List of reasons for admission to an insane asylum from the late 1800s

It certainly was waaay too easy to get yourself locked up back then. 

This list is from West Virginia’s Hospital for the Insane (Weston) aka Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum back in the late-1800s.  I've had a lot of these "issues" over the course of my life, and still have quite a few. 

Per Appalachian History:

Weston Hospital in Lewis County, WV, officially named the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane upon completion of the facility shown here in 1880, was typical of the many that were established throughout the country. Its design reflected the Kirkbride plan in action.

Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride’s theory centered on what he referred to as the “moral treatment” of the insane, a constructive idea unique to the United States, for mental asylums from the mid to late 19th century.

He advocated moving patients from overcrowded city jails and almshouses, where patients were often chained to walls in cold dark cells, to a rural environment with grounds that were “tastefully ornamented” and buildings arranged “en echelon” resembling a shallow V if viewed from above.

This design called for long, rambling wings, that provided therapeutic sunlight and air to comfortable living quarters so that the building itself promoted a curative effect, or as Kirkbride put it, “a special apparatus for lunacy.” 

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is still open, but only for tours. 

Marjorie E. Carr published a pamphlet in 1993, now in the Weston Hospital Collection at the West Virginia Archives and History, that tells the history of Weston. Her pamphlet includes the following from the first log book used at Weston (spelling & punctuation left as in the original):

REASONS FOR ADMISSION

WEST VIRGINIA HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE (WESTON)

OCTOBER 22, 1864 to DECEMBER 12, 1889

Amenorrhea

Asthma

Bad company

Bad habits & political excitement

Bad whiskey

Bite of a rattle snake

Bloody flux

Click to embiggen

Brain fever

Business nerves

Carbonic acid gas

Carbuncle

Cerebral softening

Cold

Congetion of brain

Constitutional

Crime

Death of sons in the war

Decoyed into the army

Deranged masturbation

Desertion by husband

Diptheria

Disappointed affection

Disappointed love

Disappointment

Dissipation of nerves

Dissolute habits

Dog bite

Domestic affliction

Domestic trouble

Douby about mother’s ancestors

Dropsy

Effusion on the brain

Egotism

Epileptic fits

Excessive sexual abuse

Excitement as officer

Explosion of shell nearby

Exposure & hereditary

Exposure & quackery

Exposure in army

Fall from horse

False confinement

Feebleness of intellect

Fell from horse

Female disease

Fever

Fever & loss of law suit

Fever & nerved

Fighting fire

Fits & desertion of husband

Bedlam

Gastritis

Gathering in the head

Greediness

Grief

Gunshot wound

Hard study

Hereditary predisposition

Ill treatment by husband

Imaginary female trouble

Immoral life

Imprisonment

Indigestion

Intemperance

Interferance

Jealousy

Jealousy & religion

Kick of horse

Kicked in the head by a horse

Laziness

Liver and social disease

Loss of arm

Marriage of son

Masturbation & syphillis

Masturbation for 30 years

Medicine to prevent conception

Menstrual deranged

Mental excitement

Milk fever

Moral sanity

Novel reading

Nymphomania

Opium habit

Over action on the mind

Over heat

Over study of religion

Over taxing mental powers.

Parents were cousins

Pecuniary losses: worms

Periodical fits

Political excitement

Politics

Puerperal

Religious enthusiasm

Religious excitement

Remorse

Rumor of husband’s murder or desertion

Salvation army

Scarlatina

Seduction

Seduction & dissappointment

Self abuse

Severe labor

Sexual abuse and stimulants

Sexual derangement

Shooting of daughter

Smallpox

Snuff

Snuff eating for two years

Softening of the brain

Spinal irritation

Sun stroke

Sunstroke

Superstition

Supressed masturbation

Supression of menses

Tabacco & masturbation: hysteria

The war

Time of life

Trouble

Uterine derangement

Venerial excesses

Vicious vices in early life

Women

Women trouble

Young lady & fear

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is still open, but only for tours.

Related, here's an Illustrated Guide to Recognizing Insane People from 1883

h/t Dangerous Minds.