An Individual History describes thefears, anger, and guilt personal, familial, societal, political, and historical that comprise a life.The figure of the speaker s maternal grandmother who was institutionalized forfive decades serves as an overriding metaphor for this haunting, bold new workby an essential American poet.from An Individual History This was before the time of lithium and Zoloftbefore mood stabilizers and anxiolyticsand almost all the psychotropic drugs, but not before thorazine, which the suicide O Laughlin called handcuffs for the mind. It was before, during, and after the time of atomic fallout, Auschwitz, the Nakba, DDT, and you could take water cures, find solace in quarantines, participate in shunnings, or stand at Lourdes among the canes and crutches.