4,023 Comments for Riverside State Hospital

okay, I'm a morgue fan, but reality doesn't suit my imagination at this late hour.

there was a subway war in the hospital, baby.

great shot and concept.
this room has a lot of personality.

excellent, I love the metallic grey sky.

it gives me a suffocating sensation. the perfect place for a collapse.

hahah, that chiar is inviting you to sit down and smoke a cigarette.

warm and welcoming, what can I say?=

yeah, it remind me of Alice in Wonderland aswell, maybe because of the soft light and colors.
I guess it also has that dim contrasts like in the hotels from "the Shining".

does it sound sick if I say "lovely"?

its deffinatly the reflection of the building facing the window its the very top tower of it.

Were the arched panels on the walls used for holding fire extinguishers?

Autopsies were probably only done if the patient's death was unexpected (there was no disease process or accident that clearly caused the person's death), unattended (the person was found dead but had appeared to be in no danger prior to that), or the patient's family/guardian/doctor requested an autopsy. The first autopsy report I read was for a person who was found dead on the floor of her bedroom one morning, after staff observations all night had indicated no problems. It was quite disconcerting to read about the procedures, with the weights of various organs, all in very dry and specific scientific terms, and to think that this was a person with whom I had worked for years. In the end, this is what we are--just a body, no longer a *person.* I hope that makes sense...even then, after all the observations and toxicology reports, the cause of death remained "undetermined natural causes." Yes, even though she was "mental" and lived in what another viewer called a "cuckoo's house" (those are really offensive and hurtful labels, as though someone with a mental disability is somehow less important, less valuable, less worthy), the staff, her family, and the medical examiner were all very concerned about what had caused her death. Please forgive me if these comments or any of my others seem harsh, because that isn't my intent. I just wish there weren't so many misunderstandings about mental illness and hope that maybe I can share some of the things I've learned. People with mental illness are more than their illness. They are sons and daughters, parents, husbands and wives, students, workers, artists, musicians, friends--just like everybody else.

"Those with complaints about the food, please form a line in front of the radiator." :-)

I've had to make the decision to file a "mental hygiene" petition to have a person committed to a psychiatric facility. It is never a decision made without very careful consideration and exhaustion of whatever alternatives may be available to help the person. An emergency appointment with the psychiatrist, medication adjustments, intensive outpatient or partial hospitalization, admission to an unlocked crisis residential unit...only when an alternative is unavailable or has not worked does commitment become the best option. I know it wasn't always like this (often because there was no intensive treatment available in the community), but things have changed. Some of the situations in which I have petitioned for commitment include patients who were so out of control due to psychosis that they singlehandedly trashed a general hospital's emergency room before they could be restrained by hospital security guards with the assistance of several city police officers. In another case, a patient had attempted suicide by cutting her wrists and taking an overdose of pills. In the emergency room she refused to sign a "no suicide" contract and stated over and over that when she got out of the ER, she would find a way to kill herself. The family member with her was certain that she *would* continue suicide attempts until she succeeded. She would not have been safe in the community. There are also times when professionals miss signs or wait too long, and there are tragic, deadly results.

This is so magical, a beacon of hope on the hill. It's like the light is accenting the building, illustrating the hopes that its designers and architects had of making it a place of healing and new beginnings, and not the dark reality that these buildings became in the decades of overcrowding and underfunding. For photography experts: What is it about the light at sunrise and sunset that makes it so beautiful and so different from light at other times of day, a particular 'cool' quality in the morning and a 'warm' quality in the evening? I suppose it has something to do with the angle of the sun and the amount of moisture in the air, but I wish I knew the physics behind it (maybe the mystery is part of the magic, though).