The families in this town have welcomed the mentally ill into their homes — for the last 700 years.
At first glance, Geel seems like any other quaint farming village in the Belgian countryside.
There's a cute market square with plazas and cafes that feels fresh out of 1627, and plenty of delightfully eccentric townsfolk strolling through the streets. Geel (pronounced like "Hyale," kind of) could be just about any town in the province of Antwerp — at least, on the surface.
Photo via Odcdtd45/Wikimedia Commons.
But the casual visitor might not realize how many of these inhabitants are struggling with mental health.
That might sound like the start of a horror movie, but it's the reality that the residents of Geel live with every day — and there's absolutely nothing scary about it (nor should there be; we'll get to that).
In fact, these individuals are welcomed into the homes of any townsfolk who will have them. After undergoing a psychiatric evaluation at one of Geel's many mental health care facilities, those seeking help are integrated into the lives of host families in a system known as "family care."
And some of them stay for as long as 50 years.
That's the other thing: No one actually uses the phrase "mentally ill."
The preferred term is "boarders," although people are also known to refer to these guests (at worst) as "special" or "different."
While the host families do receive a stipend for their care (about $730/month), they are not provided with any background information or clinical diagnoses. This helps cut down on stigmas against people with mental illnesses as being sick or scary or dangerous. If a boarder requires medication or other treatment, the local hospitals will handle it outside the home.
Quite simply, boarders come to Geel when they've had difficulty coping on their own and have no one else to help them. Whatever reason, condition, or situation brought them there is irrelevant. (If that sounds dangerous or risky, remember that people with mental illnesses are significantly more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.)
"I've got it! What if we treated people with compassion and care and like actual people through the course of their psychiatric care?" "I guess that could work. Or we can just shove an icepick through their eyeball socket and cut their frontal lobe." "Yeah, you're right, that makes a lot more sense." Photo by Harris A. Ewing/Wikimedia Commons.
This might sound like a radical treatment, but Geel's been at it since the 13th century.
It all goes back to the story of St. Dymphna, the patron saint of mental illness and nervous disorder (and also incest). Dymphna was an Irish princess whose pagan father kinda went off the deep end after her mother died.
Dymphna's father, Damon, loved his late wife so much that he ... uhhh ... fell in love with his daughter. But Dymphna had taken a vow of chastity for Christ (and also, gross, Dad!), so she fled her father's madness and ultimately settled in Geel ... until Damon tracked her down and cut her head off because she wouldn't marry him. Yay?
The Church of St. Dymphna in Geel. I imagine most of the cognitive behavioral therapy in the town consists of "Hey, at least your life's not as messed up as Dymphna's, huh?" Photo via JH-man/Wikimedia Commons.
A church was eventually built around Dymphna's grave, and the town began to gain a reputation as a mental, spiritual, and emotional sanctuary. The residents of Geel welcomed these asylum seekers with open arms — both as an act of Christian charity and because they needed help on their farms.
As modern psychiatry gained prominence in the 19th century, some people began to look on Geel as a backwards relic of the church. But the family care system continued to demonstrate success, and those skeptics eventually came around, leading to the hybrid of state-run psychiatric oversight and family care for boarders that still exists today.
Plenty of other places have used this revolutionary treatment, too — though none the size of an entire town.
In fact, "moral treatment" is the official name for this kind of psychiatric care (which, if you think about it, is pretty messed up and says a lot about how we approach mental health).
In the United State alone, there was the Quaker-run Friends Hospital, which opened its doors in 1817. (It was originally called the "Friends Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason," though I can't imagine why they changed it.) This was followed a few decades later by the similarly successful Pennsylvania Hospital.
It's a wonder that such a wild idea as "treating people with dignity" didn't catch on any faster.
Photo by Mike Renlund/Flickr.
Although the boarder population has declined in recent years, Geel's centuries-old system still stands as an exemplar of how communities can handle mental health.
At its height, Geel hosted some 4,000 boarders. Today, there are around 300 out of town's population of 35,000. This certainly isn't due to a lack of people struggling with mental health, but rather a decline in families willing to host boarders — though the reasons for this are also unclear (some people theorize that it has to do with the decreased need for farmhands).
What is certain is that Geel's revolutionary mental health care system had a positive impact on countless lives throughout the centuries. Sure, there's no catch-all cure for the wide range of psychiatric and neurological afflictions in the world. But imagine the difference it would make if we were all more willing to embrace empathy and create more communities that let people with mental illnesses live like they are — as people.
Here's a short video about a host family and their boarders in Geel:
There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."