With my wits back, I watch and listen to what is going on here. It was never brought to my attention how asylums were run. On the outside, we were to understand the only people committed were truly sick or unable to care for themselves. In actuality, many of the women in here are victims of bad circumstances, just like me.

We are victimized daily in many ways. We are forced to strip in front of each other and the doctors. We wait naked in long lines to take cold baths in the same water as the previous woman in line. Our food is limited to small portions that even the healthiest of us have trouble surviving on, let alone those of us who are ill. In truth, if you are truly ill, you will have a hard time recuperating due to the dank and moist living quarters we are forced to cohabitate.

It is almost unimaginable that I have overcome my issues in a place like this. The asylum is not a place they send you with the hopes you will be cured from whatever your ailment. The doctors do not listen if you try to tell them you are better. I have stopped trying. I will have to find another way to leave this place, and it will not be the same way I got in to it. I do not feel this way now.

I have tried to reach out to both William and my father to tell them how much better I am and that I am ready to be removed from this place, but I have not seen or heard anything from them since I arrived. I am not sure if it is due to my letters never being sent or they merely do not care to write or visit. I am on my own. For the first time in my life, I must do this on my own.

I begin to investigate if anyone has ever left this place. Everyone I talk to, including staff, ensures me that the only way out is in death. I have a daughter, and I will not do that to her again. She must be just about old enough to walk now. I really would love to see that. Experience that.