Above image: Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Morris Plains, NJ, demolished 2015 Something I decided to add to the final draft of Shores of Chaos: Shipwrecked was the 19th century insane asylum. For most of us when we think of the typical Victorian or Gilded Age insane asylum, we think of grim, filthy places where… Continue reading The Evolution of the American Insane Asylum
One of my goals with my writing is to help those suffering from mental illness. In Shores of Chaos: Shipwrecked I tackled postpartum depression (PPD). In my first draft of this story, I unfortunately fell into the trap of making a villain out of my character, Frances Ashman, who is suffering from this illness. For… Continue reading Postpartum Depression in the 19th Century
Mental illness is a theme that plays heavily in my novel Wanderer Among Shadows, a theme that was not present in the original version of the story. However, after suffering from depression, I figured that if there was ever a story where a character would suffer from mental illness, it would be this one. One… Continue reading How Mental Illness Influenced My Novel
*Cover image: Detail from T. H. Matteson's "The Trial of George Jacobs, Austust 5th, 1692'' In my previous blog post, Interesting Things I Learned about the Salem Witch Trials and the Puritans, I briefly discussed how 17th century Puritans were more supportive and tolerant of the mentally ill than later generations. In this post, I… Continue reading The Puritans and Mental Illness
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