1,384 Comments for Gaebler Children's Center

This is where they kept the kids yes, but there was also an adolescent unit at met state that was separate from this as well.

this is where they kept the children at metropoltian state hospital

it was demolished in 2011

P.
I went in a few seclusion rooms that I was in. I even closed the door in the room that is in this picture. That was last year when I was there with pookie. I was showing a friend of mine how we used to bang on the window. It was very weird being in that room. I can't even explain the feelings I felt. I even spent a night in one of my old rooms. I don't know why I did that and it sounds kinda weird, but that's what I did. I don't know why. It was weird though

Pookie, thank you again. I am happy for you that you have managed to find people from the place you were in here. I have yet to find anyone. If you look up the Isolation Hospital in Belleville NJ that is where I was. The Children's shelter was out back of the place. We ate and bathed in the hospital. If you are a movie buff I am told it is the place used as a backdrop for A Beautiful Mind.
My abusers were Hospital Staff and the kids they used as proxies.

Boiler1220,
It must be really weird to see pictures of the seclusion room that you were in and to go there as a visitor. I picture the seclusion rooms that I have been in, but never have seen photographs. I am not sure what that experience would be like.

I've been in that seclusion room so many times. It was on ward B/3-east

Alyssa
These were on ward A by the boys and girls showers, second floor left, by the bend

"Flushed"
I am so sorry for the hell you went thru, it should have never happened to you or any of us for that matter. We were kids, Bill seems to think that we were horrible children and that we were in a jail. It was never called a jail, it was and til this day is called a mental institution for kids with problems. Yes, there were kids there that did arson, yes there were kids there that did assualt and battery, yes there were kids there that attempted murder, but, not all the kids were there for those reasons, I was there because I skipped school for 4 days in a row, and that I had a behavior problem and couldn't live in society, they said I tried to kill myself by sticking my head out a window to get some air, it was crazy. So, Bill the Boiler room guy has no clue what he is talking about, he is just trying to make himslef look good and act like he knew everything that was going on when he didn't and he should have never talked to you the way he did. I feel bad for any children he has brought into this world, cause I am sure if he is like this with us here on this web page then I can just imagine the lies he tells his children and he probably has abused them and thinking it's allowed cause it was allowed in Gaebler, I don't know, I just don't like his holyer than thou attitude. No one has the right to say anything unless they have lived this hell of a life when they were a child. I hope that you are alright now and that you are doing well in your life, and I really am sorry that you had to endure so much as a child......

Thank You Pookie. You are not alone in the world

I was never able to find these murals, I wish they hadn't demolished Gaebler.

"Boiler1220"
I love you and you know that, you are truly a great friend to me, and so glad to know you,hang with you and have you in my life....no one will ever understand the bond we have or what we went thru at Gaebler unless they themselves went thru something like that in their own lives or lived in a place like Gaebler or even at Gaebler. what we went thru and lived thru has only made us stronger and more wise in the real world and cautious as all hell and we will never be taken advantage of or abised again and that is also what makes us the most understanding parents to our own children and we know how to deal with things that they do that are wrong and we know how to work them out without taking them to court and putting them away in mental hospitals, lock ups and pysche hospitals.

" I Worked There"
you should have never been allowed to work the overnight shifts on the wards at all, you were not certified and of course you didn't see anything go on then, cauise we had to be in bed at 8pm and lights out at 8:30pm so we were in our rooms asleep by the time you got there, as for you falling asleep well, a lot of the staff did at that shift and that was fine cause it was allowed, But, please for the sake of us children who went thru hell there please stop patting yourself on the back and telling us what a nice man you were to us kids, cause you weren't nice to all of us, you weren't around all of us, and you should have never been able to be around us since you were not a certified dr.counselor or therapist or staff member of the wards. I am thankful that the kids you did interact with you were nice to them, but, ithat doesn't give you the right to stand here and defend the staff who were abusive,mentally, physically and sexually...If you want to do something good then you should contact the staff members on the wards and have them come on here and leave us posts as to why they did what they did, and to own up to the abuse they gave us and apologize to us, you would be surprised how much an apologiy would mean to us and an explanation as to why they did what they did.....

I just read Flushed's posts,Boiler1220's posts and P's posts and I have to say that they are so right...."I Worked There" will always stick up for the staff because I honestly believe that he was told to never say antthing that he see's going on there, but, that was then and this is now and I feel that he is just being really mean to us patients tha went thru hell there, of course the staff would do nice things after they friggin abused us, it was to confuse us in to thinking that the abuse they gave us we deserved so in return to make themselves not look bad in our eyes they would do someting to conteract what they just put as thru. On my Jack,Harvey,Elaine,Joanna, Melody were so mean to us verbally and physically and mentally, I know for a fact that Jack was having sex with a girl who name starts witj a S, Harvey would beat the crap out of a kid with the first letter D to the point where he almost died, Harvey did get prosecuted and found gulty and D's parents got a call from Willy the nice staff on my ward to come and get him, and take him to the hospital, there was sooooooo much of that kind of abuse going on there, so for Bill the boiler room man to stand there all proud and shit because he was nice to the kids, well, ok he was one of the nice ones but, he has no rights on here to speak of the entire staff, and for him to fill in on the 11pm-7am shift was totally against the law, since he was not certified at all to be around us kids, so let him feel good about himself cause he knows the truth and just doesn't want to say it cause he was sworn to secretcy. We did get treated good at times, but, there was so much more bad treatment then anything else. WIlly and Suzanne were our saviors, they were sooooo nice to us kids, they did not abuse thier power at all. Melody with the dam hook arm and hand was abusive, I mean she should not have been allowed to touch any of us kids with the metal hook and arm, she hurt a lot of kids with it, I don't know what the hell the dept of mental health was thinking by hiring her, but, it was wrong. Jack was a huge fat man, with dirty blond light brown curly hair who used his weight to push us around, Ellaine was a huge woman who was verbally and mentally abusive to us, Joanna was a short fat stubby woman with dirty greasy dark short hair who was awful to us too. they would walk around with their keys hanging off their belt loops like they were god, What us kid lived in was fear, we were so careful about what we said and did, so Bill really is a piece of shit in my book and I don't like him, I would rather have the staff come forward and be honest and apologize to us kids for the abuse the y gave us and tell us why. I am seriously and have been in the process of presecuting the dept of mental health and the staff members, I have all my records and it wasn't easy to get them because Gsaebler said I was never a patient there and I got them when they were still opened, it was hard to get but, I finally got them, they told a lot of patients that were there that they were never there when they actually were, it's just shitty, I get the whole concept of protecting the dept of mental health and it's abusers, I mean this is the fucked up society we live in, but, I will not stop unitl the day I die in getting the truth out so this kind of abuse will end once and for all.......

boiler1220, thank you!