3,181 Comments Posted by Lynne

That's great, Navi!

Florida Jen, I think that's why some of us in the field get a little cranky sometimes - while it is certainly true that there were (and still are) places where horrible things happened, it usually wasn't the norm, or if it was, it was due to the fact that there was no money, few staff (always overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated - and I'm talking direct care staff here, not people like me), no support, and a public that didn't want to know about what happened until the events became exciting newspaper scandals (and died away a month or two later to be replaced by other "exciting" news).

But I am also unhappy because the stories present a bizarre side to the people who lived at these places and makes them all either deranged dangerous psychotic murderers or else innocent trapped souls who were scooped off the street for no reason. In fact there HAVE been deranged dangerous psychotic murderers at these places and there HAVE been some people who were scooped off the street for no reason. That's just a fact. But they were always the minority. It's more exciting to hear about murderers, innocent & wrongly labeled people, suicides, and abusive staff. If I thought anyone would read a book about how boring these places were most of the time I could write one in a week - it would be just what I used to read/write in the charts for year after year for some people - "No problems today - all was well. Ate, went to programs, came home, had dinner, watched TV or went out to an activity, went to sleep." This would be punctuated by "Suzie hit Freda in the mouth - we separated them - Freda was fine - Suzie calmed down in her room" or some other such "interesting" tidbit.

There's a lot of hard work in assisting people with intellectual disabilities to learn specific skills they need to get by, there's a lot of hard work in assisting people with physical rehabilitation to learn skills or regain function, there's a lot of hard work in assisting people in coping with psychiatric illness, but most of it is the same boring day after day routine. Sure it gets exciting some days when people are having problems and need extra support, but it's not more exciting than what people who work with straight medical problems deal with - in fact, it's less so because our work is with people who generally have long-term, chronic issues where medical hospital issues are usually acute.

My personal belief is that the lure of stories of on-going abuse, terror, and entrapment are a sort of "ghost story" for some people who don't want to look provincial by believing in ghosts - it's easier to believe in the cruelty of your fellow human being (and there's plenty more evidence of it). There's a thin line between wanting to get involved to get rid of abuse and wanting to get involved because you get a secret thrill out of thinking that this is happening - a sort of voyeurism that always makes me decidedly uncomfortable. Some people who are excited by stories of abuse and neglect seem to get a sick cheap thrill out of it. Anyone who is obsessed by it and talks about it ad nauseam but doesn't try to do something about it falls into my "voyeur" category. THOSE are the people who make ME nervous - they don't have the intellectual honesty to admit they enjoy peeping at others' pain and they can be superior to others by pointing out that THEY don't injure others. My personal experience has been that once you get someone like that in the system and they find out how hard the work is and what you have to put up with on a day by day basis from people who are truly unable to control their problem behavior, these advocates for reform have sometimes ended becoming perpetrators themselves or having absolutely NO tolerance for unusual behavior. Funny old world, isn't it?

At a large TB hospital in the middle of an epidemic this might have been possible, but not at a psychiatric facility.

Well spoken, Florida Jen! I admit I am one of the bad ones who generalizes about people who look for afterlife stuff. In fact there are people who seriously want to explore what they think might be indications of an afterlife and this is a different group from those who either want to use the afterlife stuff as a springboard for the old Boy Scout hold-the-flashlight-under-your-face- and-tell-stupid-ghost-stories-and-scream- like-Nancy-Kerrigan-while-getting-your-friends-to- pee-their-pants or the ones who are "certifiably unusual" and are, quite frankly, a little beyond the pale themselves already. I am a skeptic because it seems like after multiple decades in the business I ought to have seen SOMETHING by now that's unusual. Well, something unusual other than myself, that is. But if people are looking critically at evidence I applaud them and am sincerely interested in their efforts. Anything done empirically is fabulous. In my humble and unsolicited opinion. :-)

Storage. There was extra space under the dormers, so this was an economical use of that space.

Doesn't it, though? Just what you'd expect from these places, of course. . . .

It's like walking, only your ankle is turned.

Maybe shock and hydrotherapy at the same time.

Superb! Thanks!

My favorite. :-)

Sorry. Rough several weeks at work.
Yes, it's a rolling chair scale.

Call the attorney general's office in the area and ask for some assistance.

You should see all the posts I deleted before I actually sent these few in. ;-)

Can YOU imagine being so out of control that someone needs to take you somewhere to help keep you from hurting yourself or others?

Why would we ever lock up insane people? They are way too much work and difficult to handle, to boot. We only want the ones who are sane because they are still able to do what we ask. Oh, you silly people, thinking residential psychiatric facilities are for people with psychiatric issues. They are just too durned much work - don't you get it?

Those of us who work in residential facilities still spend a lot of time, I have to admit, trying to get those dangerous, illegal, and unethical practices to work as quickly as we would like. We finally had to write a "Patient Abuse and Degradation Manual" so the procedures would be easier, faster, and somewhat standardized. Please feel free to drop me a line if you would like a copy of the manual. It's only $25.99, and we do take credit cards. You have to learn the secret handshake and how to use the decoder ring before we'll let you in the club, of course.