A Review and Comparison to My Personal Experience with Mental Health and Flowers for Algernon

If anyone has ever read the book Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, this story is very real to me because every time I have had a break down, I forget what I have learned in so many areas.   Charlie is a young man who is severely handicapped and cannot beat a mouse through a maze.  When Charlie is given an operation, he is smarter than the mouse and ultimately becomes a genius, but he returns to the severely handicapped intelligence when the operation stops working. Like Charlie, the doctors have to find new medications to help me get back on track.  My mother died with a lack of clarity and there is a very real fear that I will end up like her.  My dad also had mental illness and was on medication like my mother. Ultimately, he died of a brain tumor, a Glioblastoma, one of the most progressive kind of tumors.

I didn't want to forget what I had to say, so I am writing this with revisions after the original was published.

I have a nice Case Manager now and I am hoping to get back to work as a writer. I am not sure when I last edited this work; however, I have returned to work as a writer having most recently been working for https://www.eastvillagemagazine.org and the View Newspaper. I also substitute taught some classes last year and have enrolled to teach again.

I reread, Flowers for Algernon, and being more aware of myself and because my medication is correct, I appreciate how author, Daniel Keyes, refined words in his book so that none of them were spelled correctly initially when Charlie records his progress per the surgeon's request; however, the spelling is legible and what you would really observe with a special needs person.

Today it is more correct to use the terminology, special needs, instead of retarded; however, at the time Keyes authored the book, retarded was the acceptable term. I hope one does not give up on the book because of the terminology, as there are valuable lessons to be gained from the book.

In the book, Charlie continues to write progress reports, and merely by the writing itself, one is able to recognize the vast improvement in Charlie as he even authors work to facilitate an understanding with the doctors. Emotionally, however, Charlie is stunted.

I am not sure how others have been impacted by mental illness, but I can share that there is no doubt I have been emotionally stunted and sometimes especially when the medication is not right, I have struggled to act my age as I am so confused. 

So, what does confusion look like? I was not quite two when I was sent to live at an orphanage, St. Vincent Sarah Fisher Home, yes home, I never did like the name change to center, where I lived for ten years.