God, I am identifying with the retarded: Been in Saudi too long?

Today I watched a TV movie, "Winnie, My Life In An Institution". I usually get up very early in the mornings, and often I will just do some channel flicking over morning coffee. This movie was a true story about Winnie Sprockett, who at age 6 was adjudged moderately retarded and confined to an Iowa mental institution. She died in this institution at the age of 44.
When Winnie was a young woman, she was qualified to leave this institution and live in a group home situation. Morning coffee in hand, still in my PJ’s, and tucked away in a room with no windows, I had an emotional melt-down watching Winnie's life unfold in the group home. I hate it when strong emotions flare out of me, and catch me so unprepared.
There were several scenes where Winnie was relishing her freedoms in the outside world. Incredible as it may sound, I was right with her feeling the sun, riding the buses, playing with the dog (and I don’t really like dogs!), going into a wonderful USA library, walking along outside, on her own. Seriously, I actually felt the prickle of the grass she sat on to read a book outside! She was totally loving and appreciating every second of her freedoms for the first time in years away from the institution.
I so appreciate all my freedoms when I leave Saudi Arabia and this movie, in a few scenes, had me totally understanding how absolutely wonderful this character felt about being free.
I just did not expect to be drenched in the strong emotions which left me drained and spent from crying. It was HER story to that point and then it became OUR story.
Society couldn’t deal with Minnie, this retarded young woman that didn’t quite behave ‘normally’. Their disapproval and fear of her just became too much to bear. Winnie returned to the institution on her own because she felt society just wasn’t ready for her. She lived out the rest of her days, safely inside the walls of the institution. Inside the institution she wrote down all her thoughts and feelings and knew that no one could take away the freedoms of her mind.
Whew, there is horror in the loss of freedoms of all kinds.