If this is the same Dr. Fenster who, as a newly licensed and very young psychiatrist went to work for the (now closed) state hospital in Nevada, MO, during the late 1960s, I owe my life to this man.... as do my three grown children, my three nearly-grown grandchildren, and my precious new baby great-grandson.
I was a traumatized 14-year-old more than a decade before Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was known. Schizophrenia was the default diagnosis in that era. The prognosis was believed to be hopeless, and the "treatment" was to drug you into a state of zombie-like compliance, lock you in a human warehouse, and throw away the key.
When everyone in my family turned their back on me and wrote me off as a lost cause, Dr. Fenster saw my potential and went to bat for me. Thanks to him, I was set free from the insane asylum in 1969 when I was 16 years old. In those days, a diagnosed schizophrenic being released from a state mental institution was virtually unheard of. I know this is true because, shortly after my mother put me there, I asked the ward doctor, the one who was there before Dr. Fenster was hired, how soon I could expect to go home. That doctor gruffly informed me that 97% of the patients in that mental institution were never released. When he saw what must have been a look of shocked disbelief on my face, the cold-hearted doctor told me to ask the other patients on the ward how long they had been there, if I thought he wasn't telling me the truth.
I did, and the shortest answer I remember hearing was 8 years, the average was closer to 20 years, and beyond! I had just turned 15. I was not a criminal, and I had never in my life tried or threatened to harm anyone in any way, myself included, and yet my life was effectively over!
Except that my life wasn't over, thanks to Dr. Fenster. He saw right away that I did not need to be there. Thank you, Dr. Fenster, wherever you are, for saving my sanity and my life!
by Lynda Lee
xxx.xxx.88.199
November 07, 2013