The other day, I was searching through Netflix to find a show and/or movie that I hadn't seen before.  It recommended the film, "God Knows Where I am" and gave me a brief description of a woman who was found dead in a home in NH who kept a diary of her experience while staying in that home.

God Knows Where I Am is a tragically beautiful film about a woman from NH, Linda Bishop, who was diagnosed as bi-polar and was discharged from the New Hampshire Hospital in Concord in the fall of 2007.  I'm leaving out a ton of details, but basically, after she was discharged, Linda walked around until she found a vacant home at 393 Mountain Road in Concord where she stayed from October of 2007 until January of 2008 when she died of starvation.  During this time, she wrote down her experiences, her feelings and emotions in a notebook.  The notebook was read in the film by actress, Lori Singer.

Singer did the voice over work on this film and she did an incredible job with expressing Linda's range of emotions while she was there in the house, right up until her death.  I had an opportunity to speak with one of the filmmakers, Todd Wider, who said this about Lori Singer's preparation for the film:

She didn't eat for four days and locked herself in a closet while she recorded herself on a tape recorder.

Todd also said,

Many hospitals are not where they should be (when it comes to mental illness.)  I was a surgeon before I was a filmmaker and for me, it's like letting a patient leave the emergency room with a hole in their head.... I don't understand why it's okay to just let people go who are really mentally ill.

Like I said, I'm leaving out a ton of details because you should watch the movie.  Mental illness is an epidemic in this country and if this film and my words can help at all, I'm in.

 

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