Comments

Man, that breaks my heart. Danvers is the architectural grand-daddy of them, even surpassing the Michigan facilities, in my eyes. :-(

It's great to hear from someone who had the experience of working there. It's strange that so many people who have come to this site have acted as if no one was monitoring these boards. It becomes easier and easier to see why UE folks work the way they do, and sad for all of us when people come onto these web sites bragging about destroying parts of these fabulous structures.

I know eveyone would be interested to hear what you think about when you see some of these pix.

Such a good photo -regretable that everything in the picture from being a piece of history is now history- those wings have been torn down....

I had the honor of previously working for the security compnay that used to watch over DSH. I was one of the lucky few that had 90% unrestricted free roam of the grounds. ( inside was off limits life or limb restrictions) I never got anyone arrested but have asked alot of people to leave. I drove by the site the other day and two of thw wing buildings were gone. The hospital bld gone- I am still amazed how the Grey Gables is still standing, man you sneeze to close to that building and it creaks. My opinion they should have spent the money and restored the buildings or at least part of them and charged admission. How may people that have read the comments or have submitted a comment would refuse to pay 20.00 to walk around inside thebuilding. I swear there are some pretty dumb people that we call the powers that be....

Hi Marcia,
What was the TA class? I'm just wondering. Was it all for the staff or were patients there too? I read all of the above comments and I know that the picture was drawn by the TA class (and that most people in the class thought it was stupid) but I'm not sure what the TA class was. Also, was this picture hung up in a place near the patients? It just seems weird to me that if the TA class consisted of all adults that they would have to draw such a childish picture.
I'm just asking out of curiosity, I'm not passing attacking you, I'm just confused about what the purpose of this class was.
Lynne, I read one of your comments from January. I think it was the 13th of January 2006 and I have to say that your job sounds really difficult but really interesting. It must be hard to have to look over all those injuries and see where they came from. I believe you when you say most of them are self inflicted since I've read that a good number of the mentally ill do try to hurt themselves. It must be a really sad thing to see but I applaud you for doing your upmost to help those who are ill.
Once I heard a story but it maybe a rumor. Have you ever heard that way back in the olden days of threapy, the 1800s let's say, one of the ways to "cure" mental illness was to scare it out of ill? I've heard that back in those days the doctors would try to frighten people into saneness and actually do more harm than good. Is there any truth to this at all? If so how did they frighten them (like did they jump out at them and shout BOO or threaten them somehow)?
Sorry to ask so many questions but I'm really interested by all this.

Looks like Andre T Giant's piano

I was thinking more of an ice cream maker, but I guess that was just my abnormally large sweet tooth chiming in.

Speaking of ghosts. The Others with Nicole Kidman.

from the depths hell.

Potatoe slicer...... nothing too wicked potatoe in pull handel potatoe in pull handel thats all

so sad.

wow its so sad to think people actually slept like that

Pain in the butt, mostly. :-)

I am a licensed clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. I have a dual emphasis in mental retardation and clinical child psychology. I've worked for many a long year in this field and prefer "hands on" the most because of the incredible nature of the folks I work with (or who work with me, as they often let me know).

Over the most recent 21 years I have worked in 5 different large residential facilities for people with intellectual disabilities. Two of these facilities have subsequently closed after I left and the other three have downsized significantly over the past 20 years. Between 1972 and the present I have also worked in various outpatient clinics, hospitals, group homes, schools, community settings, etc., and consulted with nursing homes and school districts, etc. I was also able to spend some time with the families at the Oklahoma City bombing site and spent several weeks doing Red Cross disaster work at the Pentagon in September, 2001.

I mentioned elsewhere that I have done a lot of investigation and research on the history of the field of mental health, and more specifically, in the areas of intellectual and developmental disabilities. That's what brought me to this site. I was looking up websites that dealt with various facilities such as these across the country when I found Opacity.

I have been a huge fan of Motts' work since I first came here, and I admire him for how hard he has worked to learn about the various workings of the field - the various and sundry exotic pieces of adaptive equipment that are used, the policies and practices that used to exist in the field, and the dramatic changes that have overhauled the entire system the past 20 years. He looks things through and analyzes them - not just condemning with a broad brush, and I especially admire him for this because it would be easy to make all abandoned facilities look like Frankenstein's lab and torture chambers after years of disuse. He doesn't fall for the bathos that so many people seem to enjoy - the pity and horror and fear that they have in themselves which I believe directly relates to how they are afraid they would treat other people in the same circumstances or how they secretly feel about these folks.

I didn't start commenting for a while after I found this site until I saw that many people had done too little reality checking and had learned all their "facts" from the newspaper headlines, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and "The Snake Pit." Not that there isn't some powerful and accurate information in each of these, but the hideously skewed viewpoint they have taints the popular view until it isn't safe to walk down the street admitting you ever had mental health issues ("You must be homicidal") or worked in a residential facility ("You must beat all the patients").

Because I have made my living, in essence, off the suffering and problems of others, I believe I owe a debt back to them and the people who work with them. One way of doing that is to explain what really happens when comments are made publicly or issues are raised, such as occurs at this site. That doesn't mean to excuse it or cover it up, but to ask people to look at it from all sides of the picture.

Motts has been extremely gracious and allowed me to make these comments, and I am forever grateful to him for allowing me to say the things I have said, even though I have not always been particularly gracious in the way I have said them.

How's that? :-)

The woman who actually drew this picture writes in to this list under the name "Black Sheep Marcia." Ask her directly.

Lynne, I must ask you where your experise originates. Are you a psychologist with a docorate, a councilor with a MA. and MSW. also with a masters, I haven't been able to figure it out. Pehaps a case worker, a direct care person with a whole mess of experience. I for one is really curious. Your a dominate factor in this whole website. Are you a history major, a professor of mental health. One thing you certainly arn't is a shrinking violet. Maybe you owe your fans a semi resume.

A thot for Motts. I remember it now. The tunnels either starts or ends in the memorial complex across the street from the main complex up on the hill. When one begins in c bldg. they go across the street and go under Haskell the newer bldg. and then proceeds under the employees home. It then progresses up the hill to the left hand side of the main bldg. complex and follows the entire main bldg. until it ends up under the nurses home that now houses the new condo complex. It's quite simple, is it not? Problem is that the tunnel under the home no longer exists. Just some thots.