While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence

Meg Kissinger’s memoir, While You Were Out, tells the story of her family’s experiences with mental illness and uses these to explore the larger social and political attitudes surrounding mental health in the United States in the mid to late 20th century. Following World War II, United States veterans and their families felt the demands of modern living, the trauma of the losses of war, and social pressures that affected their mental health. This postwar period saw an increase in attention to mental illness and the end of psychiatric hospitals known for brutal patient abuse and neglect. While these were positive changes, the rise of the pharmaceutical industry and the boom of psychiatric and psychological treatment also facilitated the exploitation and overmedication of millions of people. Antipsychotics and antidepressants of this era were intensely effective in sedating and numbing people but did not necessarily address their underlying mental health. In addition, acknowledgment of mental illness was socially taboo, and people like Jean and Holmer didn’t discuss their mental health conditions, wanting to preserve their social images while convincing themselves that their problems weren’t as severe as they seemed. Substance use disorders also rose during this era as people sought to mask their mental and emotional hardships.