By Cecelia Taylor-Hunt
Depression is a mental illness that affects a quarter million of Americans alone. It’s very common in children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly (O’Connor 14-15). When depression is mentioned in a conversation, some people might think of the Great Depression from the 1930s or the current economy in the United States. If those are the cases for depression, does anybody actually have time to research and learn about it before making judgments? When an individual is showing signs of depression, you will know firsthand that something is wrong or something is taking a turn for the worst.
When depression occurs, it’s very difficult to treat it yourself. Reasons vary with how depression is caused: job losses, death of a dear loved one, being disease-stricken. For minor cases of depression: it can lasts for a few weeks. It disappears by having one-on-one or group counseling sessions. For major cases in depression: it can lasts up to more than just a few weeks but months or even a few years. It takes more than just a couple of counseling sessions. It takes a support system like your family, counselor, and therapy (with or without medicine) to recover.
It is a highly treatable mental illness for the individuals to get help with the use of treatments available to them at hospitals and clinics, so they can gear towards living in active and productive lives. Most of them call these treatments their lifesavers. Others might call them the most difficult road to recovery that made it worthwhile. There are many types of depression out there, but the ones, I believe, stands out the most are: Major, Bipolar Disorder, Dysthymic Disorder, and Depression None Other Specified.
Major depression is considered intense and the most severe because of one or more symptoms. It appears out of nowhere when one traumatic event or a series of traumatic events (i.e. – domestic abuse, child sexual abuse, living with a non-curable disease such as cancer) comes in full contact with your life and your way of thinking, as well as interfering with your concentration conducted by the functions of the brain. Major depression has a combination of 10 known symptoms that can happen if the individual is not seeking proper treatment or any treatment at all. If you know someone who has the category of major depression, here are the signs to look for on the surface (Franklin, 2006).
• An Empty Mood or anxiousness: Not feeling energetic, not using emotions, wanting to rush things quicker before taking one’s time carefully.
• Feeling Guilty, worthless, hopeless: Blaming yourself constantly, overly apologetic, believing that you’re weak and powerless.
• Excessive pessimistic feelings: Asking questions and making judgments in a negative manner about your life.
• Loss of memory, losing train of thought: Difficulties concentrating in conversations, schoolwork, job tasks, etc. It conflicts with yourself and the people around you.
• Irritability or restlessness: Crankiness, staying up late at night, not enough sleep, insomnia (without sleep for a day or two).
• Complete lack of interests in usual activities: Not spending time with people, not participating in fun activities like you usually do (jogging, camping, hiking, etc.)
• Loss of appetite, uncontrollable appetite: Not eating at all leading a risk to anorexia; eating constantly leading a risk to gain weight.
• Recurring thoughts about death and suicide: Talking about suicide to people, writing about it in journals, looking for ways to commit suicide.
Bipolar disorder is sometimes referred to as manic depression, or manic-depressive disorder. It’s very complicated to be diagnosed inside an individual’s mind if he or she has a series of traumatic events that should’ve never happened in the first place, kind of like what a major depressive person will experience. For many years, the medical field thought that bipolar disorder develops if a person experiences one ‘manic episode’. Recent studies show that a person with bipolar disorder experiences four or more manic episodes without any treatment. A manic episode is a mood disorder and it can last up to a week or more (O'Connor 46-50). Bipolar disorder starts from adolescence and, in some cases, early adulthood. After the start, it continues.
There is a genetic factor with this disorder, even though some people are against this statement. Those who suffer with this disorder can become a great danger to the people around them and, most importantly, themselves. If not treated, it creates serious problems to an individual’s health and the people who care about you. If you know someone with bipolar disorder, here are the key factors and manic behaviors to look for. You will find that some of the symptoms have a lot in common with a major depressive person, but in this case bipolar disorder shows how can you tell if a person is experiencing a manic episode (Franklin, 2006).
Extreme distractions: Having Trouble with concentrating on tasks.
• Sleeplessness: It can be insomnia, meaning without sleep for a day or so; it can also mean sleeping for less than 8 hours of sleep.
• Increased sex drive: your adrenaline is very high, you develop an obsession with someone or something that’s in your way.
• Poor judgment: making poor choices in situation you can or cannot handle.
• “Unrealistic” beliefs: Developing the “someone’s out to get me” attitude.
• Obnoxious behavior: You can go crazy and do things that are seen as abnormal.
• Excessive “high” feelings: You’re totally happy, thinking that something is not wrong with you, when in reality, you have a problem
• Sustained periods of bizarre behaviors: A bipolar disorder individual can have bizarre behaviors that last up to an hour, maybe even more hours.
• Agitation: You’re anxious, impatient, refusing to wait on anything.
• Substance abuse: Alcohol and drugs are the known substances that are used and abused by people with depression. Recently, other substances are included with this situation such as inhalants (household products) you buy at a supermarket.
• Denial Problem: This means to not acknowledge the fact that you need help recovering.
• Thoughts about committing suicide: Like major depression, you’re taking about suicide and you’re feeling that your world is crashing down around you.
Dysthymic disorder is a symptom where depression continues for about two years and it’s a long-term illness, according to author Richard O’Connor, PhD of Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn’t Teach You and Medication Can’t Give You. A person with this disorder can share some of the same key factors with a major depressive person, but the major difference is that it lasts for a long time. To identify the symptoms of Dysthymic disorder, you would have to look for: Poor appetite, Insomnia or hypersomnia, Low Energy, Low Self-esteem, poor concentration, and feeling hopelessness. (O’Connor 42)
Depression none other specified (Depression N.O.S.) is when an individual show signs of depression, but does not fit the category of Dysthymic Disorder Major Depression, and Bipolar Disorder. DDNOS usually includes most women undergoing a menstrual cycle and it also includes people battling schizophrenia (O’Connor, pp. 47). This category singles out the people who are suffering with extreme cases of severe depression due to grieving for a deceased loved one, battling a disease you have, and other problems he or she is having.
Unfortunately, for some people, dangerous and deadly activities dealing with depression are considered as the first options…or the last ones to end their “temporary” problems. These activities include cutting, overdosing using medication or painkillers (mostly pills), alcohol poisoning (extreme consumption causing damage to the brain and other vital organs), hanging, using a shot gun or knife, jumping off bridges and the use of infected needles with illegal drugs for a long period of time until you succumb to a deadly disease (i.e. - HIV/AIDS virus). It’s called developing a series of death wishes or fixing to die (Lester 19-26).
Death wishes are thoughts where it occurs inside an individual with severe depression if he or she wants to end his or her life (while struggling to get back into the cultural norm of society as a different person). Not only has it occurred inside a depressed person’s mind, but it can also occur in anybody you know or don’t know (your friends, neighbors, children, etc.) for any reason or no reason at all. There are ways to develop death wishes, but only if the individual is very serious about killing himself/herself after going totally crazy due to a crisis in his/her life.
One: Suicide letters. No matter how big or small it is the suicide letters show that the writer of this letter has had enough of living on this earth depression without any hope for the future. Letters are either written on paper or typed and printed from a computer. Some can be written in a private journal/diary. When the suicidal individual dies, the letters and journals are found much later by their loved ones. The suicide letters are usually the final chapter of one’s life to mark a closure. In Autopsy of a Suicidal Mind by Edwin Schiedman, the author explains the process of a teenager named Arthur who committed suicide at a young age. Inside this book, there are interviews with the counselors and his parents (Scheidman)
Two: Sharp objects. If you live in a home where sharp objects are easily accessible, then you’re very lucky. There are kitchen knives, bottle openers, and scissors. Using these sharp objects is highly dangerous for an activity called Cutting. Cutting is a dangerous activity where a person makes sharp cuts on the surface of their body parts, particularly the wrist or the entire arm. If you make more than just one mark, then you’re asking for trouble with your body parts. You want to take the pain out of your body without painkillers, but cutting makes it worse.
Three: Promiscuity and substance abuse. These two things are highly addictive, no matter how careful you are, your addictions can become uncontrollable and you will have trouble with getting rid of them after many years. The use of alcohol, drugs, and having sexual partners – you have to wonder what excites you more and what eases the pain of depression (Robbins 100-102). In most cases, alcohol and drugs are taken as anti-depressants. When things go wrong, these two will solve your problems.
Treatments for the mentally ill nowadays are easily accessible, from hospitals to therapy (clinic and private practices). Anybody can afford the therapy services they need for their loved ones with mental illness using the latest technology with a mixture of old school therapeutic practices such as acupuncture and art therapy. We still have a long way to go to promote affordable therapy around the country and without borders. Although getting treatment can be expensive or inexpensive, it takes more than just your time – it takes dedication and confidence in getting your loved one well.
However, not everyone can get help, regardless of what resources are available to them. Most people with this type of thinking are scared, dismissive, or just paranoid on what “others” would think of the mentally ill as a whole. That’s where social stigmas play a part of the problem. They’re afraid of being disowned, turned away, ridiculed or just ignored by the people who are supposed to give you unconditional love, from family and friends to neighbors and colleagues.
Addressing the problems with social stigmas on mental illness can be the most difficult task to accomplish. Social stigmas are distorted views of one person who has a serious problem or decides to go against the cultural norms of society, is viewed as a complete disgrace or a “shame” to the family name. Mental illness, to the uneducated, is viewed as “an excuse for the weak-willed and pathetic human beings”. What I have found after researching is that mental illness can definitely carry a genetic factor in a family’s history, so the very people who stigmatize them may share the genes.
What society does not tell us about this situation is that there’s always somebody – a group of people or an individual – who will place a social stigma barrier on anybody with mental illness, and they can get away with it easily. The truth is that a mentally ill individual has no choice but to deal with the misconceptions and advocate to lead people away from social stigmas.
So many misconceptions on how the mind of a mentally ill individual works can turn into a heated debate without continuing the discussion. Misconceptions can possibly leave a family no choice but to place their mentally ill individual in a place where they can no longer be bothered anymore until recovery is successful. Contrary to popular belief, there are ways to get treated without medicine or anti-depressants in certain situations. I considered that as a relief for the families of their mentally ill loved ones, but it’s just a step towards the progress of getting them well instead of giving them a great deal of harm to them.
The examples of how society occasionally views mental illnesses are quite disturbing. Just before writing about this issue related to severe depression, I have encountered a lot of “uneasy to read” comments on You Tube while surfing through this website in hopes of getting answers about depression or any mental illness. I decided to write about the different types of people you’ll find making hurtful comments about depression or any mental illness without making their first attempt to learn about them with an open mind.
First Example: Your relatives, friends, and colleagues who are not very supportive to you even though they are supposed to be a “Support System” in your life. In the United States and Europe, there is some kind of an ideology where race, a belief (World Religions, Traditional beliefs, etc.) and morals are seriously important within families. That’s where separation arrives into the picture and a strain within friendship and family creates an amount of damage. From the 1800s to the late 20th century, most families are ashamed to have a child with a mental illness or mentally challenged. The children are sent by their parents to institutions giving the staff the entire responsibilities of their children.
How does this process work? Well, it is done by the peer pressure of your neighbors, friends, and your own family members. A stigma with this issue is the method of weeding out any imperfection of the human society, making the mentally ill susceptible to face the Cycle of Rejection (Gerhard Falk, 2001:43). This method was first used long before 1960, the year where concerns about dehumanization of the mentally ill became public (Falk, 2001:43). This was, and still is, a perfect example of how even some people of your so-called support systems can carry stigmas to the extreme. More of this example is talked about under the subtopic “How Mental illness was viewed before and after the 1960s”.
Second Example: the second stigma is actually the most noticeable since the new media coverage online and on national television shows with, what I consider, very useless debates of – world religions versus rationalism by a handful of people who are extreme and do not represent the entire spectrum of a particular belief. The differences between the two groups are: their set of morality, belief systems, and how they spread their messages to the public. There’s one thing that they have in common: Stigmas of mental illness. I have to wonder why two of these groups are fighting, where in fact, the stigmas they share can both cause pain to the mentally ill.
Some extreme fundamentalist groups in World religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.) consider mental illness as the attack made by the devil (or Satan) by outsiders you have encountered with. They used prayer as their only source of protection with little or no medication (pills, mostly) for their mentally ill relative. Some extreme rationalists consider mental illness as a thing to get over from within less than a month or so. They will tell you the get over it. If you have a religious background and have an open mind, you’re their favorite target. They will tell you that your belief is what causes your mental illness (i.e. – you’re worshipping a God that never existed; stop believing in fairy tales).
Third Example: Extreme advocates against psychiatry all over the world, not just the United States itself. Almost two years ago, I was reading about the recent protests against the Church of Scientology that started by a lot of ex-Scientologists since the 1980s. There’s a C.O.S. front that advocates against Psychiatry as a whole, using some of the examples of the carelessness of mental institutes, hospitals, and clinics. In fact, most of them are quite insane when it comes to getting help for the mentally ill. Advocates against psychiatry view this process as evil and a total damage to mankind. They also believe that medicine is not the way to fix things even when mixed with therapy.
Long before having an almost clear view on getting help for a loved one the correct way, Mental illness and mental disabilities (also known as mental retardation back then) were viewed as the same thing. When a family doesn’t know how to control their children with a mental illness or developmentally disabled, they send their children to an institution specifically for these types of people In this situation, they are ignored by their relatives due to the stigma of shame and guilt they are facing, as I’ve mentioned before in the first example of a social stigma (Corrigan 2005; 11-41).
Through the shame, guilt, and stigma, families have made themselves constantly deny the fact that there’s no such thing as a perfect family and a perfect world. When somebody has this idea of what a perfect family is portrayed in society due to race, religious beliefs, ethnicity, or anything else that makes a person have a very warped sense of thinking (Corrigan 2005; 129-164). Harsh and abusive treatments against the mentally ill and mentally disabled were hidden from our society for a very long time until the 1960s, where countless reports and books were released to the public bringing awareness about the dehumanization of institutionalized patients (Bates, 2010). Many television reports in the 1960s were bringing a lot of attention to the viewers from home.
For example: in 1968, retired news anchor Bill Baldini broadcast his five-part news story about Pennhurst State School and Hospital’s horrific conditions within this institution (Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance, 2009). It was aired on NBC 10 in Philadelphia while Baldini’s broadcast took place in Pennhurst’s location, Spring City (Pennhurst – Suffer the Little Children, 1968). Another example of this kind of exposure is that in 1972, Geraldo Rivera’s first news story was very similar to Bill Baldini’s report – only this time it takes place in Staten Island, NY. Willowbrook Asylum was investigated for the harsh and abusive conditions of the mentally disabled and the mentally ill (Leigh DeBello, 2008).
The result: It took the States of Pennsylvania and New York almost two decades to shut down Pennhurst in 1987 (19 years after Baldini’s report) and Willowbrook in 1987 (15 years after Rivera’s report), exactly one year apart during the Ronald Reagan Administration. The shutdowns were due to a lack of funding, more abuses from patients and staff members, sudden deaths, and very low numbers of staffing – meaning not enough people.
When stigmas reach up a point where a mentally ill individual can no longer take the pain and heartache, it is up to that individual, while receiving a decent amount of treatment, to speak out against stigmas in order to address the issues on how people with mental illness are treated in society. Getting involved with organizations such as the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill (N.A.M.I.) can increase the individual’s chances in bringing awareness to the public.
After writing about depression and stigmas at the same time, I’m pretty much drained from having that experience of writing about these two issues coexisting together. It was a painful experience, and I’m hoping to learn about not going into depression again while working on this project. Anyways, that’s not what I’m writing about in this essay. I’m writing about my experience with depression in an explicit manner, without including any swearing. It’s a timeline of my ups and downs, a characteristic that a severely depressed individual experiences.
I’m writing my essay like I’m writing entries inside a very personal, but private, journal. Most entries from my original handwritten and online writings are combined in this essay to give you the details. Another lesson I’ve learned from my first two essays is that it’s not always easy to talk about these things to someone who is not well educated about these issues. I think my type of depression was either Major or N.O.S., but I’m not so sure what it is.
I had long-term depression since I was a child. Being a loner played a major part. When my biological father Ben died on January 3rd of 1995 from lung cancer, my heart was already torn and that’s where my world has falling apart. I had no choice but to go to counseling every day in school, even though I wasn’t doing well in school. I hated everybody, and I mean everybody, in the school I was in. Not the teachers and staff, but those kids in my class and other classes. I used to be bothered constantly for nothing because of my speech and learning disability.
Come to think of it, while looking back at the past, I wanted to strangle everybody dead. I’m talking about the kids who are taller than me, smarter than me, have more friends than me, and were living better off than me. Now, don’t get me wrong. I had some teachers who believed in me through the hardest times I went through. But, let’s face it. It was not enough to cure my severe depression, but it gave me some relief to become interested in studio art – which is my current major in SUNY Potsdam.
Around that time, I was in special education in 1990s Bronx, New York City, where Autism was still looked down from society before the awareness of it became public nationwide. In M.S. 180 (my old junior high school), I did okay even though I was still struggling with my disabilities and my depression, along with trying to deal with the fact that I needed help. Most shockingly, I did well in school – from Honor Rolls to Graduation, 4 years flat between 1997 and 2001.
In Art and Design High School, the only short term depression I had lasted for almost two years. When the September 11th terrorist attacks struck New York City’s World Trade Center, I was more than shocked. The worst part about this: I was in midtown Manhattan where my school is located – East 57th Street and 2nd Avenue. I remember hearing the announcements calling students to the front desk near the exit of the school building because parents were traveling from other boroughs to pick up their kids. My mom didn’t pick me up, and it was the first time that I started to learn how to do things for myself. She was worried out of her mind and so was I. I finally got home at 7pm in the Bronx. I called my mom right away and she immediately walked home from the nearest train station to get to our building. We stayed home for a week until things were running back to normal, with route changes from the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) and all.
2005 was my senior year in high school and it was the best year ever. I’ve spent so many hours of community service in the auditorium rehearsing for the 2005 spring concert and actually worked as a spotlight tech for it. It was the most amazing experience ever, along with the 2005 graduation where I received honors from the school. When I got into CUNY City Tech in Downtown Brooklyn, I thought that I got over from my depression for good. Well, guess what? It didn’t do anything for me. My severe depression came back almost 2 months after getting settled into my new classes.
I wanted more out of my life as a college student, but it was like going to high school in another borough all over again. I was not impressed with the tight security that goes on within the school grounds and was not impressed with living off-campus in New York City. Even though I did very well in two semesters at City Tech, my depression was already at its worst level. On November of 2005, I applied to more than six SUNY schools along with Buffalo State and Potsdam. It took me months to get the acceptance letters and I didn’t get them until the spring semester in 2006. A lot of my friends moved out of New York City to either upstate or out of state. I made up my mind to transfer out of City Tech and into a SUNY school. I mean, anywhere outside of New York City is best for me (so I can come home for holidays).
What kept me going for my entire academic year? I started buying new issues of Heavy Metal Magazine, an adult adventure-action-fantasy comic book/graphic short story collection that captured a fan’s interest since 1977. To this day, I still buy new issues. I always enjoyed reading graphic novels along with graphic short stories and comic books. Reading Heavy Metal magazine has released most of my insecurities, about my severe depression. Heavy Metal was the first magazine to show me how art therapy works in mysterious ways. The magazine’s stories are closely related to the Steam Punk and Cyber Punk genres. These two genres gave me interest because Steam Punk and Cyber Punk has things in common with each other: destruction, death, anarchy, and story cliffhangers while they focus the political, social, and economic issues using science fiction and the art that is part of it.
Why did I make up my mind about this decision to transfer? Well, for a few reasons. One: I needed peace and quiet in my life. I’ve lived in New York City throughout my entire life, and I need a rest from this mess. Two: I refuse to come home at 8 in the evening from Brooklyn to the Bronx, when things start getting crazier than in the daytime. I can just come home as late as I want while living outside of New York City. Three: I was sick of my mom and my stepdad having verbal fighting matches and being worried for me while I’m in college at Brooklyn. I’m already messed up in the head, so they should just let me live more than 2 hours away from them so I can get more time, air, and space. While I was attending classes at City Tech, my depression is still there.
When I’m waking up in the morning to get dressed so I can take the bus and train to Brooklyn, I develop migraine headaches (especially when you have to get up very early before 5:30 in the morning to catch the 6:30 am bus to the train station). In the evening hours in my house after classes are over, I started having painful stomach aches, but not as much as my migraine headaches. I don’t have ulcers, thank God, but it’s from the years of severe depression I had since I started grade school.
About the stomachache, it happened before heading down to the bus stop via City Tech in November of 2005. I got in the shower and was dressed from head to toe. I thought to myself “better safe than sorry”. I ran into the bathroom and had diarrhea. After the diarrhea, I vomited immediately. My head was hurting again. My stepdad and my mom had to take care of me before I left for my 8am class. I left around 6:45 am for the nearest bus station during rush hour. I made it to class at 8:30am. Luckily, the 2 and 5 trains were very quick. The worst part about this situation: Alcohol has nothing to do with my stomach problems and headaches.
When I’m napping in my house on my daybed (or getting up from my nap), my chest starts hurting really bad by developing very sharp pains. I even had to go to the hospital at New York Presbyterian for a check-up. The result: I have a heart murmur. Really, a heart murmur? I was very healthy throughout my childhood because of my high metabolism. Unfortunately, severe depression for a full year of my life has caused me to have a heart murmur. This situation reminds me when back in high school, when I started having chest problems for no reason at the age of 15. After finishing up my second and last semester at City Tech, I had to visit my local doctor and he diagnosed my allergies and my asthma. I was really breathing heard for a few days and I didn’t know what the problem with me was.
When I got the college admission letters, I was excited to see that I got accepted to SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Buffalo State. I was excited, very excited about this result. My parents were kind of worried about traveling seven hours away from New York City. They had no choice but to get me settled in my new college campus in a dorm room at SUNY Potsdam.
Looks like my severe depression is universal and it’s not going away anytime soon. Between 2006 and 2007, it took me a while to get adjusted to the campus. It came back in 2008, where I started to drink a lot of alcohol for the first time – two months after turning 21. To tell you the truth about myself in SUNY Potsdam – I love beer and liquor. To try and ease the “pain” I’m having, I drink alcohol in bars and sometimes I go to stores to buy a can, bottle, or a pack of 6 beers at one time. In the spring 2008 semester, I did not do well in 4 out of the 5 classes because of failing tests, not getting help from teachers, and my very high ego thinking that I don’t need any help such as tutoring. The 5th class that I actually did well on and ended up having a 3.0 is Intermediate Writing (COMP 201). For some reason, I love to write and draw at the same time and that became my pastime hobby as of today.
In 2010, the severe depression came back around late September and it was off and on ever since. I started drinking again on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays – evenings only. My mom and my stepdad had separated for a few days from each other because of their problems with their marriage. My mom was being dismissive, resentful, and rude on the phone when I kept pressuring her to get counseling, so I kept checking on her to see how she’s doing. She hung up the phone a couple of times before I had a chance to say I love you. My parents called me back and forth to remind them to call each other. It all became too much of a serious hassle.
I downed beer, mixed alcoholic drinks, and shots to ease the pain I’m having because of my parents’ pressure. I was completely hurt. More than 3 ½ weeks later, I controlled my drinking habits when my mom gave me the updates on her and my stepdad. My stepdad moved back in, my mom is going to counseling by herself once a week and I’m still alive and kicking. I even told my mom about this and she was quite upset that I started drinking a lot after hearing about her separation that lasted for a couple of days.
Right now, I’m taking my time with classes and I can no longer rush things anymore. My years of off-and-on severe depression gave me a serious damage in my 24 years of living on this earth. I don’t believe that “everybody’s depressed” and I know that not everyone feels that way. What I’ve learned from this is having therapy one on one and my personal hobby: using writing and art as therapeutic methods have helped me along the road to recovery. Although I’m not taking any anti-depressant medication whatsoever, I believe that anybody can get help. It’s just takes your time and the support system around you.
Works Cited/Bibliography
• Franklin, Donald. "Articles About Depression." Psychology Information Online. Donald Franklin, 2006. Web. 15 Dec 2010.
• Lester, David. Fixin' To Die: A Compassionate Guide to Committing Suicide or Staying Alive. 1st ed. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Company, 2003. 19-28. Print.
• O'Connor, Richard. Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn't Teach You and Medication Can't Give You. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company/Hatchette Book Group, 2010. 14-26, 27-37, 38-59. Print.
• Robbins, Paul R. Understanding Depression. 2nd ed. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2009. 97-108, 172-191. Print.
• Scheidman, Edwin S. Autopsy of a Suicidal Mind. 1st ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004. 7-9, 12-13, 23-29, 35-45. Print.
• Bates, Randy. "History of Pennhurst State School - Spring City, Pennsylvania." Pennhurst Haunted Asylum. Rogues Hollow Productions, 2010. Web. 9 Dec 2010.
• Corrigan, Patrick. On the Stigma of Mental Illness: Practical Strategies for Research and Social Change. 1st ed. 1. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2005. 11-44; 69-98; 129-164; 165-179. Print.
• Falk, Gerhard. Stigma: How We Treat Insiders. 1st ed. 1 vol. Amhearst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001. 39-61; 108-128. Print.
• Leigh DeBello, Vanessa. "History." Willowbrook State School -- A Voice Behind the Wall. Vanessa Leigh DeBello, 2008. Web. 10 Dec 2010.
• “About Pennhurst State School and Hospital." Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance. Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance, 2009. Web. 5 Dec 2010.
• "Pennhurst - Suffer the Little Children." YouTube - Pennhurst - Suffer the Little Children. Web. 9 Dec 2010.
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