| Rachel Corday's
(Mental Health Consumer), new book:
" The Benningdon-Crank, Nervous Hospital"
Synopsis of "The Benningdon-Crank Nervous Hospital"
by Rachel Corday
The Benningdon Crank Nervous Hospital is a novel about a woman named
Thuna Paxton who, as someone with bipolar disorder, is spending inpatient
time at the Benningdon Psychiatric Institute where she discovers the
untimely deaths of a number of fellow patients.
In her compromised position as a mental patient she is limited in her
capacity to be heard either by the hospital or the police. But she has
an advantage in that she has a friend in fellow inmate and bipolar patient
Marin Chadwick. It is rare for a mental patient to make a connection
with another patient and it is because of their combined strength that
they are able to persevere in their attempts to survive a killer who
is focused on getting rid of them both.
Thuna is a Social Work Supervisor for Multnonmah County in Portland,
Oregon where the Institute is located, and where she lives with her
husband Nate, an art history professor at the University of Portland,
and her son, Travis, who leaves for Stanford in the fall. Nate and Travis
are equally supportive of Thuna, and stand by her throughout her search
as she confronts the policies of the hospital and the appalling practices
and attitudes of the staff toward patients.
While Thuna struggles in her effort to survive as she seeks the killer,
other patients are not so enduring. Thuna’s friend Graham, who, because
Thuna has befriended him, and who fought to help Thuna survive a night
in the infamous Room 2, is, in the end, brutally murdered in his bed.
A mental hospital is a dangerous place, but it is not so much for the
staff, which is the common misconception, but rather for the patients
who must endure an astonishing degree of ignorance and prejudice against
them. Patients must attempt to survive hospital abuse until they are
either freed to an almost equally dangerous outside world, or until
their life comes to an end in the institution. During Thuna’s incarceration
she reveals the depth of these conditions and fights moment by moment
to survive them all.
Even for a mental hospital, and an awarded one at that, Benningdon Psychiatric
Institute is more than it seems, and the exact nature of its horrific
secret is uncovered by Thuna’s relentless efforts to save her own life
as well as those of others who have already lived lives of unendurable
suffering.
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