, for a secret lobotomy with a physician Dr James Watts. It left her unable to walk or speak. It gets worse...

So then they dump her in various institutions and barely visit her for 20 years. Her siblings tried to make up for it in some way (JFK passed a law to help mental illness and her sister introduced the Special Olympics) but her parents just abandoned her and NOTHING happened to the physicians Watts and Freedman who did this to her knowing the risks. Except of course that they went on to have illustrious successful careers.

I also read that 80% of lobotomies were performed on women which shocks me even more. Why?

Will someone else be shocked and horrified with me? I guess I’m just that they could do this to their daughter, cover it up, and face no reprisals.

[post edited by MNHQ to remove offensive language]

A LOT of the Males in that family are utter bastards

I think nothing of the godawful Kennedy Clan .

are and were *

I strongly believe DH's mother had ASD. I have it, so does he but undx. She was institutionalised in the 40s for being 'slow' and promiscuous, having had 2 children as a young teenager. One was fathered by someone in a position of trust yet she was blamed and put in an asylum.

That's what happened to autistics back then and it's horrifying.

Yes possibly @Genevoeva i watched a documentry about him though he and his Nanny lived in a cottage away from his parents and siblings but i suppose its what people did , many people were told to forget abour their disabled children .

Ugh. Can people try not to use the r word please?

I agree this horrible treatment is still going on. I was treated really badly by the nhs. I’m chronically ill and disabled. Nothing on my notes as I ended up getting a private diagnosis and have chosen to withhold it. I have ME/CFS and fibromyalgia. Considered by many to be psychosomatic.

If one day there is a breakthrough, this is the time to say something. And I know bio markers have now been found proving this to be physical. But those are as yet studies and not yet widely accepted. I am nhs diagnosed with chronic pain - the consultant and head of pain management doesn’t believe fibro exists so I wasn’t diagnosed.

I thougjt Getaldine had used it because thats what Rose had bern described as ?

Geraldine*

Yes, that was her diagnosis. Sorry if the word offends, but I didn’t want to change it and give an distorted image of her problems.

The UK never banned lobotomies.
20,000 people operated on (surprise here) mainly women (more than 3:2).
Lena Zaveroni the singer had the operation in 1999 and died shortly afterwards, she had eating disorders.
2005-2007 in Wales 5 operations
2010 Wales one operation
Bristol 2010 one operation
I feel too that women who are not ‘neurotypical ‘seem to get medicalised into experimental surgeries much more than men.

Geraldine170
Oh thank goodness -you have saved me posting a similar comment.
For all ‘ Old Joes’ faults he was a very loving, hands on father for the time ( for a man in his position).
Rosemary was kept with the family (until the disastrous lobotomy) at a time when most wealthy families would have sent her to an institution when she was very young.
The treatment was pioneering and Joe really believed that it would work. Rosemary had been getting violent towards her family and they were extremely worried for her safety and the safety of others - she was a tall strong woman.
Joe was horrified when the lobotomy failed and I’m assuming his guilt and shame meant he told his family to stay away from rosemary.

We have to take into account it was a very different time then and not judge by today’s standards.

Good came out of it - Eunice Kennedy Schriver did amazing things for people with disabilities and visited Rosemary often. The Kennedy name attached to helping disabled people helped to break down barriers - you cannot minimise the impact the Kennedy name had in America.

Re Kathleen Kennedy - she was Killed in 1948 in a plane crash with Peter Fitzwilliam who was a Protestant she intended to marry. Her mother was a religious maniac frankly and refused to attend the funeral or even mention Kathleen . Her father DID go to her funeral. Kathleen is buried on the Catsworth estate and the last Duchess ( Deborah ‘ Debo’ Mitford) tended her grave . They loved Kathleen and felt she had come home.

Re Prince John- he would not have been sent to boarding school - royal children weren’t at this point. None of his 4 brothers were. The first main royal to go to school was Prince Charles going to Gordonstone his father’s old alma mater.
Prince John was brought up with his family until his eoeleptic fits became so frequent it was decided the hustle , bustle and movement of royal life was too much for him. Hevlived out his final years at Wood farm on the Sandringham estate ( Prince Philip spends most of his time here now) until a huge seizure killed him when he was just 13. His devoted nanny was with him 24bhours a day. Remember - there was no real treatment for epilepsy then. It was often a killer.

Luckily medicine and attitudes has changed girctge better since the 1940s, but still a way to go.

Changed for the better

This is horrifying

I knew vaguely about her having a lobotomy but never read all the details

That's absolutely awful...however, it somehow doesn't surprise me- the Kennedy family and the historical treatment of mental health issues in women generally.

Sadly things haven’t improved as much as people like to think. I’m an autistic woman in my 20s. As an undiagnosed teenager (in the 2010s) I endured some very long, traumatic forced admissions to psychiatric institutions under extremely dubious diagnoses of mental illnesses which I did not have (I disputed these, of course, but the “professionals” were too arrogant and indifferent to care). I’m doing my best now but the ordeal kind of destroyed me.

Upon the death of my grandmother we discovered she had a sister, who was in a home since her childhood, her parents had put her in there. About 60plus years. None of my gm children even knew she existed. It was horrible when it all came out....

It was explained away somewhat with the usual excuses.... That's the way it was in those days... Family couldn't handle the shame!??!?
Just appalling, still makes me angry today, the poor girl

I read an article a while ago - and can't now find it - making the point that, in the very high-achieving Kennedy family, a child with what we might consider mild learning disabilities would have stood out much more than in the general population. Plenty of people might be two years behind their peers aged 16 or so - it's not actually an enormous level of impairment! Indeed, there are plenty of people who never really manage to learn quite basic 'academic' skills such as reading, but who live perfectly happy lives. For goodness' sake, I know some.

[Edited by MNHQ to remove offensive language]

Agree with Anouk - women, once diagnosed with BPD can't win. It is shameful how they are treated. Men get to have CTPSD, women get told their personality is "disordered". It is also very hard, if not impossible, to have the diagnosis removed. And any behaviours / incidents following diagnosis can be used to support the diagnosis. It's really Kafkaesque!!

@AnoukSpirit oh yes, absolutely, see the awful stuff that gets spouted on here about women as soon as they’re identified as having Borderline Personality Disorder.

It’s terrifying.

Any whiff of that diagnosis and a women is damned to hell.

It wasn't that long ago in the UK that women who had illegitimate children were locked away in mental hospitals. Apparently having sex before marriage was a sign of moral incapacity, which was seen as a mental illness. Women have always been vulnerable to being abused through drug treatment, surgery or simply being being locked away, and incarcerated because of perceived poor mental health issues.

Wasn't it the queen mother who was found to know about her female cousins who were locked in a state funded mental hospital for decades because the family were ashamed of them, the women kept saying they had "connections" but no one believed them and since they never had any visitors there was no one else to ask. When the story came out they were moved somewhere a lot kinder and gentler, because there wasn't a mental health issue, they were just a bit slow.

Rose visited after Joe died. And Rosemary visited her at home too.