A look back at GH characters who were institutionalized

PATIENT ID: CARLY ROBERTS CASE FILE: In April 1998, Carly went ballistic when her ex, Tony, was acquitted at his trial for kidnapping Carly’s infant son, Michael — and after the verdict was read, she shot Tony in the courtroom. She was arrested, but DA Dara ordered a mental evaluation and she was subsequently hospitalized at a psychiatric facility, much to her chagrin (“Tony Jones is the psycho here, not me — he’s the one who should be in the padded cell!”). In time, she was deemed sane enough to stand trial, so crafty Carly decided to fake insanity and practiced acting crazy, including cradling a pillow that she referred to as Michael. Her performance was convincing enough that in July, she was shipped to Ferncliff, a maximum-security psychiatric facility. She remained there until November, when Jason secured her release. In January 2004, desperate to rid herself of her fixation on Lorenzo Alcazar, Carly checked herself into another sanitarium, Shadybrook, intending to undergo therapy with Cameron Lewis; instead, she was drugged against her will on Faith’s orders. Alcazar broke her out and took her to a safehouse. In October of the following year, she suffered a nervous breakdown, and after she stabbed Emily, Sonny checked her into Roselawn Sanitarium, but she was released at Christmastime. Then, in June 2018, after a period of gaslighting by Nelle, Carly was in danger of going to prison, but was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity and sent back to Ferncliff. In August, she was exonerated and freed when Michael busted Nelle.

PATIENT ID: LAURA WEBBER CASE FILE: On the eve of her remarriage to Luke in August 2002, Laura recovered a suppressed memory of having witnessed a violent confrontation in the attic of the Webber house between her adoptive father, Rick, and his mistress, Theresa, when she was a teenager. Rick showed up and she struck him with a candlestick; he died. In the aftermath, an emotionally fragile Laura lost touch with reality and was hospitalized. In September, her family accepted a doctor’s recommendation to send Laura to a psychiatric clinic in London. There, she fell into a catatonic state and was diagnosed with Psychomotor Dissociation. A few years later, her sons, Nikolas and Lucky, had Laura transferred to Shadybrook. In October 2006, with the help of an experimental drug, she emerged from catatonia, but relapsed the following month. Laura’s daughter, Lulu, was institutionalized with her in August 2008, and she became lucid again. In November, she went to France to continue treatment, and has made great mental health strides in the intervening years.

PATIENT ID: NIKOLAS CASSADINE CASE FILE: Suffering from amnesia, Nikolas was in a bad way in 2004 — and his diabolical grandmother, Helena, exploited his condition to attempt to seize control of the Cassadine empire. Set on having him declared mentally incompetent, she had orderlies drag Nik off to Shadybrook in August. His lady love, Emily, enlisted Jason’s help; he got a court order securing Nikolas’s release, but Helena ran interference. Em was relieved when Nikolas proved to be of sound enough mind to realize Helena was up to no good, and when he detailed his plan to get Helena to confess to her crimes, she insisted on staying at Shadybrook in disguise to protect Nik. Helena caught on and had Emily drugged and placed in a straitjacket, then gloated to Nik that she was going to have him medicated against his will. A frustrated Nikolas banged his head against the door of his room and fell to the floor, restoring his memories! By the end of the month, he freed Emily and escaped the institution, foiling Helena’s power grab.

PATIENT ID: AVA JEROME CASE FILE: On Halloween in 2019, Ava came face to face with a ghost (or so she believed) when Nikolas Cassadine revealed himself to her in her gallery. She promptly fainted, and when she came to and reported her sighting to Laura, Nikolas’s mother was concerned for Ava’s mental well-being, especially since she’d been convinced for several weeks that someone was following her (Nikolas’s handiwork, again). With gentle coaxing and support from Laura and Julian, Ava agreed to sign herself into Shadybrook. Her condition worsened when Nik paid a nurse to sedate her and he sneaked into her room, invoking her dead daughter Kiki’s name in an attempt to get her to reveal the whereabouts of the portrait of Helena he needed to regain control of the Cassadine estate. But he dropped his Cassadine crest ring in her room, and when a visiting Nina found it, Ava realized that if it was real, Nik must be, too. In early December, she checked herself out and focused on a new mission: revenge against Nikolas!