Yes, cats and kitties, that despair you feel in the pit of your stomach is currently residing in the pits of your friends and neighbors, too. Hooray for human misery!

Speaking of which, I can't get a certain historical period out of my head. I first read about it last week via BlueGal via some other people, but I can't find that particular article referenced by them. Basically it was about this, a period of time from the 1800's to the early 20th century, when women could be committed to an asylum just for being depressed or angry.

Every female relative I know would have been institutionalized.

I believe that this could possibly be one of the worst times in history to be a woman. You can point to the middle ages and stuff, but even then you had some pockets of niceness (or at least a stab at being fair) in places like the Visigothic Code. But the 1800's? You had Chinese foot-binding and African slavery and colonization of your homeland in some places, and this asylum business and lack of property and other human rights in others. I'm talking world-wide yuckiness here. That's why when people focus like a laser on the Magdalene Laundries, I'm a bit perplexed. I mean, yeah, that sucked. Things like that existed all over the place, though. Including the good ol' U.S. of A. Although this book says they weren't all punitive and mean; some were shelters in the true sense of the word.) But anyways...

I'm finding it hard to feel depressed today, not living in a cage in an insane asylum and all. Even if I'm supposed to.