Interesting because I'm interested in that subject
How useful was it?
Very useful
Would you read it again?
Probably not
Value for money
Satisfactory
Advantages:
Difficult to determine
Disadvantages:
Disturbing
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Becoming Anna is an autobiographical account of a sixteen year old girl, born as Tiffany Blake in America’s Midwest. Tiffany’s Father physically abused her or showed her no love whatsoever, while her Mother and Grandmother who lived next doorwere emotionally cruel to her, and blamed her for all the family problems including her mother’s own illnesses and diabetes which had started after her younger brother was born. Her mother and grandmother labelled her as difficult and hard to control and she was made to sleep in a room that had been built over the garage, which had a wall for a view and no curtains.
Tiffany however comes across as a young girl who is just desperate to be loved unconditionally and wants to please everyone. Although this is an autobiography at no time does she show signs of being a difficult child to parent, and even if she was, it doesn’t excuse her parents for their appalling treatment of her and lack of love shown even as she becomes the inevitable pawn in their marriage break up.
Tiffany did well at school yet her parents constantly told her that she was hopeless and would fail everything. She was determined not to let this happen and did extra work for extra credit at school. She wrote a story about a girl who was kept in a garage and who only had a pet mouse as company and who wanted to kill herself (Tiffany did have a hamster). This article resulted in her first being referred to a psychologist as there was clearly something ‘wrong’ with her to have thought up this story.
This cycle of abuse unfortunately was not likely to be broken any time soon. Tiffany’s Grandmother had also emotionally abused her Uncle and he himeself was committed to an institution until he was 18 and now existed back at home in a world numbed by drugs, which he probably didn’t need.
Seeing the psychologist did mean that she was moved out of the room above the garage and into her Mother’s bedroom, however her parents made no secret of the fact that they resented they were in some way responsible. She was isolated from friends and was weak and in generally poor health as well as suffering from stress by the time she was 13. She couldn’t understand why she spoke to counsellors about the emotional abuse, even speaking to a friend’s mother who had been physically abused herself. However she did find she could get some attention by faking seizures at school and this led to time off.
Her parents seemed determined to prove to society that she was Mentally Ill, and amazingly their comments were believed to the extent that they were able to commit her to the first Mental Institution at the age of 13, instigated by her Grandmother, herself a child psychologist of some 30 years standing and who therefore ought to be believed.
Tiffany spent 30 days in the first institution before being sent home, because that was all their medical care could pay for. She was home a few months before being committed to the second institution in which she spend one year of her life.
Most of the book relates to her experiences in the insitutions and the appalling treatment and abuse that these vulnerable children suffered. Even worse was the fact that most of the children in their did not seem to have mental illnesses or even behavioural problems that warranted such extreme treatment. One child was dying from Huntingdon’s disease. The staff were both physically and emotionally cruel to the kids, and frequent broke the law by committing them to the isolation cell if they did not comply with the system.
The kids tried to cope by becoming friends with each other and becoming involved as girlfriends/boyfriends although they could not even enjoy physical comfort with one another in friendship as touching other patients was “against the rules” as was passing notes to one another, although sometimes these things went on.
Being committed to a mental institution when you are not ill is bad enough for any child to endure but Tiffany’s parents went one step further by allowing her home on pass outs, occasional visits and empty promises to let her home soon. Such was the apparent fault of the system that after her parents divorce and with custody awarded to her mother (despite the fact she was still institutionalised), her Mother made an application to become a ward of court so she could be assigned a foster home who could cope with her. Despite this being the escape she desperately needed, it was snatched from her as Tiffany refused to sign the slapdash report which had been compiled from her 2000 page psychological file, and it was the first time that Tifanny had seen the lies her parents had said about her in print. Yet she still desperately wanted the love of her sick mother.
This book does shock you to the core as the year goes on and you read the account of more and more children and young adults and how the system that is meant to take care of them has let them down so very badly. It is a very emotional read that I am sure will have most people fighting back the tears, and it is one that will stay with you long after you have read the epilogue, written by the 19 year old Anna Michener (her new name). The book itself was written at age 16, when the experience was raw in Anna’s mind. Rarely, just rarely there is a glimpse of hope in the love that the children themselves shared between them, and that hope turns to sorrow as they move in and out of each others lives, often going back to more abuse at the hands of their families. It is no wonder that two of the children in the institution both preferred to sleep rough than be imprisoned in this grey concrete blight on the landscape.
The book is set around 1991/1992, and Anna would therefore be in her mid twenties now and is rebuilding her life with a family around her who are not her own but who loved her more than her own ever could. And unfortunately Anna’s younger brother did not escape the institutionalisation and drugging that have marked Anna’s young life for ever.
A year in this institution affected her physically too, due to the complete lack of exercise, drug routine, and appalling salty diet. Although she only put on a few pounds in weight, Tiffany's body bloated until she was five sizes bigger, which is also unforgiveable.
No doubt there will be the inevitable cynical criticism of the book, and the author, and her need to put her story in print and I understand that her family still dispute her claims. Being creative with both art and writing was a great love of Anna’s which had been supressed by her family and the institution.
But this young lady does talk a lot of common sense right through the book, as she desperately tries to understand what is causing the behaviour of the people that are a feature in her life. She does come across as needing love and has heaps of insecurities, which are completely understandable given the 16 years of neglect that filled the first sixteen years of her life on this planet. And there doesn’t seem to be any logic in the fact that at the age of 18 she had new rights including the right to walk out of a mental institution – rights that she did not have the day before. So if her writing her biography has upset a few people in America’s Midwest then so be it.
ISBN 0-226-52403-5 Published by University of Chicago Press . Cover Price $13 and available on Amazon.co.uk for £6.52 new. 256 Pages.
I am not sure that a star rating or recommendation is appropriate here, but I have given it a full five stars for the honesty and raw courage of the author.
(The title of this review refers to the affectionate nickname that she had during her time in the institution by a few of the close friends she did make there.)
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