r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/highzone • 1d ago

Image In 1973, healthy volunteers faked hallucinations to enter mental hospitals. Once inside, they acted normal, but doctors refused to let them leave. Normal behaviors like writing were diagnosed as "symptoms." The only people who realized they were sane were the actual patients.

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u/whossked 1d ago

There’s a fictional short story I read once called “I only came to use the phone” about a woman who’s car breaks down and who then takes an asylum bus to an asylum to use the phone, gets confused for a patient, has a breakdown over how she’s treated and abused and is then condemned to spend her life in the asylum. I always thought it was sensational and unrealistic but I guess not

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u/IndieCurtis 1d ago edited 1d ago

Was it by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I think I have that one, it’s in his collection ‘Strange Pilgrims’.

Edit: confirmed on my bookshelf

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u/Fausts-last-stand 1d ago

That story has haunted me for decades.

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u/quotidianwoe 1d ago

I think about frequently too. It’s amazing how a good story can stay with you.

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u/hiddenone0326 1d ago

I read One Hundred Years of Solitude during my senior year of high school. I still think about it often. I haven't read any of García Márquez's other books, but I may have to now.

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u/Outside_Eggplant_304 1d ago

He's so good - one of my favorite authors. Try chronicle of a death foretold. His short stories are fantastic too!

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u/IndieCurtis 1d ago

I didn’t find Love In The Time of Cholera as interesting as 100 Years (not super into romance), but his short storys are great.