19th century slang for insane asylum

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https://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/...-United-States/#vars!date=1807-03-12_16:47:22!

I understand that terms such as sanitarium, convalescent home, mental institution, etc. were in discreet use within what was considered polite society.

It might be a little odd if your character spoke of herself that way. The stigma around mental illness was horrific. People preferred to say that their relatives had died, rather than admit they were alive in a mental institution. It was considered hereditary, so a mentally ill relative reflected badly on the family. Having such a relative could constitute a societal bar to marriage with someone whose family was "normal."

Women in particular would likely be sensitive to the issue of mental illness, because the label or diagnosis of "hysteria" was too often applied as a way to dismiss and control them. Worse, at least a bit earlier in the century--and possibly later into it--an inconvenient wife could find herself committed with no way of escape, and sometimes for no other reason than the husband wanted free rein to commit adultery.

If your character really does want to describe herself in this way, she might be a bit more distant about it. "Much more of this, and you'll have to lock me upstairs with a trained nurse to look after me!"

"I believe I'm getting to be dotty!" [from being in one's dotage]

"The way I'm seeing things, you'd think I was as drunk as Uncle Albert!"

Etc.

In that case, "madhouse" was in use from the 1680s on. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=madhouse "Bedlam" also dates from the 1600s. According to the same source, you won't find "looney bin" until 1909.

Was reading a 1947 novel. The MC's aunt was stressed by her mother-in-law, and turned to alcoholism to deal with it, and was forever in and out of a sanatorium for a cure. It took years for the MC to realize what was going on with her aunt, because the rest of the family refused to talk about it plainly, and were always very evasive about the aunt's problems.

The family was fairly affluent for their time-- but there was a major stigma for mental health issues and alcoholism, certainly as far back as the 30's and 40's, and probably into the 50's-60's-70's to one degree or another. It wasn't until deinstitutionalization really took effect that people got used to dealing with mental illness head-on, because it was no longer safely hidden behind walls for other people to deal with.

I remember going to a pioneer museum. There were a number of log cabins on display. (1860's-1890's.) One of them had housed a family had a child who was mentally retarded, if I recall. That child was not permitted to ever leave their tiny cabin. She was kept shut up in her room, and fed--- but everyone otherwise pretended like she didn't exist.

So if a family is affluent enough to send someone away to an institution, they're probably genteel enough to not be slangy about it, or advertise it broadly, or speak openly about it. If a family is poor, they're probably going to take the mad-wife-locked-in-the-attic route about things.

If a character is on the verge of committing suicide due to her mental illness--- she'd probably have a genuine reason to worry that her family might end up locking her away for the next several decades, just to protect her from herself. Like with Blanche Monnier, who had been kept locked in a room for 25 years, to prevent her from marrying someone socially unacceptable, and only ended up freed due to an anonymous note to the authorities. Or a la Jane Eyre, where that particular subplot was inspired by the legend of Mad Mary's Room at Norton Conyers in North Yorkshire.

Ive heard "nervous hospital" used, but im not sure how old it is or if its a southernism. "Bughouse" is another one.

Honestly, a LOT depends on the tone of the conversation and who's talking.

Is the character being dismissive/scornful? ("What are you going to do, throw me in a madhouse?") Is she afraid? ("You aren't going to put me away, are you?") I feel like the more scornful she is, the more likely she is to actually name the place, whereas the more fearful she is, the more likely she is to talk around it, unless her fear tends to make her angry and that anger makes her reckless, and then we might be back to naming it outright.

Also important: is this a "polite" conversation? Is this woman well-bred/genteel? The more "polite" the conversation, the less likely they are to name the thing out loud. There was a major stigma against mental illness. If you could talk around it instead of about it, you would.

Here's an example. According to Elizabeth Keckley, Mrs. Lincoln's dressmaker, after Willie Lincoln died, Mary was in a desperate state and Mr. Lincoln said to her, "Mother, do you see that large white building on the hill yonder? Try and control your grief, or it will drive mad, and we may have to send you there."

In this case, he's talking around it to a certain degree (or at least Mrs. Keckley has him doing so).

I will push back against lonestarlibrarian a bit. Mental asylums could be awful places, and in fact I would say that the wealthier the family, the less likely they would be to send their loved one there (presuming the family doesn't want to get rid of this person and wants the best for him/her). Wealthier people could afford to care for this person in their home, either doing it themselves or hiring someone to assist. Less wealthy people might have little choice but to put this person in an asylum (because they don't have time/money to care for the person themselves). Unfortunately, the treatment was likely to be terrible there. Of course, the in-home care could be poor/awful, too, and the mentally ill person is likely to have been hidden away, and there were decent institutions (but not many). So there are a lot of variables here. The best option for someone suffering mental illness was probably to be cared for at home by a loving family with resources. The worst would be to be dumped in an abusive institution and forgotten.

In any case . . . "madhouse" seems like a good option!