Dr. Ruth Simkin is living a life of retirement in the beautiful city of Victoria with her animal companion Reenie. She has had an extremely successful medical career that has taken her to numerous cities, including Calgary; has travelled around the world, and has written a myriad of books on a myriad of topics. She is a recipient of many groundbreaking degrees and awards, most notably a degree from the University of Calgary’s first medical school in 1973. She was the first person from this class to open up a practice in Calgary and eventually won Calgary’s Woman of the Year award. She has studied in Washington D.C., and Shanghai.
Dr. Simkin spent five years at the Alexandria Community Health Centre, and helped to build what the community it is today. She has  worked with Alberta Theatre Projects and helped build the Calgary Centre for Performing Arts. The GLBTA community of Calgary today is indebted to her formation of the first gay and lesbian advocacy organization in the city, the CLAGPAG.
A glance at this accomplished, out woman will leave you satisfied that she has and is living life to its fullest. This of course is true, but what is astonishing is how she became who she is today. Dr, Simkin was not always this way.
In 1963, life took a strange turn for Ruthie J, as she was locked up in an infamous American psychiatric hospital for two years. What is perhaps most staggering is why she was there, and why her life turned out the way it did when all odds were stacked against her.
Dr. Simkin took some time out of her schedule to talk to GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine about what this whole situation meant for her. When asked why she feels that a story like this still resonates with the public, regardless of the fact that a backwards psychiatric field was the norm in the 1960’s, she used a feasible analogy. “It is like eating meat. You know what you are eating, you know what a slaughter house looks like, but you still eat meat.”
The 1960’s were not a good time for those afflicted with mental illness. Not only were such practices as electro-shock therapy common, so too was impersonal counselling, questionable treatments and improper medications. An interpretation of what constituted a mental illness was also seriously in question. For instance, epilepsy was not historically treated as a chronic neurological disorder; it has had a plethora of stigmas and diagnoses. It has had many connotations, put most damaging was the fact that it was considered a disease of the devil - that epileptic seizures were a result of demonic possession. As time has passed, epilepsy was still largely misunderstood. Ruth Simkin was a victim of these misunderstandings. Bizarre behaviour on her part, along with alcohol binges and sexual promiscuity in her mid to late teens were eventually diagnosed and contributed to epilepsy. In the 1960’s, epilepsy was considered a mental illness, and it was suggested to Simkin’s parents that she be put in a sanatorium.
For two years Ruth Simkin called the Chestnut Lodge in Rockville, Maryland home. Chestnut Lodge Sanitorium at the time was one of the top 20 psychiatry hospitals in the United States. When other hospitals and treatments do not work for the patient, Chestnut Lodge was the place to go.  It is a hospital famous for celebrity patrons and stories, and notorious for its Ward 4, the worst of the worst. Due to a lack of space, Ward 4 was where Simkin was first admitted and where she stayed until her release two years later.
Life was not easy on Ward 4, and was made worse by an inhumane and psychotic psychiatrist who was eventually committed himself. The book uses flashbacks throughout her stay at Chestnut Lodge as a means of understanding who she was and that epilepsy was not all that was inflicting pain for Ruth.
 A common theme in the book, and what was apparent through those flashbacks of her childhood and young adult life, was her feeling of being different and alone regardless of what she did. Simkin attributes some of this to her independence of a traditional Jewish upbringing and the fact that she was a lesbian. “I didn’t know there was an issue with my sexuality. I just thought that I was a promiscuous heterosexual. Homosexuality was not a part of the vocabulary than, it was foreign territory, so that never occurred to me. In retrospect, I’m sure it did have something to do with it.”
When recounting her experience at Chestnut Lodge in The Jagged Years of Ruthie J, Simkin understands how it may have robbed her of her youth, however acknowledged how it shaped her into who she is today. “Well, my Doctor was insane, and I was always told I was going to be a lifer there. I had to make a choice at a young age. Was I going to strive to keep to whom I am, or would I let them steal my soul?”
She met her ‘one true-love’ while there, and learned what it was like to be really loved. “I met the love of my life there, and I still hold a place in my heart for her.” If it wasn’t for the doctor she met there at the end of her stay, who would assist her in turning her life around, she may have never been the doctor she is today. “I had a sane doctor that gave me life and made me human. I am able to listen to people and be a good physician.”
The story of Ruth Simkin is one of human triumph in the face of adversity. She was able to tackle a system that was homophobic, sexist, and backwards. She found out who she was and used it to become who she is today. She is a winner in all forms and continues to inspire with writings about her travels, the medical system, and her life as a Jewish woman, as a lesbian, as a pioneer in the medical industry, and as a human in general. This book will both inspire and amaze you.