I have a family member whose story I’m determined to tell.My second great-uncle (my mom’s grandmothe

I have a family member whose story I’m determined to tell.My second great-uncle (my mom’s grandmother’s brother) was named Walter Gerstner. At some point between the ages of 14 and 21, he suffered a mental breakdown of some variety and was institutionalized. According to his World War I draft card, he was considered as “not physically, but mentally, insane.” He managed to leave Central Islip State Hospital for some time in the mid-1920s, but by 1930 he was at Manhattan Psychiatric Hospital on Wards Island. At some point he was transferred to Harlem Valley Psychiatric Hospital in Dutchess County, New York, where he died in 1972. I think about Walter a lot because at age 20 I had a mental breakdown, mine being caused by obsessive-compulsive disorder. If I’d been alive at the time Walter was, I’d have likely been institutionalized, too. Walter’s diagnosis, however, is a mystery to me. His initial institutionalization does occur during the time period of the encephalitis lethargica outbreak, which could have been mistaken for a mental disorder due to the catatonia it caused, but my mom’s aunt remembers visiting him and says his diagnosis was schizophrenia. If it was encephalitis lethargica, she’d have remembered that since it’s so notable. Schizophrenia being the diagnosis makes things very open-ended since it was used as a catch-all diagnosis early in the 20th century (see, for example, “childhood schizophrenia” being used as an early term for autism spectrum disorders). Whether Walter was schizophrenic or not is unknown, and I can’t make a determination about what he was struggling with without knowing what symptoms were manifesting. Unfortunately, as this information would be only available through health records, I don’t have full access to it since I’m Walter’s second great-niece. Nevertheless, I’m going to do the best I can to access things and see what I can piece together because I want to tell Walter’s story. I feel like he deserves it. -- source link

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