142 Comments Posted by Lyric

Kelso-

When you are arrested for trespassing. It is the discretion of the city. state, or county that you live in to further press charges.
Should they decide to, you will go before a judge, either with or without a jury present and you will be sentenced to any varying thing from actual time served at your local county facility or community service work.
You may also be subject to a fine that will be determined by the judge.

This will also be placed on your permanent record, and should you get caught again, then you repeat the process only with harsher punishments the more you get busted.

Until evenutally they will tire of seeing you permanently and then they will like send you off to a state or federal penetiniary to teach you not to tresspass anymore.

*dingdingding* Wehavawinnah

Ladies and gentleman.. Someone who knows that autoclaves weren't made for cooking people!!

*swoons*

You know.. Funny thing IP addresses. They can tell you a whole lot about a person.

En engles?

You know. That is the funny thing about Mental Ilness.
It like many other diseases has no boundaries by race, creed, gender, religion.

However, cases like this are not common. They are maybe 1 in a million.
I would have to defer to Lynne on the actual fact of the matter.

Addendum to my previous post above.

What a lot of us need to realize as well, is that historically (previous to 1960)
Lifetstyles did not allow for sedentary life styles.
We didn't have to consider obesity the same way we do now, because life back then did not allow for it the same way it does now.
It affected 1-5% of the population where now we are looking at close to 50%.

This is not to say that it didn't happen, but it was much less common. If you were sedentary and obese it usually stemmed from illness, rather than a lifestyle choice.

Not all Morgues are step up with these types of units anymore.
Some of them have large walk-in coolers that the staff use to push the gurney's into and line them up for easier retrival.

Some have these body slide shelves and a walk in cooler. The body slide being for person's who require identification, work that is on going in the autopsy... etc.

Even in the science of death they have had to make adustments for the unhealthly lifestyles and genetic anomolyes of the living.

You know. I just read and responded to a post of yours (Danny) where you were openly admonishing everyone for not talking more about "art"

I didn't realize that your admonishment applied to everyone but you.

Danny~

You are correct, this site is about art. It's about the awesome photography of some of the most fascinating places.

However, when you find garbage posted about how person Y went into A building and did Z with their friends... Or other garbage where a trash incinerator was used to cremate unclaimed bodies....
The examples could continue.

You want to reeducate the mislead. Not because anyone of us want to be preachy about Mental Health Care or any other Health Care in that matter.
You want them to understand that these places were indeed horrific in the past for some people, as well as a safe haven for others.

Unfortunately, when working to get points across, express memories of the people who lived and worked in these buildings.
There are people who come around
and call them liars, and try to tell everyone else on here that they are right, and those of us who might know better are dead wrong.

We don't try to romanticize these places.

But what would you do if you saw a rust stain on the wall(coming from a piece of metal on the door), and someone insists that it's blood, and you are in the medical field and know darn well what blood looks like, at various ages, because you have dealt with it.
You would want to correct them, yes?
Or would you let them perpetuate the horror stories that society won't let die?

Just curious.

Thanks "G"

I have had a short fuse due to other stressors, so I have been semi avoiding this site, because I am not wanting to misplace my anger on an unsuspecting person.
But the recent Horrific Romance that has been posted lately finally sent me over the edge. ....

Whoa.. You guys really did it this time.

You know, there are people on this site who work in the medical field, not just mental health care.

Those that do work in mental health care (or would that mental HELLth care?)

Those that do deal with patients on a daily basis do know a thing or two about what we are talking about.

EVERYONE OF US.. agrees with you all in the fact that ABUSE HAPPENS. We can't help it unless we know about it. However, what everyone forgets is the fact that not every patient that came into a hospital or school was abused, degraded and treated like garbage.

Not every worker who has ever been in this field treats the people in their care with such little regard.

But let me ask those of you who think you know more than we do?
Have you ever jumped out of an ambulance to physically wrestle down and restrain some body builder on a Steroid rage who thought it would be cool to do his Horse 'roid cocktail mixed with Methamphetamines?

I didn't think so.

Have you ever had to take a patient in who is beyond their mental, emotional and physical limits that has them kicking and screaming and howling in the most inhumane sound you have ever heard and have to make a choice to do what is best for them, even if it might look bad to anyone on the outside of the situation?

I didn't think so.

Yet, without having to put yourself at risk, so that someone who needs help badly doesn't get hurt.. You are the voices of authority..

Give me a break.

When was the last time any of you looked at a person in a wheelchair on the street and thought about what you could do to help them?
OR
What do you do when you see someone of diminished capacity TRYING to live in normal society at the store and doesn't understand the concept of counting money, so they are frustrated and screaming.. Do you look around with that obvious uncomfortable look on your face and wait for someone else to come and solve the problem?

Oh wait... What about the homeless guy on the street; yeah, the one who smells like urine and vomit and is talking to himself and swinging at the air screaming about something you can't quite understand.

What exactly do you do? Do you call your congresspeople and other officals to lobby and push bills for mental health care funding, or do you and your friends point your fingers and laugh?

Those of you who like to point out the horrid treatment of these patients need to stop and look at your own behaviors before you point fingers at us.

WE are doing something about it.
We put our own mental health on the line going to work.
Some of us women have had to cut our hair, take out our earrings and forgo all privileges of being a woman to go to work so that we don't get hurt.

We know that abuse happens, and those of us who are responsible and caring blow the whistle on the abusers to get them out of the system and reported to the authorities so they can't do it again.

We aren't proud of it.. But we can't stop caring about the people at our jobs.

We don't romaticise the morbid and cruel things. We don't imagine blood on the walls of a building that has been closed for 10 or more years.
We don't picture some lonely heartbroken soul behind these bars and windows..
No.. we leave that for those people who have never done what we do.

When we see the peeling paint of a building that was closed due to abuse and other violations we breathe a small sign of relief that maybe they were placed in a better facility.
We cringe at the homeless person on the street who obviously needs his medication, and we get angry.
We get angry because the place he/she (doesn't matter) was living got closed because the Taxpayers (that's you) wouldn't pass a bill or a city approval for a group home in your precious neighborhoods.

And yet... we get criticised; for going to school, learning how to take proper care of these people, about the laws and rights they have because they are people too...
You hear one case of abuse and the world blows it up into something awful, making all of us instantly bad.

*jumps down from the borrowed soapbox*

Night all... I'm ticked off and going to bed.

{{{{{ Lynne }}}}}}

I borrowed your soapbox ma'am. I hope you didn't mind.

(borrowd Lynne's soapbox)

Alliecat-
Lynne does fully admit that mistreatment happened in these places. She admonishes very openly those persons who did/do mistreat patients.

You are right, mistreatment comes in many forms. However, some of these places were over crowded and badly understaffed with no funding to hire more persons to help care for the patients who needed it.

In the case of this bathroom let's create a scenario.
There is one staff member who has 8 patients she is responsible (CA Law is a 4 to1 ratio).
6 patients are medicated and compliant, who aren't causing any current problems, 2 patients are on suicide watch and have been for several days.
You need to see to it that both of them have access to a bath, but you can't leave one of them unsupervised because they are also at high risk for escaping.
You can't let the other one in the bathroom because it has shower curtains and other metal objects that a desperate person who wants to commit suicide will get really creative in the process.
How then, would you be able to make sure they are both bathed without leaving either of them unsupervised?
The solution is simple. 2 tubs, one room, a door that doesn't lock from the inside, and a window for you to watch, to make sure that one of them didn't convince the other to carry out the act.

Yeah, this is extreme, but in many cases, it is an easy solution.

Same with a parent who has 3 kids under age 5 and it's bathtime.. You load them all into the bathtub at the same time. You aren't mistreating your children doing this because there is no privacy. You are actually doing yourself a favor because if you were to leave even one of those children alone and something were to happen.. Now you are in a case of child endangerment and neglect.

Some of these bathrooms where there was 2 tubs(or more) to a room. Were occupied by one patient to one attendant. To ensure safety.

Yes, in modern society and the way we advocate patients now, it does seem cruel and almost inhumane.
There is a little more funding, they try to not over crowd the facilities, and to keep staff at an optimal number.
(that's mental health care utopia)

When some of these places were open and had only a 1000 patient capacity, you could find close to twice that number in residence at some points.

Abuse does happen.. However it happens less and less now with education and intervention. We remember the abuse stories because we are all morbidly fascinated with them.
So they never go away.


Please note. I am not trying to flame anyone. I really just want everyone to look at some of this with a different perspective. No different than Lynne.

Sketch-
There was a time not too horribly long ago that 'Chucks' didn't cost 40 dollars a pair. I bought my first pair of Royal Blue Chucks for 10 bucks.
Okay, so I was in my first year of High School.
Point was: When they did this, they weren't brand name. My dad tells me stories that his 'chucks' were given to him in highschool as requirements for proper dress attire for Gym Class.

WOW, the intellectuals are returning.
*swoons*