Did anyone watch Secrets from the Asylum last night?

[Rafanderpants]

ITV.

Shocking stories. Al Murray and Ray Winston on verge of tears, Clare Sweeney all emotional- and who could blame them?

Relative of Clares classed as a 'lunatic' when he had dementia.

child who died of syphilis-what a horrible disturbing picture.

I did. I'd like to find out more about a great-aunt who I think spent most of her life in one.

The programme made me wonder about syphilis wrt my great-grandfather for various reasons.

It's all just so terribly, terribly tragic.

Its me, the OP, just namechanged for tennis/doctorwho!

yes I have mental illness in my family tree and I have a form of bipolar.
DC and I are disabled and just thinking if we'd been around back then we'd have been put into an asylum.

wow, Brucie that's sad about your Great-Aunt.

Yy my DS is severely disabled. it strikes sun a chord doesn't it?

such

second part tonight.

Al Murray on again.

was talking to someone about all this today and I started crying at the unfairness of it all.

still going on today in many many ways.

I watched last night and was in tears. I had severe pnd with dc3 and it is upsetting to think how I would have been treated. Ray winstones relative was so lucky in the end!

Same here, sobbing away. AL 'hard man' Murray choked up, Chris Biggins, all of them.

shocking stuff. did not know they still elecrecute people!

Chris Biggins grandfather and his haunting frightened eyes in the photo was so distressing.

when I think that me and DC could be there if we were around then............

Ellen did you see 1st part last week? Brucie did you watch?

also didn't know imperial war museum used to be bethlem hospital.
and I thought Winston Churchilll was a good guy?

Yes watched both as was interested in this subject but also I live close to Lincoln and have heard very little about the asylum there so want to research that. It is being converted to flats at the moment but is apparently haunted and very spooky

Lesley Joseph's story of her great aunt with schizophrenia made me cry. My ex's mother (who I loved dearly and was the grandmother of my DC) was schizophrenic and spent the majority of her adult life in and out of mental hospitals. She died just after the millennium in one of the last old mental hospitals/asylums (now luxury apartments and houses). I remember visiting her on many different occasions in hospitals/asylums across the south of England. She moved several times but always ended up back in a mental hospital because she couldn't cope outside of hospital.

I can totally understand Lesley Joseph questioning if her great-aunt had any experiences of happiness. My ex mil did have some extreme happiness - especially when my DC were born. I like to think we made her happy during some of her short tragic life. This section of the programme brought back so many memories of mil and this terrible illness.

Flamin I am glad that you have experience of someone having happy periods in their life as that is something I had not considered before. I just assumed that having any involvement with an asylum would sentence that person to misery x

Have this recorded, must watch. Ellenjames, that's a coincidence. My great aunt was in St John's hospital/Bracebridge in Lincoln.

I'd love to hear about your research.

ellenjames - It was very difficult and is very emotional for me to recall those times. She couldn't cope in the community - over time she lived with several different family members (inc living in the same street as us - we were less than a minute walk away from her). Being in the community were by far her happiest times - but she really and truly wasn't able to cope. The only time she coped (and to be honest, we all coped) was when she was in hospital. Her illness put a tremendous strain on my ex - an only child - and our own children were mere babies/very young when it all came to a head when she had to be sectioned yet again. Her illness, and his stress because of it, certainly contributed to the end of our marriage (obviously not the only factor but the pressure on him was intense). So yes, I'd like to think that she did have happy moments (as I said before, I loved her dearly) but sadly they were probably more often when she was in the community. The mental hospitals merely contained her.

Terrible terrible illness. It tore first her marriage, and then my marriage, apart.

I watched both yesterday-unbelievable that it was hardly any time ago at all. Shocking.