![]() ![]() ![]() For instance, Lynette Russell chose to reveal her family’s secrets and welcomed the chance to set the record straight. 1 Other historians have reflected on the dilemma of whether to disclose or conceal family secrets when writing on mental illness within their own families. For example, historian Graeme Davison, in Lost Relations: Fortunes of my family in Australia’s Golden Age ( Davison 2015), has acknowledged the moral dilemma in deciding whether to include a family secret that breaks the code of family loyalty versus the need for accuracy as a historian. Here, I demonstrate how mental illness in families is stigmatised and concealed through institutionalisation and its legacy for younger generations.įar less work emanates from a researcher’s own family, although academic historians have entered the field. Scholars have shown that the themes of migration and mobility are important and hold personal significance in exploring the connection between mental health and institutionalisation for our family. The theme of migration is addressed through the lens of mobility when Ada relocated following her marriage and her movement between home on trial leave and several sites of care after her committal. ![]() Critical family history approaches allow me to gain insights into the gendered power relations within her marriage and the power imbalance within families. This rich data source provided some troubling glimpses into Ada’s auditory hallucinations and grandiose delusions and her encounters with several mental institutions in Victoria, Australia, during the twentieth century. My search for answers involved genealogical research and led me to access Ada’s mental patient files. Memories are rarely straightforward and could only take us so far in understanding why Ada remained missing from our family for so long. After years of estrangement, my father discovered Ada living in a mental hospital. This work investigates my family’s long-held secrets that concealed the whereabouts of my grandmother. ![]()
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