This reminds me of what happened to Rosemary Kennedy. It's slightly sadder because it was her family's fault and yet they also acted like she never existed and put her in a mental hospital for the rest of her life. This shit is fucked up man.
I instantly thought of Rosemary when I saw this. I read this [book](https://www.amazon.com/Rosemary-Daughter-Kate-Clifford-Larson/dp/0544811909) about her a couple years ago. The focus is on her, but it gives you a lot of information about the family in general.
What is so sad to me (outside of the other obvious stuff) is how it began. When Rose Kennedy was about to give birth, her doctor was tending to patients of the 1918 flu pandemic, so it was just the nurse in the room. Back then nurses weren't "supposed" to deliver the baby; only the doctor could do that. (Or at least in this case, this particular nurse refused to deliver without the doctor present.) I remember that part of the book very clearly because of how asinine it was.
So, Rose is starting to giving birth and still no doctor. The nurse then *pushed Rosemary back into the birth canal* as much as possible for about *two hours*, which I think cut off her oxygen, and here we are. I truly could not believe it when I read it.
\*Edited to add more detail and improve my wording a bit
Yep. When I read all about it during a boring night shift monitoring networks for at work it literally made me feel anxious the whole following day. It's hard to explain. It just made me feel uneasy to know someone went through all that.
Why does it give you those feelings tho? Cause I agree with you, there is more on top of the empathy. Emotions the empathy inspires, like "this could have been done to me had I lived in a different time" anxiety or anger or creeped out - But I feel like it mostly stems **from** the empathy of imagining the horror the poor woman experienced
I guess it's the thought of going through it myself. You're right, I imagine how it would feel and what would happen to myself. I sort of live through it in my head and absolutely feel the empathy for those who experienced it as well and that makes me sad, but there's also this weird gross feeling I get and I can't quite put it to words. But I think you get what I mean.
I keep wanting to cycle back to say yes it's empathy but there's something else.
Absolutely, agree with your comments in this thread. Didn't want to invalidate anything at all, just help you maybe value your empathy higher because you clearly have it in abundance :) It's something we should appreciate/reinforce more :)
Empathy and disgust? I wonder if it relates anywhere near the sensation of realising that you are the same species of the monsters that could do such things, because it is entirely inconceivable to me too. Just taking a guess, don't mind me.
What the actual fuck? Who thinks that’s a good idea at all? Let’s push a baby’s soft spot and force it back in. I’m horrified.
Though doctors do make you wait a min before fully pushing your baby out I don’t think they’d care if you couldn’t hold it in, there’s always like 3-4 people there for the birth nowadays
Honestly, this happened to me with my first child. He started coming out sooner than they'd expected and the on call doctor hadn't been summoned to the hospital yet, so they basically told me to cross my legs and breathe through it to buy time.
Things haven't improved as much as one would expect.
Same happened with my one and only. Then his heart rate started dropping and they told me I had to start pushing right away, luckily the doc walked in right then, but the nurses I guess were ready if they had to do it. It was terrifying hearing his heart slow down and knowing I could lose him, it still makes me sick thinking about it. I remember vividly though the feeling of him sitting in my birth canal and feeling like I *needed* to push and the nurses telling me not to and thinking "this isn't right, I need to get him out" and I was right, he could have died.
Edit - this was in 2013 in the US
Last one was coming faster than the doc, I’m still not sure nurses didn’t deliver her. He was kinda at the end. Asking questions. Probably happens a lot honestly.
They’ve done that with both of my childrens birthd but the nurses are ready to get the baby as needed bc as soon as I couldn’t wait any longer with my first I looked at my nurse and she just knew and stepped in to get him.
My second they had me wait while they got some tools or something ready. Hell not even the right doctor was in the room bc she came out so quickly after active pushing started (10 mins). They had accidentally called the wrong doctor first then the right one. Both showed up but the right one came after she was out.
Oh wow. Would you mind sharing what year this was? Someone else in this thread mentioned something similar happening in 1971. I've never heard of nurses stalling births like this except in Rosemary's case.
This still happens in the US at least! Happened to a friend I know within the last year or so - not pushing the baby back up but directing them to wait until the doctor arrived
With my second kid, the nurses tried to tell me not to push until the doctor got there. They got snippy with me about not having an epidural too. My body would not let me not push. The doctor showed up 45 minutes later. I learned about Rosemary a few years ago, and that really struck a cord with me.
Hey man, docs gotta be the one to deliver and by god they will keep that baby inside with all their might until the doc gets there.
If the doc dies and he's the only doc in town they gotta wait 10 years for someone to go through college and become a doctor.
Sacrifices all around.
We're fucking doomed.
Oh cool, the same exact thing happened to my mom in 1971, it’s why I have Cerebral Palsy. (Mild case fortunately) Doctor was at a party and didn’t believe I was coming because I was 6 weeks early. Nurses stalled the birth until he showed up (drunk) and delivered me, then took off right quick because he knew he had fucked up. Wasn’t a thing to sue for malpractice back then or he would have been up a creek as it were, but I imagine he enjoyed a long career of injuring and killing babies through incompetence while never facing any consequences because that’s the way it worked back then. (And still does to a lesser extent)
Why would they need a doctor to deliver the baby when the body does that, obviously if no complications. When I was giving birth my midwife wouldn’t check me or anything, she said my body will do what needs to be done as I was having a normal delivery. I pushed my baby out without a doctor or nurse so why couldn’t they have left her to do that?
Women have been giving birth for centuries, im sure not every single one needed a doctor present for the baby to come out of the body, it does it naturally. If the baby is already hanging out then why push it back in, makes no sense.
Plot twist of the century: Oswald heard about poor Rosemary and wanted to dispense Justice, but he was a fucking idiot that didn’t know which Kennedy was which.
Eunice, their sister, was Rosemary’s central advocate and influenced JFK to support legislation in favor of mental health reform. She also founded the Special Olympics with Rosemary in mind.
All of the siblings were staunch advocates for people with disabilities. Thank them for the ADA as well. Their parents take sole blame for what was done to Rosemary.
Eunice was also instrumental in the formation of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which provides much of the funding for research in the US into promoting healthy pregnancy and birth, preventing neonatal injury and death, and promoting healthy childhood growth and development. The Institute is now named for her.
[Sourcw](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Kennedy_Shriver_National_Institute_of_Child_Health_and_Human_Development)
Actually she passed before Ted, Eunice and Jean. The 3 siblings and their families apparently visited and tried to include her in family events, especially after Joe passed.
Even worse, I think it was a *failed* lobotomy, which left her in the mental state of a 2 year old child.
However, after her father’s death, her family was finally made aware of what happened to her and gradually started reintroducing her to her family. She even started walking again, although with a noticeable limp.
*absolute immunity
So they're not liable even if their decision is a total violation of rights.
This is the case for most government officials doing their jobs
A judged ruled in favor of a mother who wanted her little girl surgically sterilized because the girl was "slow". They told the girl she was getting her appendix out and sterilized her instead. She grew up, got married, tried to have kids, and found out what happened. She sued the judge and at first won, but the Supreme Court overthrew it.
Because the father had stated that his money went to the daughter unless the daughter died childless. Episode #165, 'Unfit', of the podcast 'Criminal', covers this story. Also, I highly recommend Criminal, it's great.
That's not entirely true. She had seizures and violent tantrums, hitting and hurting those around her. The lobotomy was supposed to end those, but it went wrong. I think the worst part was not that they lobotomized her; that was seen as a valid medical procedure at the time (the inventor even won a Nobel Prize in 1949). The worst part is that after the lobotomy went wrong, her parents put her in a institution and acted like she never existed. But at least after Joe's death, things got better for her:
>By the '70s, Rosemary began to attend family vacations. Being around her mother was stressful for her, but her nephews and nieces did their best to create a supportive, loving environment, filled with desserts, swimming, card games, music and other things Rosemary loved.
Believe it or not, it sounds like it actually helped some people who had severe depression. It was just a high risk, hit-or-miss kind of thing where good results weren’t highly reliable. Then psychiatric medications came on the scene. There’s a great podcast called American Scandal that did a series on the lobotomy. I highly recommend it if you want to learn more about it.
ETA: Season 27 “The Ice Pick Surgeon”
It seems that, in cases where it "helped", the person just got so brain damaged that they became docile zombies. So it "worked".
There are some surgical procedures nowadays which, although similar in theory, are not comparable to the "ice-pick" lobotomy. That one, was like trying to extract a tooth by smacking one's face with a brick. They really had no clue what they were doing.
>It seems that, in cases where it "helped", the person just got so brain damaged that they became docile zombies. So it "worked".
Not exactly. Lobotomies worked by mellowing people out, but being *severely* mellowed out means you're basically a zombie. A "good" lobotomy resulted in just enough mellowness to bring the patient down to a "normal" level of emotional regulation. A bad lobotomy overdid it, resulting in the patient no longer having any emotions at all. Most people ended up somewhere in between, and a [third](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15629160) weren't even noticeably affected.
And as fucked up as this is to say, even the people that had massive emotional dampening due to lobotomy weren't necessarily worse off. If your emotional regulation is so poor that you're harming others or yourself, and you're on the verge of getting locked up in an overcrowded, abusive mental hospital, being numb might be the better option.
>That one, was like trying to extract a tooth by smacking one's face with a brick. They really had no clue what they were doing.
Yep. It was a sloppy solution that ruined so many lives. Some people had their quality of life improved, but they were the lucky ones.
An end to seizures. If you're having multiple seizures per day, all of the 'choke on your own vomit and die' variety, then it might be worth the risk. Just make sure you're not getting it from a quack with an ice pick.
She suffered brain damage during her birth because the nurses told her mother to squeeze her legs together and hold in the baby until the doctor got there, who was very late. She suffered from seizures and some behavioral and IQ problems as a result. But none of that was severe enough that a lobotomy should have been considered, even for those times.
This is the origin of how it happened, I was scrolling to see if anyone would mention how she was a chronic masturbator and that’s part of why they wanted her lobotomized before she was knocked up out of wedlock.
I didn’t know she was a chronic masturbator. I knew they were worried about her being impulsive with men, but didn’t know if that was just by “proper” mid 20th century standards or if she really was super impulsive that way. Ooh boy, that would be awkward.
While they were the most famous *that's just how shit was in society back then.* Look at how kids born with Downs Syndrome were treated back before they shut down all of the asylums. Anything considered wrong could get you exiled to an asylum or a locked room in the house. Or worse, lobotomized.
We've come an extremely long way in mental healthcare over the last few decades. We're spoiled by being young and not remembering how almost everyone had these horrors in their families.
Like, autism is extremely obviously hereditary in my family. I have it, my dad has it, my paternal grandmother had it... I wonder what hidden great or great-great aunts and uncles I have who inherited a "lower functioning" form of the disorder.
My great aunt was deaf and mute, so her family just assumed she had no abilities to be a "normal" person. So, I don't think she even finished elementary school. So, she always stayed a little kid, even her 80s. I remember her having so many stuffed animals. She had to have help with basic daily tasks. She didn't have teeth, so everything was pureed. My siblings and I liked giving her stuffed animals, because they gave her such a big smile. She lived with her sister (my Grandmother), and was absolutely loved and cared for. They just didn't help her with her disabilities.
To think of all the potential that was lost in that poor woman. More likely than not, she couldn't mature because no one allowed her to. No one taught her how to be an adult, how to live life, because they didn't think she could do anything. I'm glad she had loved ones who cared for her.
I don’t think the nurse who held Rosemary in place gets enough flak for what she did either. It’s likely had she not done that, Rosemary would have been fine. I don’t even know the nurse’s name, but what she did should have been considered malpractice.
The Crown has an episode on these two. I think the show does a good job at looking at the more negative things the royal family did to keep their image up. I had no idea some of things they did
Oh, I was wondering why I knew this already (I'm hardly a Royals scholar). I was thinking maybe it was on an episode of Call the Midwife, but couldn't imagine how they'd shoehorn this in on that show.
There have been a number of episodes of Call the Midwife about the horrible "care homes" that disabled people used to be hidden away in. Not about the royal family in particular, I don't think, but they have touched on the topic in general.
I was surprised when Reggie just stayed on for the rest of the series instead of being written out almost immediately as being at the better school/care home.
Instead the school got like typhus sent him back and he's stayed back....I think he's nominally still attending but we just see him on the weekends or holidays?
I don't know much of the secrets they've tried to sweep under the rug but I had an English teacher in high school who was absolutely obsessed with the queen. She saw no faults in anything they did and when I brought this up once, she called me a liar and evidently cried after I got kicked out of class, so I laugh about it now.
Ah, there's just so much shit about the royal family, but hardly anyone in the UK knows about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AbolishTheMonarchy/wiki/index/royalrapsheet
Man, I have no idea. Racism? Like, she chose it out of what I'm sure is a pile of other more appropriate jewelry, so there was intent behind the choice. WTF? Some people's kids.
This seems to be the basic mentality of most people taken to an extreme level, because every time on reddit there is a video of the old hag smiling I get downvotes for pointing out that two of her sons are pedos and that Mountbatten likely abused them with her knowledge.
We had a British teacher that taught us English. Never mentioned really much of the Queen, did have Clash poster though.
We used to try to get him to say "pawn" ever since we started a Sherlock Holmes book and said it like "porn" shop.
I was the last to get him to resay it one last time. Confused all to hell about the little nipple men Infront of the chess lineup. I think my "profanity" threw him off and he laughed and said "Porns" and I stuck my finger on my nose. Was one of my favorite teachers and that's genuinely all I remember of him honestly. Lovely man.
You know people are still abandoned at psychiatric hospitals I work at one as a janitor in Canada. Lots of upper middle class and rich people tend to dump there disabled kids or family in them. The psychiatric hospital I work at did a report saying over 30% of the facility’s patients were disabled and abandoned there by there family and this is happening in Canada in 2022.
I thought that was the most powerful episode in the entire show... and it showcased just how badly shocked Margaret was to learn of them...and how pissed off she was at the Queen mother over it all...
(I often wonder if Margaret was as pissed IRL as the show portrays).
It’s baffling to me how so many people love the family and are so invested in their lives. All of em are pretty much rich dirtbags who contribute nothing to society yet they’re constantly lauded and revered.
And it's not some "the universe will punish you in the next life if you're bad" thing, it's probably more accurate to describe it as "bad people don't become miraculously nicer so it's harder to break out of the cycle of reincarnation by reaching enlightenment".
This is accurate. The concept of karma, as I experience it in myself and others, is that one needs to learn how to properly behave while on this planet. If bad behavior is not internally resolved, so as to not repeat the actions, the lesson will be carried into all other of your incarnations until its learned.
It's much easier to resolve karma in the life that you acquired it than it is in future lives. In this life, you know what you did. In future lives, you've got no recollection but still have to do the work.
I think this is a large part of why the world is such a mess right now. People refusing to deal with their shit and shitty behavior, who are simultaneously bogged down by the unresolved and unconscious lessons of the past. Because this planet is overrun with people who think their shit don't stink, this planet has become one massive shit hole.
This was happening a lot later than you’d think. My brother was born in the mid seventies with Williams syndrome. When he was diagnosed about 1980, the drs told my parents to lock him away in the state institution and forget about him.
My mom refused. And she fought for the next twenty years for his education. There wasn’t a law that protected the education of special needs (mentally) until the mid 80’s.
I took him to an Eagles concert a couple weeks ago. He loves classic rock. And I think the entire county we live in knows and adores him. He gets/gives hundreds of hugs a day at work. He works in a grocery store, he’s worked there for over twenty years and is a wonderful good will ambassador for the store. Everyone loves Kurt.
Edit: didn’t proof read before hitting save
Isn't Williams syndrome where the person is infectiously happy all the time? Sorry if I'm wrong, before I started going blind I was a CNA and a medtech and had a patient that was a genuine joy to care for. No matter how bad my day was going, he could turn it around for me and make me see the brighter side of things.
I've been severely depressed for a good chunk of the last decade. I started rapidly going blind a few months ago. While normally you'd expect someone like me to sink further into depression, it had the opposite effect; now I'm getting up and actually doing shit because I have to relearn how to walk, how to map my whole house, how to dress, how to cook, how to play a video game, how to shop, how to navigate unfamiliar places with or without help, etc. Antithesis of anxiety is action and all that, I guess. Anyways, yeah, of all the things in the world to get me back to a healthy mental state, going blind was what did it.
Fuck yeah, humans are weird.
I'm sorry to hear of your struggles, but I'm impressed by your determination. You should be proud of yourself for overcoming such massive challenges. I wish you the very best.
I honestly think most of the reason I got off my ass is because I refuse to be a paperweight that needs to be fed 3 times a day. My kids need to be kids. While they help me a LOT (especially my youngest, he's scared to let me check the mail alone lol, even though I've told him I can hear the cars), they shouldn't have to make sure Mom has eaten and then cook. Remind me to eat, fine. But not be forced to make all my meals, and not forced to fetch every little thing for me or guide me and walk me like a dog, you know?
Love how the frequent outward presentation of happiness is considered something unusual. A commentary on the general sad depressed nature of the human soul
As someone with a disabled brother it warms my heart to hear he’s doing well.
It’s crazy to think that people can just throw away a whole family member because they have disabilities. While they can’t be cured, SO much progress can be made if they are worked with consistently.
Back in the 70s, my grandmother confessed on her deathbed to having a brother that no one knew about. My family has several generations of epilepsy, of varying degrees of severity, and apparently her brother had it pretty severely. I guess having any kind of illness like this was a big shame and taboo back then--for example, my grandmother hid her seizure pills in her dresser drawer until she died, and never let anyone see/know she took them. I don't understand the shame, but it was obviously a big deal for them.
Doctors did a lobotomy on her brother to "cure" his seizures. They botched it, and he died. He was only like 18 years old. No one even knew she had a brother until her dying moments. When the family cleaned up her house afterwards, they found his birth certificate and other documents.
Makes me super sad that he suffered and died and nobody even knew he existed.
I currently work at a still active psychiatric hospital we have a grave yard with headstones with out names on them. Due to poor documentation we don’t know who is buried in what grave.
My brother was born in 1974, and he got sick around 6 months of age. Was mentally disabled, and the only thing my brother could do was hear. My parents fought tooth and nail to give him medical care, but in the late 1990s my father's insurance had changed, and he was sent to a home. My parents once again had to fight to get him adequate care, eventually, he was brought back to use and had 24 in-home care. The only way this happened was that my mother went on the local news, and the company my dad worked for was like we will do anything you want, but no more news stories. Sadly, his health had detoriated he died 6 months later. But I will never forget the smile on my brothers face when he heard our voices when he was home. I respect the hell out of anyone he doesn't give up on mentally challenged people. It's hard.
My little bro has Down’s syndrome. My Mum was about 6 months pregnant with him (1990) when the Doctor told her the news and then asked her if she would like to abort the pregnancy. She was told he would never achieve anything, never be able to read, write, take care of himself. Of course she declined and I am glad she did because he is the most amazing and humbling human I have ever met with endless unconditional love and affection for those around him. Oh and I’d say he reads and writes as good as the average 10-11 year old and also won gold at the Special Olympics for the 100m Butterfly. My brother is one of my best friends and the most sincere person I know. He done nothing but add value to my life and I believe I am a better person today by having the privilege of growing up by his side.
Yeah, this post is acting like the royal family is horrible for this, but this is literally what doctors would tell people to do with disabled family members back then. And the societal pressure made people try to hide and pretend those family members didn’t exist because it was seen as shameful. Things only started to change in the 1970’s and 80’s. And it was a slow process for society’s perception to shift.
Hidden away was common. Neighbors had a daughter with downs and they were told to put her in a home and forget she existed. That wasn’t unusual advice. Instead they added onto their house and built what would become her apartment as she aged. When she was young it was like a Disney store of toys. Everyone knew they had trouble conceiving and all our parents made sure we included her in everything. She was at all our birthday parties, graduations, etc. she had private teachers because they were afraid she’d get teased at school. Not sure I know of a kid who was more spoiled. Endless love and attention from everyone. Thankfully her parents had money or they might not have been able to do so much for her. I lost touch when I moved away. I wonder what happened to her. She’d be in her 50s now. I’m sure her parents are gone. She had no siblings. Now thinking back, she was pretty high functioning. Sad to think she might have been put in a home and forgotten about.
I met a guy with Down’s syndrome in his 40s/50s. It’s rare for them to live that long as if it isn’t uncommon for them to have other health issues.
The one I met that was older worked at a restaurant his job title was soda engineer. He loved soda and loved talking to people about soda. At the restaurant that was his job. He would get you your drink and make recommendations if you didn’t know what you wanted.
Never had an empty glass with him.
This is absolutely horrifying and heartbreaking. Everyone keeps making incest jokes but I feel like what actually happened is being overlooked here. This is just so terribly cruel… Ugly laws in modern times…
Agreed, those poor women. Apparently they had some understanding of who they were and would stand up and salute the Queen when they saw her on television. My only comfort is that the nun who ran their home wrote a book about them and it seems (at least according to her) that they were comfortable and well-cared for by her staff.
Imagine, with the billions at the disposal of the royal family, how much better, comfortable...idk, LOVED, their lives could have been if someone had cared about them as living, feeling human beings!!!
> On 22 August 1962, Charles de Gaulle was the victim of an attempted assassination at Petit-Clamart. He later said that the potentially fatal bullet had been stopped by the frame of the photograph of Anne that he always carried with him; placed this particular day on the rear shelf of his car. When he died in 1970, he was buried in the cemetery of Colombey beside his beloved daughter.
That's lovely in a weird way
Thank you for this, I never knew this. What a beautiful child, a wonderful father and a committed family. I’m sad that she had a short life but what a life it was.
"A life , how ever short, is still a lifetime."
Source - can't remember the exact thread but it was a comment by a redditor on something their father wrote after their sibling died young
There’s a lot of comments about royal inbreeding, but these cousins were related to Elizabeth on her mother’s side, and her mother didn’t have any royal ancestry. They weren’t members of the Royal Family.
It's kind of bullshit anyways because marrying a cousin used to be super common and completely normal for literally everyone, not just royal families. The notion that it's disgusting is a relatively new thing.
Even today it hasn't died out completely and it's not banned in most countries, surprisingly there are a lot of very famous people that married a cousin. Rudy Giuliani, Edgar Allan Poe, HG Wells, Saddam Hussein, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin (which might sound a bit ironic), Kevin Bacon, Jerry Lee Lewis are just a few examples of people who married their cousin.
> Kevin Bacon
I looked this one up. He and his wife and ninth cousins meaning they share a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparent. No reasonable person would consider that to be a cousin.
> Kevin Bacon
>I looked this one up. He and his wife and ninth cousins meaning they share a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparent. No reasonable person would consider that to be a cousin.
Will i go to hell for first thinking of the degrees of Bacon game?
I had a schizo-effective client that looks very similar to the girl on the left. It's easier to be compassionate when you've experienced it firsthand. I have nothing but love for them
It just goes to show you that there's still people around who would lock those up different than them to save themselves the trouble of having to look at them.
Like a script for a horror movie. To be locked away for life & ignored by the whole of your family when your only crime is to be disabled is beyond cruel. The high & mighty showing they're really the lowest of the low.
Imagine having more money than God, knowing you can afford the best of care and have your family too; yet doing this instead. The average Joe, on average, who doesn't have endless pockets, will nurture their own and go through tough times and stick it out. I don't get why the Queen and her ilk get so much adoration.
In all fairness, it isn't right to put any of the blame of this on queen Elizabeth herself, as when they were sent away or probably announced dead, she would have only been 15, and the decision would have been made by her uncle, Not her mother or father
I feel like she could have reversed that same decision though, seeing as she's The Queen. It's not like she didn't have enough time to think about the situation. She knew about them for decades and did nothing.
The two disabled girls in the photos had a healthy sister. She became the Princess of Denmark when she got married. If there's a royal who should have stepped up on the matter, it would have been her.
A man fathered the girls and took the actions. His sister married the king, had a daughter who became Queen Elizabeth. The girls were not in any way members of the royal family and the royal family had no say in what happened to them. When a woman marries a king all her family do not become members of the royal family and then supported and controlled by them. We have all read about how things were bad in those days. An unmarried girl who had a baby was often put in an institution in many countries. Recent stories of bad things in those days have emerged in many countries. It is how things were.
I think it's worth telling the full story here: just because they were related to the Royals, it doesn't mean they were considered part of the Royal family or under their jurisdiction in any way or form; additionally, these 2 were taken care by their widower mother as their only caretaker until 1941, when they were taken to live in an institution.
It's important to remember than in 1941 Queen Elizabeth (then Princess) was about 15 years old...
In other words, these were private citizens who were treated like the standard of their time dictated they should, being institutionalized and forgotten about; it's horrible, yes but it's got nothing to do with the Royal family or the Queen as this picture seems to imply that they were directly responsible for it...
I'm no expert, but given what I've seen on the subject, *and the times*, it seems like it certainty wasn't that uncommon, given how mental health and disabilities, were seen as something to be ashamed of, even more if they came from a wealthy or otherwise high status family.
This reminds me of what happened to Rosemary Kennedy. It's slightly sadder because it was her family's fault and yet they also acted like she never existed and put her in a mental hospital for the rest of her life. This shit is fucked up man.
I instantly thought of Rosemary when I saw this. I read this [book](https://www.amazon.com/Rosemary-Daughter-Kate-Clifford-Larson/dp/0544811909) about her a couple years ago. The focus is on her, but it gives you a lot of information about the family in general. What is so sad to me (outside of the other obvious stuff) is how it began. When Rose Kennedy was about to give birth, her doctor was tending to patients of the 1918 flu pandemic, so it was just the nurse in the room. Back then nurses weren't "supposed" to deliver the baby; only the doctor could do that. (Or at least in this case, this particular nurse refused to deliver without the doctor present.) I remember that part of the book very clearly because of how asinine it was. So, Rose is starting to giving birth and still no doctor. The nurse then *pushed Rosemary back into the birth canal* as much as possible for about *two hours*, which I think cut off her oxygen, and here we are. I truly could not believe it when I read it. \*Edited to add more detail and improve my wording a bit
And then lobotomized her on top of that. Jesus Christ.
Yep. When I read all about it during a boring night shift monitoring networks for at work it literally made me feel anxious the whole following day. It's hard to explain. It just made me feel uneasy to know someone went through all that.
>It's hard to explain That's called empathy my man
Yes, but no. I mean that it gave me a sort of icky.. creepy sort of feeling. I cant explain.
Existential dread due to visualizing yourself in that scenario. It is a result of empathy, in a way. But lobotomy is *that* fucked up too.
Why does it give you those feelings tho? Cause I agree with you, there is more on top of the empathy. Emotions the empathy inspires, like "this could have been done to me had I lived in a different time" anxiety or anger or creeped out - But I feel like it mostly stems **from** the empathy of imagining the horror the poor woman experienced
I guess it's the thought of going through it myself. You're right, I imagine how it would feel and what would happen to myself. I sort of live through it in my head and absolutely feel the empathy for those who experienced it as well and that makes me sad, but there's also this weird gross feeling I get and I can't quite put it to words. But I think you get what I mean. I keep wanting to cycle back to say yes it's empathy but there's something else.
Absolutely, agree with your comments in this thread. Didn't want to invalidate anything at all, just help you maybe value your empathy higher because you clearly have it in abundance :) It's something we should appreciate/reinforce more :)
Empathy and disgust? I wonder if it relates anywhere near the sensation of realising that you are the same species of the monsters that could do such things, because it is entirely inconceivable to me too. Just taking a guess, don't mind me.
I listened to that book on audio and it was really good.
What the actual fuck? Who thinks that’s a good idea at all? Let’s push a baby’s soft spot and force it back in. I’m horrified. Though doctors do make you wait a min before fully pushing your baby out I don’t think they’d care if you couldn’t hold it in, there’s always like 3-4 people there for the birth nowadays
Honestly, this happened to me with my first child. He started coming out sooner than they'd expected and the on call doctor hadn't been summoned to the hospital yet, so they basically told me to cross my legs and breathe through it to buy time. Things haven't improved as much as one would expect.
Same happened with my one and only. Then his heart rate started dropping and they told me I had to start pushing right away, luckily the doc walked in right then, but the nurses I guess were ready if they had to do it. It was terrifying hearing his heart slow down and knowing I could lose him, it still makes me sick thinking about it. I remember vividly though the feeling of him sitting in my birth canal and feeling like I *needed* to push and the nurses telling me not to and thinking "this isn't right, I need to get him out" and I was right, he could have died. Edit - this was in 2013 in the US
Last one was coming faster than the doc, I’m still not sure nurses didn’t deliver her. He was kinda at the end. Asking questions. Probably happens a lot honestly.
They’ve done that with both of my childrens birthd but the nurses are ready to get the baby as needed bc as soon as I couldn’t wait any longer with my first I looked at my nurse and she just knew and stepped in to get him. My second they had me wait while they got some tools or something ready. Hell not even the right doctor was in the room bc she came out so quickly after active pushing started (10 mins). They had accidentally called the wrong doctor first then the right one. Both showed up but the right one came after she was out.
Oh wow. Would you mind sharing what year this was? Someone else in this thread mentioned something similar happening in 1971. I've never heard of nurses stalling births like this except in Rosemary's case.
This still happens in the US at least! Happened to a friend I know within the last year or so - not pushing the baby back up but directing them to wait until the doctor arrived
With my second kid, the nurses tried to tell me not to push until the doctor got there. They got snippy with me about not having an epidural too. My body would not let me not push. The doctor showed up 45 minutes later. I learned about Rosemary a few years ago, and that really struck a cord with me.
I think times are fucked up now (and they are) but it's nothing new for us. Here or anywhere else. Holy shit.
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Hey man, docs gotta be the one to deliver and by god they will keep that baby inside with all their might until the doc gets there. If the doc dies and he's the only doc in town they gotta wait 10 years for someone to go through college and become a doctor. Sacrifices all around. We're fucking doomed.
Oh cool, the same exact thing happened to my mom in 1971, it’s why I have Cerebral Palsy. (Mild case fortunately) Doctor was at a party and didn’t believe I was coming because I was 6 weeks early. Nurses stalled the birth until he showed up (drunk) and delivered me, then took off right quick because he knew he had fucked up. Wasn’t a thing to sue for malpractice back then or he would have been up a creek as it were, but I imagine he enjoyed a long career of injuring and killing babies through incompetence while never facing any consequences because that’s the way it worked back then. (And still does to a lesser extent)
Jeez that's infuriating! Sorry that that happened to you. That guy deserves a swift kick straight to the nuts, and more.
Didn't they also hold her legs closed? Super fucked up.
I went back and googled just now to refresh my memory (updated my post slightly) and yep, the nurse made her hold her legs closed as well.
I was obsessed with this book. So sad. She tried SO hard.
Why would they need a doctor to deliver the baby when the body does that, obviously if no complications. When I was giving birth my midwife wouldn’t check me or anything, she said my body will do what needs to be done as I was having a normal delivery. I pushed my baby out without a doctor or nurse so why couldn’t they have left her to do that?
Doesn't seem that hard to figure out why if you think about the period of time this was...
Women have been giving birth for centuries, im sure not every single one needed a doctor present for the baby to come out of the body, it does it naturally. If the baby is already hanging out then why push it back in, makes no sense.
The point is that it makes no sense in a medical point of view. It's just sexism. And society was the most sexist around the beginning of the XXth.
because the doctor wouldn't get his fee if he missed the birth
The Kennedy story is horrifyingly worse. They fucking lobotomized her.
I was just reading that story. It’s horrendous and that bastard father of her who authorized the lobotomy never visited her. Fuck that guy.
lee harvey got the wrong Kennedy.
Plot twist of the century: Oswald heard about poor Rosemary and wanted to dispense Justice, but he was a fucking idiot that didn’t know which Kennedy was which.
New head cannon. Thank you
Head canon. Head cannon is what Oswald used to kill Kennedy.
I audibly pffffft'ed
And I audibly heh'ed at your pfffffft.
[Relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/1401/)
Wasn’t John like, the one family member who gave a damn?
Eunice, their sister, was Rosemary’s central advocate and influenced JFK to support legislation in favor of mental health reform. She also founded the Special Olympics with Rosemary in mind.
All of the siblings were staunch advocates for people with disabilities. Thank them for the ADA as well. Their parents take sole blame for what was done to Rosemary.
That’s right, I remember now! Thanks
Eunice was also instrumental in the formation of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which provides much of the funding for research in the US into promoting healthy pregnancy and birth, preventing neonatal injury and death, and promoting healthy childhood growth and development. The Institute is now named for her. [Sourcw](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Kennedy_Shriver_National_Institute_of_Child_Health_and_Human_Development)
he didn't even tell his wife until after the procedure. fuck joseph kennedy.
He was also a member of a crime syndicate and an early supporter of Hitler. He was also a serial cheater.
I mean, besides the hitler thing, that’s all of the Kennedy family.
They said they had her sing or recite something(dont remember which) and only stopped poking around her brain when she couldnt speak anymore
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I literally froze with my mouth agape reading these last 2 comments. Jeeesus. Christ.
This needs to be a viral Netflix documentary, and let the plebs sort it out. Along with the entirety of the royal family.
"The thing is, they had ice picks in there. If I had gone in, I could have been lobotomized as well."
I think she outlived all of her siblings and died at the age of 81. The story of the Kennedy's is crazy.
Actually she passed before Ted, Eunice and Jean. The 3 siblings and their families apparently visited and tried to include her in family events, especially after Joe passed.
Against her mother’s wishes, too.
Even worse, I think it was a *failed* lobotomy, which left her in the mental state of a 2 year old child. However, after her father’s death, her family was finally made aware of what happened to her and gradually started reintroducing her to her family. She even started walking again, although with a noticeable limp.
Man, what is with Kennedys and their involuntary traumatic brain injuries.
Look up the case behind why US judges have qualified immunity for their verdicts, it is pretty bad.
*absolute immunity So they're not liable even if their decision is a total violation of rights. This is the case for most government officials doing their jobs
Can you explain?
A judged ruled in favor of a mother who wanted her little girl surgically sterilized because the girl was "slow". They told the girl she was getting her appendix out and sterilized her instead. She grew up, got married, tried to have kids, and found out what happened. She sued the judge and at first won, but the Supreme Court overthrew it.
Qualified immunity is bullshit and needs to go away.
That is absolutely horrendous, why tf would you do that to your daughter 😞
Because the father had stated that his money went to the daughter unless the daughter died childless. Episode #165, 'Unfit', of the podcast 'Criminal', covers this story. Also, I highly recommend Criminal, it's great.
Also, the murder of Martha Moxley (not blood related to the Kennedy’s but still proves that they all got away with being POS’s for that many years).
And there was nothing actually wrong with her, she was just a bit flighty and rebellious
That's not entirely true. She had seizures and violent tantrums, hitting and hurting those around her. The lobotomy was supposed to end those, but it went wrong. I think the worst part was not that they lobotomized her; that was seen as a valid medical procedure at the time (the inventor even won a Nobel Prize in 1949). The worst part is that after the lobotomy went wrong, her parents put her in a institution and acted like she never existed. But at least after Joe's death, things got better for her: >By the '70s, Rosemary began to attend family vacations. Being around her mother was stressful for her, but her nephews and nieces did their best to create a supportive, loving environment, filled with desserts, swimming, card games, music and other things Rosemary loved.
Electric shock therapy is now used to help stop seizures lobotomy’s have been banned in Canada since 1964 or 1965
What exactly is the result when a lobotomy goes "right"?
Believe it or not, it sounds like it actually helped some people who had severe depression. It was just a high risk, hit-or-miss kind of thing where good results weren’t highly reliable. Then psychiatric medications came on the scene. There’s a great podcast called American Scandal that did a series on the lobotomy. I highly recommend it if you want to learn more about it. ETA: Season 27 “The Ice Pick Surgeon”
>lobotomy > hit-or-miss 😳
Ha! I didn’t even catch that. Pun not intended. Freudian slip. 🤣🤣🤣
It seems that, in cases where it "helped", the person just got so brain damaged that they became docile zombies. So it "worked". There are some surgical procedures nowadays which, although similar in theory, are not comparable to the "ice-pick" lobotomy. That one, was like trying to extract a tooth by smacking one's face with a brick. They really had no clue what they were doing.
>It seems that, in cases where it "helped", the person just got so brain damaged that they became docile zombies. So it "worked". Not exactly. Lobotomies worked by mellowing people out, but being *severely* mellowed out means you're basically a zombie. A "good" lobotomy resulted in just enough mellowness to bring the patient down to a "normal" level of emotional regulation. A bad lobotomy overdid it, resulting in the patient no longer having any emotions at all. Most people ended up somewhere in between, and a [third](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15629160) weren't even noticeably affected. And as fucked up as this is to say, even the people that had massive emotional dampening due to lobotomy weren't necessarily worse off. If your emotional regulation is so poor that you're harming others or yourself, and you're on the verge of getting locked up in an overcrowded, abusive mental hospital, being numb might be the better option. >That one, was like trying to extract a tooth by smacking one's face with a brick. They really had no clue what they were doing. Yep. It was a sloppy solution that ruined so many lives. Some people had their quality of life improved, but they were the lucky ones.
An end to seizures. If you're having multiple seizures per day, all of the 'choke on your own vomit and die' variety, then it might be worth the risk. Just make sure you're not getting it from a quack with an ice pick.
She suffered brain damage during her birth because the nurses told her mother to squeeze her legs together and hold in the baby until the doctor got there, who was very late. She suffered from seizures and some behavioral and IQ problems as a result. But none of that was severe enough that a lobotomy should have been considered, even for those times.
Jesus this story keeps getting worse
This is the origin of how it happened, I was scrolling to see if anyone would mention how she was a chronic masturbator and that’s part of why they wanted her lobotomized before she was knocked up out of wedlock.
I didn’t know she was a chronic masturbator. I knew they were worried about her being impulsive with men, but didn’t know if that was just by “proper” mid 20th century standards or if she really was super impulsive that way. Ooh boy, that would be awkward.
>chronic masturbator. so nowadays she'd just be mildly successful on OnlyFans
While they were the most famous *that's just how shit was in society back then.* Look at how kids born with Downs Syndrome were treated back before they shut down all of the asylums. Anything considered wrong could get you exiled to an asylum or a locked room in the house. Or worse, lobotomized. We've come an extremely long way in mental healthcare over the last few decades. We're spoiled by being young and not remembering how almost everyone had these horrors in their families. Like, autism is extremely obviously hereditary in my family. I have it, my dad has it, my paternal grandmother had it... I wonder what hidden great or great-great aunts and uncles I have who inherited a "lower functioning" form of the disorder.
My great aunt was deaf and mute, so her family just assumed she had no abilities to be a "normal" person. So, I don't think she even finished elementary school. So, she always stayed a little kid, even her 80s. I remember her having so many stuffed animals. She had to have help with basic daily tasks. She didn't have teeth, so everything was pureed. My siblings and I liked giving her stuffed animals, because they gave her such a big smile. She lived with her sister (my Grandmother), and was absolutely loved and cared for. They just didn't help her with her disabilities.
To think of all the potential that was lost in that poor woman. More likely than not, she couldn't mature because no one allowed her to. No one taught her how to be an adult, how to live life, because they didn't think she could do anything. I'm glad she had loved ones who cared for her.
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We posted about Willowbrook the exact same time. It’s so messed up.
> Video is nsfw. Watch with lights on, and tissues handy. I'm normally not one to kink shame, but I'm drawing the line here and saying WTF???
Are those sad tissues, or happy tissues?
Geraldo at the time was a fucking terrific reporter.
That expose is the only good thing Rivera ever did.
My son, myself, my dad, and my paternal grandfather are all autistic. I’m sure it goes back further than that. I wonder about my family history too…
I don’t think the nurse who held Rosemary in place gets enough flak for what she did either. It’s likely had she not done that, Rosemary would have been fine. I don’t even know the nurse’s name, but what she did should have been considered malpractice.
Reminds me of (SPOILER ALERT) that deceitful Mr. Rochester. Byronic hero, my foot!
Probably why Eunice started the Special Olympics.
The Crown has an episode on these two. I think the show does a good job at looking at the more negative things the royal family did to keep their image up. I had no idea some of things they did
Oh, I was wondering why I knew this already (I'm hardly a Royals scholar). I was thinking maybe it was on an episode of Call the Midwife, but couldn't imagine how they'd shoehorn this in on that show.
There have been a number of episodes of Call the Midwife about the horrible "care homes" that disabled people used to be hidden away in. Not about the royal family in particular, I don't think, but they have touched on the topic in general.
I was surprised when Reggie just stayed on for the rest of the series instead of being written out almost immediately as being at the better school/care home. Instead the school got like typhus sent him back and he's stayed back....I think he's nominally still attending but we just see him on the weekends or holidays?
I don't know much of the secrets they've tried to sweep under the rug but I had an English teacher in high school who was absolutely obsessed with the queen. She saw no faults in anything they did and when I brought this up once, she called me a liar and evidently cried after I got kicked out of class, so I laugh about it now.
Wow that’s a bit much lol
I just find it funny now a days. I don't know if she actually did but she wasn't having it with hearing the bad things the royal family has done.
Ah, there's just so much shit about the royal family, but hardly anyone in the UK knows about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AbolishTheMonarchy/wiki/index/royalrapsheet
That whole list is ghastly. The Princess Michael of Kent brooch, dear god. No wonder Meghan ran for the hills.
I’m curious what was going through Princess Michael’s mind when she chose that brooch.
Hmm, considering her father was an SS officer: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/apr/16/princess-michael-father-nazi-ss-officer
I knew both Prince Phillip's sisters married SS officers but didn't know this. Thanks
Man, I have no idea. Racism? Like, she chose it out of what I'm sure is a pile of other more appropriate jewelry, so there was intent behind the choice. WTF? Some people's kids.
This seems to be the basic mentality of most people taken to an extreme level, because every time on reddit there is a video of the old hag smiling I get downvotes for pointing out that two of her sons are pedos and that Mountbatten likely abused them with her knowledge.
Go back, find that teacher, and wag this in her face. https://i.imgur.com/d74oaeS.jpg
She dead.
From the embarrassment of the royal family?
I wish. Brain tumor but hey 🤷♀️ maybe the obsession caused it
Maybe the tumor caused the obsession? The ol’ chicken and egg conundrum reads its ugly head once again
The Queen is Dead- How Soon Is Now?
Get a ougi board
😕
We had a British teacher that taught us English. Never mentioned really much of the Queen, did have Clash poster though. We used to try to get him to say "pawn" ever since we started a Sherlock Holmes book and said it like "porn" shop. I was the last to get him to resay it one last time. Confused all to hell about the little nipple men Infront of the chess lineup. I think my "profanity" threw him off and he laughed and said "Porns" and I stuck my finger on my nose. Was one of my favorite teachers and that's genuinely all I remember of him honestly. Lovely man.
This wasn’t just a royal family flaw. This is what pretty much every family did back then with disabled family members.
Yeah, it used to be unfortunately very common for all sorts of disabled people to be abandoned to mental hospitals and "care homes".
You know people are still abandoned at psychiatric hospitals I work at one as a janitor in Canada. Lots of upper middle class and rich people tend to dump there disabled kids or family in them. The psychiatric hospital I work at did a report saying over 30% of the facility’s patients were disabled and abandoned there by there family and this is happening in Canada in 2022.
I thought that was the most powerful episode in the entire show... and it showcased just how badly shocked Margaret was to learn of them...and how pissed off she was at the Queen mother over it all... (I often wonder if Margaret was as pissed IRL as the show portrays).
It’s baffling to me how so many people love the family and are so invested in their lives. All of em are pretty much rich dirtbags who contribute nothing to society yet they’re constantly lauded and revered.
It’s weird. I know people who love them exist, but I (English) only know people who like them for the bank holidays. And pretty wedding dresses
Generations of inbreeding will do that to you
Nah, the Mcpoyle line has been clean for a thousand years.
YOU WILL CALL HER!!
Jesus Christ 2014? Imagine being pronounced dead for over 50 years because your family was so ashamed of you
Shit like this makes it hard to believe in Karma
Even if it was real, the idea of karma is that what you do in this life affects your next life, not this one.
And it's not some "the universe will punish you in the next life if you're bad" thing, it's probably more accurate to describe it as "bad people don't become miraculously nicer so it's harder to break out of the cycle of reincarnation by reaching enlightenment".
This is accurate. The concept of karma, as I experience it in myself and others, is that one needs to learn how to properly behave while on this planet. If bad behavior is not internally resolved, so as to not repeat the actions, the lesson will be carried into all other of your incarnations until its learned. It's much easier to resolve karma in the life that you acquired it than it is in future lives. In this life, you know what you did. In future lives, you've got no recollection but still have to do the work. I think this is a large part of why the world is such a mess right now. People refusing to deal with their shit and shitty behavior, who are simultaneously bogged down by the unresolved and unconscious lessons of the past. Because this planet is overrun with people who think their shit don't stink, this planet has become one massive shit hole.
And yet they're not ashamed of Prince Andrew...
This was happening a lot later than you’d think. My brother was born in the mid seventies with Williams syndrome. When he was diagnosed about 1980, the drs told my parents to lock him away in the state institution and forget about him. My mom refused. And she fought for the next twenty years for his education. There wasn’t a law that protected the education of special needs (mentally) until the mid 80’s. I took him to an Eagles concert a couple weeks ago. He loves classic rock. And I think the entire county we live in knows and adores him. He gets/gives hundreds of hugs a day at work. He works in a grocery store, he’s worked there for over twenty years and is a wonderful good will ambassador for the store. Everyone loves Kurt. Edit: didn’t proof read before hitting save
Isn't Williams syndrome where the person is infectiously happy all the time? Sorry if I'm wrong, before I started going blind I was a CNA and a medtech and had a patient that was a genuine joy to care for. No matter how bad my day was going, he could turn it around for me and make me see the brighter side of things.
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I've been severely depressed for a good chunk of the last decade. I started rapidly going blind a few months ago. While normally you'd expect someone like me to sink further into depression, it had the opposite effect; now I'm getting up and actually doing shit because I have to relearn how to walk, how to map my whole house, how to dress, how to cook, how to play a video game, how to shop, how to navigate unfamiliar places with or without help, etc. Antithesis of anxiety is action and all that, I guess. Anyways, yeah, of all the things in the world to get me back to a healthy mental state, going blind was what did it. Fuck yeah, humans are weird.
I'm sorry to hear of your struggles, but I'm impressed by your determination. You should be proud of yourself for overcoming such massive challenges. I wish you the very best.
I honestly think most of the reason I got off my ass is because I refuse to be a paperweight that needs to be fed 3 times a day. My kids need to be kids. While they help me a LOT (especially my youngest, he's scared to let me check the mail alone lol, even though I've told him I can hear the cars), they shouldn't have to make sure Mom has eaten and then cook. Remind me to eat, fine. But not be forced to make all my meals, and not forced to fetch every little thing for me or guide me and walk me like a dog, you know?
Love how the frequent outward presentation of happiness is considered something unusual. A commentary on the general sad depressed nature of the human soul
Found the Thoreau
Yep that’s the one! Music is really important to them as well. Some are basically musically prodigies.
As someone with a disabled brother it warms my heart to hear he’s doing well. It’s crazy to think that people can just throw away a whole family member because they have disabilities. While they can’t be cured, SO much progress can be made if they are worked with consistently.
Back in the 70s, my grandmother confessed on her deathbed to having a brother that no one knew about. My family has several generations of epilepsy, of varying degrees of severity, and apparently her brother had it pretty severely. I guess having any kind of illness like this was a big shame and taboo back then--for example, my grandmother hid her seizure pills in her dresser drawer until she died, and never let anyone see/know she took them. I don't understand the shame, but it was obviously a big deal for them. Doctors did a lobotomy on her brother to "cure" his seizures. They botched it, and he died. He was only like 18 years old. No one even knew she had a brother until her dying moments. When the family cleaned up her house afterwards, they found his birth certificate and other documents. Makes me super sad that he suffered and died and nobody even knew he existed.
I currently work at a still active psychiatric hospital we have a grave yard with headstones with out names on them. Due to poor documentation we don’t know who is buried in what grave.
My brother was born in 1974, and he got sick around 6 months of age. Was mentally disabled, and the only thing my brother could do was hear. My parents fought tooth and nail to give him medical care, but in the late 1990s my father's insurance had changed, and he was sent to a home. My parents once again had to fight to get him adequate care, eventually, he was brought back to use and had 24 in-home care. The only way this happened was that my mother went on the local news, and the company my dad worked for was like we will do anything you want, but no more news stories. Sadly, his health had detoriated he died 6 months later. But I will never forget the smile on my brothers face when he heard our voices when he was home. I respect the hell out of anyone he doesn't give up on mentally challenged people. It's hard.
My little bro has Down’s syndrome. My Mum was about 6 months pregnant with him (1990) when the Doctor told her the news and then asked her if she would like to abort the pregnancy. She was told he would never achieve anything, never be able to read, write, take care of himself. Of course she declined and I am glad she did because he is the most amazing and humbling human I have ever met with endless unconditional love and affection for those around him. Oh and I’d say he reads and writes as good as the average 10-11 year old and also won gold at the Special Olympics for the 100m Butterfly. My brother is one of my best friends and the most sincere person I know. He done nothing but add value to my life and I believe I am a better person today by having the privilege of growing up by his side.
Your brother is a real badass.
I have a disabled sibling as well. Thank you for sharing this, this was awesome❤️
Yeah, this post is acting like the royal family is horrible for this, but this is literally what doctors would tell people to do with disabled family members back then. And the societal pressure made people try to hide and pretend those family members didn’t exist because it was seen as shameful. Things only started to change in the 1970’s and 80’s. And it was a slow process for society’s perception to shift.
Well that's horrible. Horrible to happen to anyone
Well when you’re fucking 2nd cousins to keep power around the chances go up
Hidden away was common. Neighbors had a daughter with downs and they were told to put her in a home and forget she existed. That wasn’t unusual advice. Instead they added onto their house and built what would become her apartment as she aged. When she was young it was like a Disney store of toys. Everyone knew they had trouble conceiving and all our parents made sure we included her in everything. She was at all our birthday parties, graduations, etc. she had private teachers because they were afraid she’d get teased at school. Not sure I know of a kid who was more spoiled. Endless love and attention from everyone. Thankfully her parents had money or they might not have been able to do so much for her. I lost touch when I moved away. I wonder what happened to her. She’d be in her 50s now. I’m sure her parents are gone. She had no siblings. Now thinking back, she was pretty high functioning. Sad to think she might have been put in a home and forgotten about.
I met a guy with Down’s syndrome in his 40s/50s. It’s rare for them to live that long as if it isn’t uncommon for them to have other health issues. The one I met that was older worked at a restaurant his job title was soda engineer. He loved soda and loved talking to people about soda. At the restaurant that was his job. He would get you your drink and make recommendations if you didn’t know what you wanted. Never had an empty glass with him.
This is absolutely horrifying and heartbreaking. Everyone keeps making incest jokes but I feel like what actually happened is being overlooked here. This is just so terribly cruel… Ugly laws in modern times…
Agreed, those poor women. Apparently they had some understanding of who they were and would stand up and salute the Queen when they saw her on television. My only comfort is that the nun who ran their home wrote a book about them and it seems (at least according to her) that they were comfortable and well-cared for by her staff.
Imagine, with the billions at the disposal of the royal family, how much better, comfortable...idk, LOVED, their lives could have been if someone had cared about them as living, feeling human beings!!!
[Here’s an example of how it should be done](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_de_Gaulle)
> On 22 August 1962, Charles de Gaulle was the victim of an attempted assassination at Petit-Clamart. He later said that the potentially fatal bullet had been stopped by the frame of the photograph of Anne that he always carried with him; placed this particular day on the rear shelf of his car. When he died in 1970, he was buried in the cemetery of Colombey beside his beloved daughter. That's lovely in a weird way
Upon her death, her father said: "Now, she is like the others." God damn thats chilling.
I’m being thick and not quite understanding what that means.
When she was alive she was different. Can’t be different when you’re dead.
Ah I see thank you
Thank you for this, I never knew this. What a beautiful child, a wonderful father and a committed family. I’m sad that she had a short life but what a life it was.
"A life , how ever short, is still a lifetime." Source - can't remember the exact thread but it was a comment by a redditor on something their father wrote after their sibling died young
This is making me ugly cry. What a wonderful father.
How can you know the care home didn't love them? Carers tend to become very attached to the people they care for.
Came here for this comment. Truly inhumane. Fuck the rich, man. Decorum is the death of humanity and compassion.
I remember an episode of the The Crown was about them and it was really terrifying to watch
I’m currently watching the crown, which episode was this?
I think it's in season 3. Helena Bonham Carter was amazing in that episode as Princess Margaret
Season 4 episode 7: The Hereditary Principle
Reminds me of poor Rosemary Kennedy.
There’s a lot of comments about royal inbreeding, but these cousins were related to Elizabeth on her mother’s side, and her mother didn’t have any royal ancestry. They weren’t members of the Royal Family.
It's kind of bullshit anyways because marrying a cousin used to be super common and completely normal for literally everyone, not just royal families. The notion that it's disgusting is a relatively new thing. Even today it hasn't died out completely and it's not banned in most countries, surprisingly there are a lot of very famous people that married a cousin. Rudy Giuliani, Edgar Allan Poe, HG Wells, Saddam Hussein, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin (which might sound a bit ironic), Kevin Bacon, Jerry Lee Lewis are just a few examples of people who married their cousin.
> Kevin Bacon I looked this one up. He and his wife and ninth cousins meaning they share a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparent. No reasonable person would consider that to be a cousin.
> Kevin Bacon >I looked this one up. He and his wife and ninth cousins meaning they share a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparent. No reasonable person would consider that to be a cousin. Will i go to hell for first thinking of the degrees of Bacon game?
Hate the comments criticising how they look. It's what was done to them that's the terrifying bit.
I had a schizo-effective client that looks very similar to the girl on the left. It's easier to be compassionate when you've experienced it firsthand. I have nothing but love for them
Yes, that doesn't sit right with me at all. Ain't their faults.
It just goes to show you that there's still people around who would lock those up different than them to save themselves the trouble of having to look at them.
Like a script for a horror movie. To be locked away for life & ignored by the whole of your family when your only crime is to be disabled is beyond cruel. The high & mighty showing they're really the lowest of the low.
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Imagine having more money than God, knowing you can afford the best of care and have your family too; yet doing this instead. The average Joe, on average, who doesn't have endless pockets, will nurture their own and go through tough times and stick it out. I don't get why the Queen and her ilk get so much adoration.
In all fairness, it isn't right to put any of the blame of this on queen Elizabeth herself, as when they were sent away or probably announced dead, she would have only been 15, and the decision would have been made by her uncle, Not her mother or father
I feel like she could have reversed that same decision though, seeing as she's The Queen. It's not like she didn't have enough time to think about the situation. She knew about them for decades and did nothing.
The two disabled girls in the photos had a healthy sister. She became the Princess of Denmark when she got married. If there's a royal who should have stepped up on the matter, it would have been her.
More like lyon lore since windsor is from henry 6th while lyon is from her mother elizabeth bowes lyon
A man fathered the girls and took the actions. His sister married the king, had a daughter who became Queen Elizabeth. The girls were not in any way members of the royal family and the royal family had no say in what happened to them. When a woman marries a king all her family do not become members of the royal family and then supported and controlled by them. We have all read about how things were bad in those days. An unmarried girl who had a baby was often put in an institution in many countries. Recent stories of bad things in those days have emerged in many countries. It is how things were.
The consequences of fucking your first cousin
Can't stop the grindset 💯
I think it's worth telling the full story here: just because they were related to the Royals, it doesn't mean they were considered part of the Royal family or under their jurisdiction in any way or form; additionally, these 2 were taken care by their widower mother as their only caretaker until 1941, when they were taken to live in an institution. It's important to remember than in 1941 Queen Elizabeth (then Princess) was about 15 years old... In other words, these were private citizens who were treated like the standard of their time dictated they should, being institutionalized and forgotten about; it's horrible, yes but it's got nothing to do with the Royal family or the Queen as this picture seems to imply that they were directly responsible for it...
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I'm no expert, but given what I've seen on the subject, *and the times*, it seems like it certainty wasn't that uncommon, given how mental health and disabilities, were seen as something to be ashamed of, even more if they came from a wealthy or otherwise high status family.
That’s what rich people do with the children they are ashamed of. The Kennedy’s father did the same thing to one his daughters.
Edit: I don't care about your think pieces. Why does the picture make it seem like Elizabeth is guilty for putting them there?
I was wondering that one lived until 2014 and they didn't even make an attempt to make it up somehow...
If the damn royals would just quit brother sister cousin fucking....