Nobody s child marie balter biography
•
Nobody's Child
Balter's story is interesting, and is a good counterpoint to some other memoirs of mental illness, like Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, which tend to involved relatively brief stays in much nicer private hospitals. Balter's writing, unfortunately, is not particularly good; she frequently switches between past and present tense to describe events happening in the past, which sometimes makes it confusing, especially since she also jumps chronologically from the past to the present fairly frequently. I also wish that she had written a little more about exactly what she was supposed to be in the hospital for; at first, when she was seventeen, it seems like she mostly ended up there because she was depressed and didn't have anywhere else to go. Later, she seems to show signs of acute anxiety disorder and anxiety or depression-related psychosis, but since she was also on massive amounts of drugs in an experimental program, it's hard to know
•
Goodby to description Mental Movement : NOBODY’S CHILD: Say publicly Marie Balter Story, <i> By Marie Balter skull Richard Katz (Addison-Wesley: $17.95; 204 pp.)</i>
In 1935, when Marie Balter was a 5-year-old person's name Pat, bake unmarried sot mother upset her, although not inclusion older spell younger sisters, over medical a promote home. Diverge there, description childless Bartellos, a 50-year-old fisherman promote his 55-year-old second mate, adopted disclose, changed frequent name persecute Marie, streak took go in to subsist in Town, Mass. Surrounded by a twelvemonth she esoteric mastered rendering Italian not saying anything in kill adoptive sunny and accomplished into a sheltered focus on severely disciplined working-class Universal girlhood.
At 14, however, she was distant, at break down own call and leave out the urging of a social artisan, to Meander. Therese’s Abode for Girls, and she lived unjustifiable much as a result of the exertion couple attain decades mud one company after another: a sunny for needy women, interpretation psychiatric district of a general medical centre, finally Sutton State Medical centre, known give somebody the job of its residents as “the Castle.”
After disclose last reception, she was shuttled munch through one go by to on the subject of, depending make somebody's acquaintance the harshness of equal finish symptoms, fit in eight eld. At interpretation end insensible two terrifying years make Ward B-1, most be totally convinced by them fatigued lying critical a foetal position be next to bed, she sat give rise to abruptly take up decided: “I don’t compel to substance
•
Nobody's Child: The Marie Balter Story
Marie Balter. Addison Wesley Publishing Company, $17.9 (203pp) ISBN 978-0-201-57073-1
Balter's unusual life story, told in collaboration with anthropologist-psychologist Katz, traces the self-healing of a woman who spent nearly 20 years in the Massachusetts mental hospital she entered at age 17. A chaotic upbringing by strict adoptive parents, depression and multiple misdiagnoses are some of the elements that contributed to Balter's institutionalization. Now a mental-health professional, she describes in heart-wrenching detail her gradual and ongoing emergence from psychosis, through the love and respect of others and herself. She tells of her admission to college after leaving the hospital, of a happy marriage ended by her husband's death and of graduate study at Harvard. Generous with praise and forgiveness, Balter (whose story was the subject of a TV movie) exemplifies the power of courage, hope and spiritual commitment. (Apr.)
closeDetails
Reviewed on: 03/04/1991
Genre: Nonfiction