1,384 Comments for Gaebler Children's Center

P.
Couldn't be spoken better :)

In most the institutions I have been in there is a culture of disrespect for the patient. They were regarded as below the staff in that they were "abnormal" or "fucked up" or "damaged". Having someone with zero training who works in the boiler room working on the units goes to show you the unit staff and patients weren't treated with value. Staff on units should have specialized training just like someone who works in a boiler room should have specialized knowledge and training, and unit staff should not fall asleep because there are people who need them. Not that it is I Worked There's fault that he was given that opportunity and staff weren't required to have specialized training, and he sounds like overall he was a nice and kind staff person. The liberal way and the method in which seclusion and restraint and the common interactions that staff had with the patients at Gaebler tells me that there was a pervasive culture of disregard and disrespect and dislike toward the patients. It was an unsafe place for a person physically, emotionally, and sexually. It is hard to see how a staff member can not see what is going on around them, but society was different back then. Even in the toughest hospitals to be in (whether public or private) there have always been gems of staff members who have a sense of humor, are competent, and stick up for you if not to the administration at least to their fellow staff members, and they set a good example for the others. In some ways it sounds like I Worked There was a good example and kind. Typically no one is all good or bad. No matter the job a person fills in the hospital the way they interact with the patients can have a great impact, and it just goes to show you the difference we can make in each others lives for better or worse.

Boiler1220, I agree. Sometimes I can really feel the heightened emotions of some posters (and can feel mine), and I feel bad that the person that perhaps the person might be experiencing some of the same negative emotions they went through then. But all the posts give me insight into how it was back then just like the pictures and I never want to forget.

Even though these may not be good posts or people are being misunderstood, evil, trying to get things started or just people posting to say hi and getting blown out of proportion. Or what ever the case may be. Looking at the big picture being the opacity sight. I am "for lack of better word" HAPPY to see all these posts being made between all the people that were at Gaebler. I wish some bad staff or therapists would join the sight. Even though it would be bad, I would live to hear why they felt they could treat kids that way. I liketo see all the sight use. Bad, good or whatever. Thanks to all that share there feelings and experiences about Gaebler here. It helps

The poster I worked there is a troll. He seems like he is trying to upset people. Ignore him and he will go away.

I worked there

I understand what your saying, I don't think your sticking up for the staff. Your just saying that the staff you knew weren't like that. And of course you weren't like that. I wish you could have seen the bad parts, and you would understand why some of us former patients get so mad about people saying Gaebler was a caring place. Most of the therapists and DMH workers did not. It was like the more problems they could label us with, the better they would look for helping us with them. That's my opinion. I like hearing from all past staff, but I don't think any of the ones that treated us bad would ever comment here because they know how sick they were to us then and wouldn't want to face real people now. You should che:ck out "Gaebler Hell And Back" there's a letter from s former staff apologizing for how he treated us. It's a good letter to us former kids saying sorry. Mean while if u know anymore staff or kids feel free to have them post. Even though pookie is very mad, its still a real life posting about a place that was torturous for so many children. Thanks

Wow! Just Wow! You can't see the forest for the trees.

I happened to be a small healthy very bright for my age boy, 4-5 years old placed in a protective shelter for children because of my family being broken up by my father's narcissism and grandparents racism about him as well as to hide the abuse I had been subjected to by those grandparents. That Shelter happened to be attached to a hospital. They, my family fully expected/wanted me to end up dead or retarded. You see the abuses that took place there was common knowledge in the community and I am not the only child so discarded by guilty people trying to hide something. It was common knowledge if it wasn't well known why, that trauma affected the memory of children. It was hoped that if I lived , the experience of being tortured and abused would at least purge the memory of the abuse my family had inflicted on me from my mind.
At worst if I did manage to remember anything and say something they could claim I was confused and it must have been something done to me in the Shelter.

I Worked There, you were a boiler room attendant. You have nothing obvious to gain by contradicting the statements by former inmates of having been abused on here yet you do. You have invested an awful lot of personal energy in trying to undermine the statements of these survivors here.
Now your latest migration in the justifications you have provided for this is that you meant to say there was "no conspiracy" among staff. Firstly as has been the case with all of what you said, you cannot possibly know that. Any two staffers who acted together to do or hide anything is a conspiracy. An idea that no one else mentioned.
Once again I must point out that your mind is not as rational as you are trying to portray. That idea has only been posited by you. It is something that only existed in your head until it was posted on here. So again I point you to your own words to seek the reason you are working so hard to avoid. IDK your motives and maybe you don't either but you are being abusive and negative and that is not ok.
I expect if you are as ignorant as you seem to be then you are trying to prevent something from becoming public knowledge, or if you aren't then you are a Troll just abusing people for fun like the scum whom these people are speaking about.

One time back in the '80's they didn't have enough help so they let me work on the wards for overtime. I worked the 11-7 shift many times and never saw anything unprofessional except me falling asleep.

That last message wasn't from I Worked There, sorry, it was from me to I Worked There.....

You worked in the boiler room not on the Wards, so u really have no idea about what went on in the Ward's. Please stop patting yourself on your back that you were good to the kids and bought them presents. I am sure u were decent to them if u ran into them but, u didn't live with us on the Wards with staff so u really can't comment on the treatment us kids got, cause u weren't on the Wards. I do thank you for being nice to the kids that you were nice to, but, please stop sticking up for the staff on the Wards cause u weren't there. Thank you.....

Once again, they had murderers, rapists, arsonists, atttempted murderers there. At the time it was the only place in the state to send kids accused ot those crimes. The only place.
When I was there I treated the kids good. I bought them presents, talked to them and played with them. I tried my best to an adult who was good to them when many adults in their life weren't.
I was good to the kids then and I'm not gonna gonna be mean or bad to one of those kids today even though you're grown up.
I will leave it at that.

I worked there, Gaebler was no for kids who committed crimes you dam fucking asshole, it was for kids with behavioral problems, get your fucking facts straight. I have all that proof in my hands, I have all my records from Gaebler and Dss, so Mr Boiler Man Room, you don't know what really happened, yes there were staff there that cared, but, there were more that didn't and did abuse us. As for you hoping I find peace in this, I found peace in this the day I left there, my life is great, I am married to a wonderful man with 2 beautiful daughters. Stop sticking up for things that you don't know about and I was there from 82-84 on Ward D, so yes you do owe us an apology but, you just proved to me and everyone else on there that you are just like the abusers that were staff at Gaebler....You had no right to comment, you worked in the friggin boiler room, you were not on the Wards, so please do us all a favor and shut the fuck up, as for say Flushed should have been institutionalized longer is a really mean and hurtful thing to say to someone who was abused, you as an adult should be ashamned of yourself.....I am thankful you weren't one of the abusers on us, but, like Boiler1220 said you were not there to see it, you only saw the good, the bad was really ugly....

Dennis, I'm sure there was abuse by staff my point being that there was no organized group whose motive was to inflict that abuse. That it was isolated among the lone individuals committing those acts.
The staff I knew and talked about her yesterday alone (Karen, Sue, Russell, Chuck M. Mary B.) are good people and would have intervened and reported those individuals if they knew. And the staff I knew were of the same moral fiber.
To say a broad statement like "Gaebler staff were monsters" is like saying "Gaebler patients were crazy". Some fit into that category. Most didn't.
BTW Met State closed before Gaebler so the staff that worked there started working at Gaebler. Gaebler never would have hired them. They had no choice. Those people were useless including Haitians who could have cared less about the kids.
Anyways I'm not going to comment on this further. I just wanted to write what I witnessed and I witnessed staff that cared.
Anyways I'm glad you made something of your life.

I have to comment here. There were both, staff that wanted to help and staff that were there either to abuse kids or just get there time in the field done because it was required for there school. I worked there, I know my one on one "the hippy guy Dean" cared for me very much and wanted to help all the kids he could. So did the studdering staff steve b on 3-east. Not youwill never convince me that the fat lady diane on ward b was trying to help anyone by adding sheets to restraint beds to hurt kids more, and sitting and jumping on kids backs that were tied in restraint beds. She had to be 300lbs and would jump on me because I would keep saying "see I can still talk no matter how much you tie me" she would get mad, climb on the bed and jump on the kids that were tied down. And when Fred would bring me and brooks down to the girls end so we could have sex with the girls and he could watch. And billy who would bring us into the laundry room to kick the crap out of us and say we attacked him. He was caughtby mark and fired. Butit went on for a long time. And a staff that was raging kids and got a girl on ward d pregnant was helping. He was doing that for a long time and to 5 other girls I know. So I was there, you were very sheltered from the horrible things that went on and no matter what you think or what good staff you knew, these things did happen there and kids were afraid to say anything. I myself have been stuck in rooms with staff beating me bad. You were not one of them at all but there were a lot of staff like that. There were also a lot of staff that cared, and its to bad they were at Gaebler trying to help while other staff weremaking the place so horrible. The only good thing that came of places like Gaebler is it changed places today.

flushed, based solely on your last two posts alone they should have kept you at that institiution a bit longer.
Have a nice life.