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And I thought I was one of just a select crazy few who are crazy enough to read all this information on Pennhurst throughout all these different sites, while the same people have been commenting on this picture for over two years!

The morgue was in use up until they moved to the new hospital. I was in a little building on it's own and very cold and depressing

Micheal: I read all of your Metro State blogs and they are by far the coolest and funniest shit I have read in a long time.....I laughed my ass off! The way u tell the stories makes u truly understand and also appreciate the photos submitted on Opacity. Thanks a lot dude :)

Corny fake marble to go with the 1970's porno hot tub

I wonder how many babies were conceived in this hot tub

I can't resist ...sorry! Anyone remember young Frankenstein?

That's funny I just recently introduced my thirteen year old son to that song. How Ironic were looking on here and there it is.

It almost looks like they found some patients file and wrote down some doctor notes

im 52 my parents took me there the swiging bridge scareded me the worst if i remember the bridge was right after the tee pot ride mom still has pictures thanks for the memorys TG

its still there..i was in there with my friend back in may..and i thought it was a person and i punched it

Of course we should all just get along. But those of us who have dedicated our professional lives (and our personal lives, too, because these aren't jobs you just walk away from at the end of your 8 or 12 or 16 hours) to helping people who need assistance to have the best lives they can, also feel an obligation to at least try to educate the public on behalf of the people we serve. Much of the sadness and pain and abuse associated with these facilities would not have happened had those who controlled allocation of resources (and that's all of us via the voting booth) not considered them just "nuthouses" for the "insane." Mental illness is not a character flaw, is not a sign of failure, is not "all in the head" (although it is a problem with brain functioning). It is just as real as cancer or kidney failure or any other disease. People who have it deserve the same regard and care that we give any other person. Think about some of the ideas we learned in school--the way to judge a society's goodness is to look at how it treats those members least able to care for themselves, and that until there is justice for all, there can be justice for none. How can we just write off people as being unworthy of pleasant surroundings? How can we say they are not important enough or not deserving enough or not aware enough to notice or care? Pretty much everything we say tells more about us than it does about those we cast aside as "other."

core-the-grrrl

I don't imagine people glaring down from the windows. I feel like they would be delighted to have a visitor, to have some special attention and someone new to talk to.

Just because a person has a mental illness doesn't mean s/he is no longer human! People with mental illness enjoy parties and social activities just as much as any other group of people--perhaps more, because they often feel and are left out. Music, dance, fun, social interaction--all are very therapeutic.

Knowing most states, the lease is probably still being paid. In the late 1990s, i was still using a 386 (or maybe it was a 486) computer with a dot matrix printer. The printer kept chewing up ribbons, and i learned how to splice them and get another 100 pages or so out of the ribbon. That's how hard it was to get supplies. But when the printer finally did break down completely, the powers-that-be, in their infinite wisdom, chose to pay a $300 repair bill on the obsolete machine rather than let me buy the $75 ink jet printer I had been asking for on every month's office supply order.