In the Asylum

[Kire]

In the Asylum
Theodore Dalrymple

For all who worked in them, the asylums provided a genuine sense of community. Indeed, by the time of their closure, they were the only real communities for miles around, the surrounding society having been smashed into atoms. They held annual cricket matches and other sporting contests on their spacious lawns, and hosted summer and Christmas balls. The staff were often second- or third-generation employees, and the institution was central to their lives.

The patients benefited from the stability; the asylum was a little world in which they could behave as strangely as they pleased without anyone caring too much. They were free of the mockery and disdain with which people elsewhere would greet their strange demeanor, gestures, and ideas: for in the asylum, the strange was normal. Within its bounds, there was no stigma.

But of course, there was a very dark side as well.

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