Institutionalized: 1940

Being Institutionalized

1940 in the English Midlands, my name is Alissa, I just found out that I will have to be evacuated to the country to get away from the bombing the evil Nazis have unleashed. I can hear them, I must help mum tape the windows, so if a bomb gets dropped, the glass will not shatter. Also, I need to tape the mirrors for the same reason. The other task mum asks me to do is to board the windows because of the blackout. The reason for boarding the windows is so the Nazis cannot see buildings to bomb. The worst day of my life has come, in a few hours I am leaving on a train to the country. I am quite nervous because I will not know anyone or where I will live. Okay, I am leaving now for the train station I am on the train now waving my mum good bye, it scares me to think it could be the last time I see her again. On the train going to the countryside. I notice people staring at me and then whispering to the person next to them, I can only guess that they are talking about the way I look, but I look like a normal person only with one arm that works and a smaller leg.

So, I think now is a good time to explain my left side of my body is smaller than my right side. I still can do pretty much everything a person with both working arms. Before the war, even though I only have use of one side of my body my mum treated me normally. We have stopped the passengers start to leave as I look out the window I see an old woman dressed in black with a mean expression on her face. I think in my mind I hope she is not my escort. As I got off the train just my luck, she is my escort. I wonder where she is going to take me. The she spoke like I am incompetent this is what she said "I am taking you to the Institute for Disabled People." Then I went quiet at the same moment I though in my mind I am capable to take care of myself and I will not get the freedom mum gave me until the this bloody war ends. It could be many years or as little as may months, but nobody knows when it will end.

At the institution many teens were there many had mental difficulties, but only some had physical ones like me. I was placed in a room with another girl who was worse off than I, but does not communicate well. She knows some words in speech. She is really good at sign language, thankfully I know a few signs so we can communicate a little. She did not tell me her name yet. I have figured out that I would have been captured by the Nazis if I was at a house. I hope we get food because we do not want to starve, but who knows in this place. I might as well write a letter to mum. Dear mum sorry to say, but a family did not take me in. Instead an old woman took me, but she is the head of an institution. So I have sadly been institutionalized. Love Your Daughter Alissa. I hear someone screaming at the top of her lungs. I do not know anyone else in this place, but the girl in the room. I do not know if we will eat or they will make us wither away. Incredibly I do not hear any planes. Maybe the building is sound proof. Well maybe the horrible screaming is drowning out the sound of the planes.

The reason why I do not know a lot of people on our floor and our rooms, okay I know that now our food is delivered in our rooms, so technically we eat in our rooms, sleep, so we leave our rooms. Strange things are going on the girl is still screaming, but we do not the reason. I also heard this building is only housing disabled girls and young women. As well as most of them are from England. A rumour is going around about a young woman who came from Scotland which is strange because England and Scotland has always had conflict with one another.

I even heard that some English children have to cross the ocean to Canada for safety because there is no war going on across the ocean. There are soldiers from Canada to help the British defeat the Nazi planes. The children who go to Canada are from well off families or the government pays for their passage. I wish I was one of those children, but my mum is poor and could not send me to Canada even though I would get better treatment there, maybe. Well I heard it on my house radio before this war that a hospital in Toronto which is a big city in Canada found a way to prevent babies from dying during the past few years. I could stay there instead of this crummy place, my life would be slightly different. I still do not know if that is possible because all hospitals and institutions treat disabled people the same like they can not comprehend anything, but that is not true at all. most of them can comprehend a lot, but some very little. Some have normal mental capacity to their age and some have lesser mental capacity to their age. We understand that some disabilities cause this, so we do not judge, we encourage instead. The staff do not comprehend that most of us have normal brain function. They can only assume that just because we are disabled we do not understand. These people were taught to assume this even thought it is not true. I wish that this war will not last long because I do not know how much of this humiliation I can take. I want to be treated like a normal person like the way my mum treated me. This will not happen because the people here think it is not worth treating us like normal people like we deserve.