91 Comments Posted by isabeats

weasel- I remember that pink soap powder too- it was really gritty even after you wet it- it was like washing your hands with wet sandpaper.

I think that's cotton grass. Were the windows open? Otherwise, it's especially strange that it's growing inside a building.

Maybe some fan of gore sites? I've checked a few of those out and was VERY sorry I did.

Lynne- Is this where they cremated the bodies of people who died during their torture sessions?? (just kidding... I hope!)

This is the funniest bunch of comments I've come across yet- I laughed out loud a few times! Some witty people here, with my kind of humor.

I've worked at several of these places and all of them had tunnels. They were used by maintainence people . There was direct access to a tunnel in K Building at Belchertown State School; I went in it a few times and it was full of piles of pipes. I heard that staff sometimes used the tunnels to travel to other buildings in bad weather, back in the "old days", but the tunnels were off-limits to staff (and certainly to clients) during my years at these places. And it is extremely unlikely anyone "never saw the light of day"- all the buildings had windows, some had fenced-in yards, lots of clients were able to walk the grounds with staff or alone, people had to go to school or workshops or activities or appointments, etc. Some of what I read on this site seem to be urban legends...

If you enlarged the view out of the window to print size and edited out any signs of the room, that too would be a beautiful photo... oh, wait, I gotta go! My oatmeal's burning!

What does "lol" stand for? I keep seeing it and thought it stood for "lots of love", but because of some of the contexts, I don't think that's it.

Lynne- I agree with everything you've said. (I've worked in Human Services for 27 years). And Dannie Girl, you're completely right. It's true: we're all really saying the same thing. I'm new here and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot with anyone, and then one day find myself the subject of a poll: Should We Get Rid Of Isabeats?, ha ha ha.

I used to work with a "mentally ill" man who did art similar to this. But my favorite piece by him was a sort of paper sculpture on a table in the window. It was an Aunt Jemima box with various folds and attached objects, and what looked like antennae. Every morning he would turn it in a certain direction and every night he'd turn it around again. I asked him why and he explained how turning it one way or another caused the sun to rise or set. He was a very nice and gentle old man who had become responsible for the daily rising and setting of the sun. Good old Alex...

Since there seem to be a lot of references to "people screaming" on this site, I'll just say that, yes, some people do scream and you can hear them from outside, and naturally you'll think the worst and think someone must be getting beaten or something worse, but usually, almost always, it's much more mundane. In crowded, noisy wards it can be a way to get some attention. Or perhaps another client stole someone's snack and the person screams. Some people used to scream any time you directed them to use the bathroom. Very rarely is what is happening inside as bad as it can sound from the outside.

Lynne- I agree with everything you say here (and if you've said it a million times before, I haven't read those posts yet- I've read very few so far). All I was trying to say is that there is individual responsibility too: some slimy, hateful people were/are drawn to human services and act nastily all on their own, without "the State" having any responsibility about that... though it does have responsibility for much else. I know there are good staff (whom I did acknowledge in my previous opinion). By the way, after Belchertown closed down and the people who lived there had moved into the community, there were annual gatherings to celebrate the closing of BSS. Client after client after client would speak up (into microphones) telling their stories, none of which were very happy. And none of these people who had lived there ever spoke well of BSS. It's too bad that voices like theirs weren't heard more often on this site (or are they?)- they lived the experience that we, even if we worked there, can never truly comprehend, try as we might.

Well, I can see that staff in the 1900's may
have been unaware of some of the subtlities of modern humane treatment methods, but they would certainly have been aware (I would hope) that outright cruelty and neglect were exactly that. Times haven't changed that much!

And here I thought the painting was of something from the Cthulhu Mythos, but it's actually a gingerbread house on Candy Cane Lane!

To me the creepiest thing about this photo isn't the depth of the water or falling into it in the dark so much as the stagnant water itself, just sitting there, brewing, full of strange life forms that live in darkness....growing and thickening in the old, dirty water. A truly alien world in that hole!