My Thoughts about Rose Kennedy
And Mental Illness
I wanted to write a small story about someone famous that had a mental health condition. The first person I thought of was Rosemary Kennedy sister to John F. Kennedy.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Rosemary Kennedy and I share the same day of birth, September 13th. We also share the fact we both have/had a mental illness and both of us were hospitalized because of it. While my longest hospitalization was 9 months at 17 years old, Rose Kennedy was in an institution her entire adult life from 1949 until January 7th, 2005 when she died of natural causes.
The name of the hospital she resided was called, “St. Colletta’s School for Exceptional Children”, and was located in Jefferson, Wisconsin.
The Kennedys kept her illness a secret and would often say she was mentally retarded when in fact she had a serious form of depression and mental illness.
I don’t blame the Kennedys, I’m just like them, I often try and hide the fact I have a mental illness. You can say what you want but I know firsthand that people look at people differently and treat us differently if they know they have a mental health condition. While it is more talked about today there is still stigma around the term mentally ill.
