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]

Hi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_psychosurgery_in_the_United_Kingdom

The Kennedy family did pay for all the wrongs they've done. JFK and senator Bob Kennedy were both assassinated at the age of 46 and 43 respectively. John Kennedy Junior died in a plane crash at 29. Not judicial repercussions but karma certainly caught up with the clan.

I also googled snowbear's singer and came up with this article from 1999

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/oct/05/healthandwellbeing.health3

It covers lobotomy and also says this

"You might think, almost 25 years later and in the age of super-smart drugs, that such procedures had long been consigned to the history books, but you'd be wrong. Last week it was revealed that British doctors supervise 1,300 ECT treatments each week. Most of these patients are women and many are treated without their consent."

Essentially this comes back to a feminist statement that many find difficult to swallow

That women are not really considered to be full human beings, still, are not as valuable as men, are not considered capabable of making decisions for themselves.

The idea that women are worth more that many angry men claim, is wonky. We are not treated as reliable witnesses to our own lives, when it comes to many things, including illness.

I know a woman who died recently as her cancer was diagnosed as mental health problems by the NHS, it was only when she went to a different country to be with family that her cancer was diagnosed, she died a few weeks later it was too late.

Loads of evidence that men's complaints of health are taken seriously, their assessment of pain, that something is wrong. Women are too often dismissed altogether or deemed mad. Here in 2018.

With ECT I should say that I know someone who works in this area and while I can't comment on consent, the patients are anaesthetised for the procedure, they dont' electrocute them while they're awake like in one flew over the cuckoos nest.

The ECT given with out consent will have been done undrr the mental health act and the person will have been assed as not being able to give consent to teatment it isnt a decision tjat is taken lightly at all , i have seen ECT have an amazing affect on some people its not a not a barnaric practice

Barbaric

I cant comment on wether it was mainly wpmen or not as i have nursed both but i suppose you would have to tske evrrythinh into account such as how well women respond to other forms of treatment etc?

The person I know says that it seems to work but no-one really knows why (ECT).

That aside

Fact is that women are frequently diagnosed with mental health problems when they are physically ill, their symptoms are dismissed as imaginary, and also they have mental health problems as a result of their situations / past but this is never explored, instead they're dismissed as just unstable / mad.

My friend says that quite a few of the patients she's not surprised they're depressed based on how horrible their partners seem to be and thinking back the examples she gave (not identifying obv) were women with vile husbands.

Ditto girls who are "off the rails" unstable etc and even to the point of being institutionalised, often sexual abuse is at the heart of it, but this is never acknowledged. Just oh well teenage girls often go mad for no reason don't they - just what they're like.

We've come a long way but I still hear psychiatrists using words like histrionic instead of traumatised for women, never men. ECT still happens with very limited understanding of the neurological impact and long term problems with memory, reasoning, planning and initiation are common.

My mad great aunt used to have ECT therapy. I remember her crying in fear.

I am still reeling from the Eva Peron facts.

That's not covered in Evita is it?

Well we arecoming at it from different perspectives i suppose i worked in acute psychiatry for years i worked with people that had severe mental illnesses schizophrenia, schizo affective disorers severe mood disorders etc , ECT wsent given on a whim it was usually after many tratments had failed, im tslking about people who are so depressed that they cant get out of bed, eat , wash and dress themselvez etc , regarding physical health problems being put down to mental health issues yes i have seen that haplen i have also seen people transfserrd3 from mental health wards onto a medica/suegical ward for a physocal health issue and being declared medically fit long brfore they should have done because they were admitted from the mental health wards

Yes I know.

I am very close to the woman who worked in this area, she's an anaesthetist.

No-one is saying you are doing anything wrong.

This is about the wider picture of how women are viewed in society, how our understandable distress is put down to us being unstable. There are loads of stats abtut how men get eg investigations for pain much quicker than women.

The fact is that women are still seen as poor witnesses and liable to go bonkers at the drop of a hat (histrionic - as PP mentions, neurotic as well is still in use).

@LRDtheFeministDragon in the OP it was clear from the use of inverted commas that it was quoting a historical diagnosis. That's fine. In subsequent posts that wasn't the case at all, as if by one use of the word made it ok to use over and over. I see this as a reason why people read it and decide it's fine to use in any context. Once Rosemary's diagnosis was established in the OP there was no need to use it further, indeed 'Rosemary's diagnosis' or 'women given a diagnosis like Rosemary's was sufficient. There was absolutely no need to keep using the word. Would it have been ok to repeatedly use the p or n word in the spirit of discussion? I don't think so.

It definitely wasn't an attempt to derail, indeed in my post I have detailed recent family history reflecting the way women were institutionalised on moral grounds when actually the man taking advantage of a vulnerable young teen faced zero consequences. I'm horrified about what happened to my MIL just for being an autistic woman in the 40s and as an autistic woman myself and mother of an autistic daughter I'm relieved this isn't done routinely now, although there are still abuses of mentally ill women, autistic women and women with learning disabilities. I'm similarly horrified at what happened to Rosemary as looking through the lens of today it was mutilation for no discernible benefit.

I hope this clarifies my position.

I also know people who have and continue to have ECT as they consider it to be beneficial. I'm torn as I believe if someone gives consent for the treatment as they believe it is therapeutic that is their right, but by the very nature of mental illness obtaining consent might not always be possible.

Lobotomy is a completely different thing, though.

Oh and I know all about 'neurotic' as a diagnosis. When PND caused what I now know to be an extended autistic burnout after I had DS2 a psychiatrist called me neurotic. That was only 13 years ago.

@IfyouseeRitaMoreno just read about it ... poor poor woman !! What a horrific life ! I'm so glad times have changed and people are more educated about mental health ! Going off topic a bit I wonder if In a few hundred years radiotherapy and chemotherapy will be considered in humane too ....

Regarding mental healrh treatment and consent as you say Bishop obtaining consent when somone is so mentally unwell can often be difficult , this is why we have a mental health act people are brougjt into hospitals and medication against their will it is usually in the patients best interest but it doesnt always seem that way to patients at the time the patients im talking about are very unwell and not able ro make decision s about their own treatment

"You still see it with a lot of men framing exes as "mad" to all and sundry" exactly! I'm on a thread about child maintenance at the moment where a 2nd wife is claiming the ex is a drug addict yet the child has £200 shoes!

"That women are not really considered to be full human beings, still, are not as valuable as men, are not considered capabable of making decisions for themselves." Sadly true! And being reinforced by certain activists purportedly coming from other oppressed groups (I'm sure you can guess to what I'm referring - not convinced myself! And neither are many others).

AamdC unless you personally have experienced ect I don't think you're in a position to say if it's barbaric or not. Neither am I as it happens - but I believe that assessment should be left to those who've received it.

"the patients im talking about are very unwell and not able ro make decision s about their own treatment" do you not see the irony in that statement given the topic under discussion? Who decides this? Are women more likely to have this decision made about them than men? What is being done to change hcp perceptions of the mentally ill?

Personally I'm STILL banging my head against a brick wall EVERY time I get a new hcp on my team about the FACT that cbt doesn't work for me - it actually makes me worse! Several times I've either had it directly said to me that I'm wrong! Or discovered that it's been written in my notes that I "refused to engage" which ALSO wasn't true! Pisses me off! I'm on other chat boards for mh and specifically OCD and certainly OCD sufferers - there's quite a few of us have found it made us WORSE yet bloody NICE and hcps are not officially recognising this and it's STILL the recommended therapy for OCD! Infuriating!

People can be coerced into giving consent to treatment too. In my PICU days I heard lots of patients being told agreeing to treatment was what was best; "if you don't have ECT you're never going to get better as you're not responding to any meds or psychological therapy and then what will you do/you can't live on the ward".

@Graphista - "refused to engage" Because you have awareness of the limitations of the treatment for yourself. Can't imagine how that felt.

What i meant by barbaric was that people have all kinds of ideas about what ECT involves and it is not ummodified anymore anyway imnot getting into argument but i have seen it work wonders when nothing else did

Haireverywhere - yep! And then if you react with anger or frustration that's seen as proof that you're being "hysterical" and can't be relied upon to intelligently explain what the problem is.

I understand there are misunderstandings about how ect is performed - that doesn't detract from the fact that it's still a VERY blunt instrument, as for "seen" it work, has it occurred to you some patients may fake being better in order to avoid further treatment? Hardly unheard of.

I like my current cpn she's better than most, but I've still recently experienced her doing something I told her would be an issue. I'm on relatively new (to me) meds and I had explained previously that something I've found problematic is hcp's assuming I'm "better" because I "seem" better - doing more, less tearful, less agitated - but that inside I'm still feeling the same anxiety, still dealing with the same intrusive thoughts, still assessing every action I or those around me make etc this has led in the past to my being "discharged" from the Cmht.

Then even when I continue taking meds, using techniques to supposedly help, I end up without the support from them sliding back into doing less etc

Basically I strongly felt the support was being withdrawn far too soon and without acknowledging what I was saying about still needing that support.

I'd discussed this with her prior to starting the meds and she assured me that wouldn't be happening this time...then she made some comments that made it clear she was thinking that way. Thankfully when I raised it with her she apologised and acknowledged that we need to break the cycle of my getting treatment, hcps thinking I'm doing well enough to manage alone (I have no other support apart from dd and it's not fair to put it all on a 17 yr old!), discharging me, I have stressors occurring (not necessarily OCD stuff but other stress makes the OCD worse), become ill again, gp refers to Cmht, meds and treatment 'reviewed' and the whole thing starts all over again!

As i said im.not getting into an argument we all have our own experiences and come frim different perspectives

Mandala that is a horrific attitude. Calling the murder of her brothers, who had no hand in her treatment and the death of her nephew- who is even less connected - as karma, is gross.
You should be ashamed.

Yes, her treatment was barbaric. Joe Kennedy was a cunt.