Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment
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Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment _________________________________________ |
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| Earthrise: NASA |
Christmas Eve, 1968, from lunar orbit, Apollo 8 astronauts deliver their Christmas message, a passage from Genesis.
On earth, 18-year-old Jennifer Semple embarks on her own odyssey, happening
on the steamy streets of Hollywood, where heads, hippies, drug dealers, freaks,
strippers, groupies, college students, Jesus Freaks, counterculture gurus, drag
queens, rock stars and wannabe rocksters, Svengalis, and con artists converge
during one of the most volatile periods in history.
After Jennifer’s boyfriend abandons her and cops threaten incarceration,
her legal guardians convince the girl to return to Iowa, to “get her head on
straight.”
Instead, Jennifer is committed to a mental institution in Cherokee, Iowa,
where she is introduced to a world of questionable psychiatric treatments,
doctors, psychologists, and social workers.
While incarcerated, she corresponds with a new boyfriend and interacts with
other patients: a psychopathic predator; a 17-year-old unwed mother; a teen
cutter obsessed with rats; a young married mother enthralled with “10 ways of
suicide”; and a mentally challenged man, a 25-year resident, among others.
Finally released, she flees Iowa, escaping to Pennsylvania.
Years later, Jennifer, seeking another kind of release, has returned to
Cherokee, this time voluntarily and as a visitor.
“I was driven to Cherokee,” the memoirist says, referring to a northwest
Iowa regionalism synonymous with being committed. “Writing this memoir has
driven Cherokee from me.”
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