What do you do if you are placed in a mental hospital for something that isn't really a mental illness? This is what happened
to Daphne Scholinski. At fifteen she was branded with the label of Gender Identity Disorder. Her young life was spent in a series of mental institutions where the doctors and staff had no idea what her real problems were. Daphne wasn't quite sure who she was With two dysfunctional parents who had issues of their own she and her sister were pulled between two worlds.
The doctors who were trying to treat Daphne in the several institutions she was committed to thought that her problem was that she was confused about her gender. As a child and a
young woman she had appeared to be male to others. She dressed in clothing that could have been worn by either gender and she simply had a male sort of appearance. In the hospitals her
therapist recommended that she wear a dress and some make-up and try to be what society considered more feminine. Daphne balked at all this advice but actually did try it for awhile finding it didn't fit her at all. She merely went along with the plan to appease her therapists.
Being in Michael Reese Hospital became like home. She developed a rapport with the other patients, like the lovable Schizophrenic known to all as Jesus and various and sundry individuals who were there for being disturbed. She found that she became like a therapist or counselor to those more messed up than herself. She wanted so badly to be adopted by the kind Nurse Kay. But each time she suggested it Kay backed off. Daphne found herself shifted from one parent to the other and one institution to the other over an entire period of her teenage life. Never allowed the same experiences as other people her age she became even more depressed and despondent. Would anyone ever understand her or nurture her?
Daphne's story reads like an
interesting novel but is the true experience of a distraught and abused young person. The value of this tale is that it helps the reader to see how things can go very wrong. It helps to show that so-called experts donot have all the answers and that one must look deeper in all circumstances. This is an interesting work for anyone but I would especially recommend it for anyone going into the psychiatric field as a profession.
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