This is the first episode I ever saw of this series, years ago. It was on again today, and it still staggers with its impact.
The story concerns a woman, clearly mentally ill, who was committed to a mental health facility back in the 1950s. She has nearly burned her house down with her and her son in it. She had no harmful intent, but also no appreciation of the reality of her actions and their consequences.
The doctors and nurses are not evil either. They do things with the best of intentions, and the worst of outcomes. In the case of our protagonist, the young mother, they are helpless, clueless. A horror ensues, and the facility is impotent in its efforts at fixing her.
I am being purposely vague, because you really have to see this to appreciate its beauty and its horror. Because there are many things we can't fix, and the harder we try the worse the patient suffers. So does everyone else. We desperately want an answer, a fix. And all too often, there isn't one.
Only watch this if you can handle the ineffably sad. If you can, it is more than worth it.
This is a hard watch, but ultimately worth the time and the tears. It rerminds us of our own inadeequacy.
The story concerns a woman, clearly mentally ill, who was committed to a mental health facility back in the 1950s. She has nearly burned her house down with her and her son in it. She had no harmful intent, but also no appreciation of the reality of her actions and their consequences.
The doctors and nurses are not evil either. They do things with the best of intentions, and the worst of outcomes. In the case of our protagonist, the young mother, they are helpless, clueless. A horror ensues, and the facility is impotent in its efforts at fixing her.
I am being purposely vague, because you really have to see this to appreciate its beauty and its horror. Because there are many things we can't fix, and the harder we try the worse the patient suffers. So does everyone else. We desperately want an answer, a fix. And all too often, there isn't one.
Only watch this if you can handle the ineffably sad. If you can, it is more than worth it.
This is a hard watch, but ultimately worth the time and the tears. It rerminds us of our own inadeequacy.
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