random ancestry note

..Because I'll probably forget where to find this again..

Distant relative Martha Hughes:

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/i/l/Dennis-D-Miller/GENE5-0018.html

Notes for Martha Hughes:
Martha was captured by Indians in December 1787 (She was approx. 14), and released and returned in 1790. The family tradition is that she was too hard to control, so the indians returned her. Information about her capture and release are on her tombstone. The reality is that Her father, a famed Indian fighter and scout probably paid for her release.Wife of Jacob Bonnett and daughter of Jesse David Hughes, Sr. and Grace Tanner

According to the cemetery records, Martha was captured by Indians in December 1787 and held captive until 1790 when she was released and returned. *

* she must have been untameable by their standards ....... yea, we love your spunk!

Her tombstone reads:

Martha, daughter of Jesse Hughes, born December, 1773; made prisoner
by the Indians Dec. 1787; married Jacob Bonnett, 1792; died Dec, 1834;
aged 61 years.

Jacob Bonnett was a member of the family that owned the Bonnett Tavern just off the PA Turnpike. (Sadly, the Bonnett Tavern is no longer family owned.)

Jesse Hughes' history is a bit tough to read, but one fairly detailed biography can be found here:
http://www.muzzleblasts.com/archives/vol5no2/articles/mbo52-3.shtml

"My Lobotomy"

While browsing the shelves in Border's yesterday, I discovered a book: My Lobotomy by Howard Dully.

I was tempted to buy it, but I'm vaguely convinced that reading the entire thing would give me screaming nightmares. That said, I think his story is important and well worth knowing and there's a synopsis here. In a nutshell, his is the story of a normal 12 year old boy who received a transorbital lobotomy and more or less recovered. (Had it occurred 5 years later, his story would be very different. He's the youngest person to have ever endured this procedure.)

This sort of story terrifies me in part because the story of someone being declared mentally unstable/ill and then put into an asylum or forced to endure treatment for their "ill" brain is not nearly as rare as it should be. (Frances Farmer's biography Will There Really be a Morning? is also not for the weak of heart; nor, really is the 1944 film Bedlam.)

I am tempted to say we all question the balance of our minds. I know a great many people who delve into books, look at lists of symptoms of mental illness, and have questioned if perhaps those descriptions fit themselves. (My personal opinion is that it can be too easy to self-diagnose yourself as having any number of such illnesses.)

But. I was, in a way, lucky. In fourth grade, my stepmother and father took me off to see a therapist because (as I understand it) I wasn't adjusting well to my parents' divorce. We tried a few sessions together, where they talked about my mom and I cried a lot..eventually, it was decided by the therapist that he should see me by myself. I don't remember much other than playing a lot of air hockey while talking. The end result was that I was declared "normal," and this became almost an accusation as I became older. Nothing could really be wrong with me or with my home life. I was normal.

I think of Howard and I consider myself incredibly lucky that I was found "normal."

As I think most of you know, I deal with anxious depression and panic attacks. I'm certainly not shy about admitting to it. :) I spend perhaps too much time overanalyzing my brain and my reactions to things; I've been in therapy; and I've developed a system of dealing with my Self and my stressors that (usually) works pretty well, and has a great deal to do with how I treat the world around me. I have spent the better part of 30 years picking at my brain, sometimes with outside help. Someone - a person who was little more than an acquaintance - suggested to me recently that she knew more about my mental health than I do, which is..laughable, to say the least. (And, really, just..*no*.)

And then I think of Howard, and Frances, and all the other people who should have been able to laugh off someone else's opinion of their mental health and became instead victims of varied 'cures.'

*shudder*

And..I don't think we're actually that far removed from such things, with the way we medicate our children. But that is perhaps a whole separate rant.

song in my head

Ofra Haza, "Face to Face"





..G'night, LJ.