Please Read- This Shouldn't Be Forgotten

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This article literally made me cry. I knew this place had existed but until now I didn't realize the scale of what went on

matthewgood.org

Last edited by LosFrida on 18 May 2009, 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

what article

Sorry- fixed the link

no problem that's happened to me too so ... and thank you.

edit: that's a powerful article I agree with the op this is common (or atleast more so than we're let on).

They did the same thing at Danvers Asylum in Danvers Massachusetts. The building was a beautiful giant Kirkbride building which contained as close to hell as any could. Now they tore down 4 5ths of the building leaving the front administration section as the main entrance to an upscale condominium complex. The graveyard, 3 acres of graves only marked with small metal numbers sits there with many of the grave markers missing. The lawn of the graveyard is still mowed, but not much else is done to preserve the history of it or the "hospital".

You're welcome

I haven't read it all, I fear it will be one of those things that stop me sleeping, so I'll read it when I'm not just about to go to bed.

that really hits hard. Thank you for posting though, I think it makes the point quite well that those with mental health conditions are considered subhuman by too many; and that just as many would build there homes over the graves of others.

I don't know what happens today but in the UK in the 80's-90's anyone sectioned to a hospital would be diagnosed by the following method:

Throw a range of drug cocktails at the patient and see what sticks. Check what that medication is 'intended' to treat. That is your condition.

In the US it was more of "take anyone with ANY form of mental illness and lock them up so they don't interfere with society". While they were locked up, they'd be given "treatments" which would often be human medical testing, or a frontal lobotomy to "protect them from themselves".

Never forget that thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of Auties and Aspies suffered and died in these gulags throughout the world.

Or the fact that if those asylums still operated, many of us would be in them.

that is an excellent and terrifying point. what's worse there'd be plenty if people willing to staff them

I broke into Danvers once with a few friends about 10 years ago, we all shared the interest of old abandoned buildings. As I walked down the halls, looking into the rooms, it hit me like a ton of bricks that this experience meant far more to me than it did to my NT friends. To them, it was just a big old building to explore, but to me, had I been born only 10 years earlier, there's a good chance that I would've been locked in one of these rooms.

These places, though called hospitals, were really just prisons for those who were deemed "unfit for society". People who committed no crime other than being born different would be locked up in these places for the rest of their lives. People, through no fault of their own would be locked up in these maximum security prisons to be forgotten by anyone on the outside.

After walking those halls, I still have dreams about that place. While checking out one of the rooms, a friend closed the door as a joke. I was locked in as the door could only be opened from the out side. I stood there looking at the walls thinking about how close I came to calling that tiny room home.

While driving home, I passed the hospital cemetary, Hotel California by the Eagles was on the radio, and as I glanced out at the cemetary, I heard the words "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave". Since that moment on, those words still ring in my ears any time I think of one of these facilities, and any time I hear that song, I think of the dark echoy halls of that building.

I could've been arrested for being there, but for the 3 hours I spent in that building, it was fully worth it to see where the line of comparison lies with the way my life is today.

*I have now read the full thing* That's scary, if I'd been born in those days I would have almost definitely been locked up in one of those places.

The "mentally ill" have been considered unhuman in the US for centuries. The attitude goes back to England, where the insane were exhibited at the Bedlam asylum to fee paying customers. In San Jose, California, the longtime Agnews asylum is being closed down. Agnews is smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley, on some EXTREMELY expensive real estate, so the next real estate boom will likely see it demolished and redeveloped. The story of the employee who was committed to an asylum to keep the place's secrets secret sounds like a movie that was made a few years ago. Halle Berry played a doctor at an insane asylum who is committed to her former workplace. The movie is a horror movie, so it turns out that the character's beliefs are TRUE, and she has to save herself. I think the movie was called Gothika.

These old "castles" were extremely foreboding and scary. Prisons today are utilitarian, just prefabricated concrete meant to keep people in with a minimum of fuss. In the 19th century, prisons were designed to look like something out of a Frankenstein movie. If anybody ever drives into Ione, California, going east on California 104, one will see this old derelict red brick castle sitting on a hill above this quaint town. That was Preston Reformatory, a "school" for "wayward youth". Basically troubled kids were locked up there, but were usually released after their 25th birthday. The old castle is surrounded by a modern youth prison, which along with the Mule Creek adult facility employs the townspeople, so one can't see it up close. But every time I drive into Ione I think of Dracula's castle.

This site has some great photos of old abandoned asylums around the US for anyone who wants a better idea of the castle-like look of these places. It's amazing how many of these places existed and the enormous size of most of them. Many of these places are bigger than universities, and set up in much the same ways. Most of them are being converted into apartment buildings and condominiums, places I personally would not want to live in, even now that I have a choice.

Note: the link is the first 2 words of this post