1,384 Comments for Gaebler Children's Center

My name is Joseph Pimentel, I am leaving this comment because i slept in one of those rooms for a week when i was five years old before i was moved to the Cambridge children s unit in "1990" I am now 25 going on 26. I leave you my name in case you do not believe me and there are records somewhere to be found, if anyone truly cares.

This place is a place of terrible memory's for me, not just the feeling of abandonment a child feels when its locked up in strange place without it's mother or fathers care, but because there where things that happened that i can not fully explain.

For many years i thought something was after me stalking me.
as a child i could only describe the ghostly figure of the man as the baker. But it turns out more or less i was describing a orderly.
i was repeatedly attack by this man in my sleep if you can call it that. it was a feeling of awareness though, much like being awake sometimes i could swear i was. the feeling was terrible i can only describe it as sticking your head out of a moving car window and feeling the wind rush your face striped of all sound except the gusting wind and being unable to move a limb nor make a sound to cry for help.

I am not messing around nor am i some chicken shit. I am very large man who can hold his own very well and have many times in my life.

I want to know if anyone else ever took something unwanted home with them. this being has been in my life for 20 years now but i can longer see him i still occasionally have the dreams of being restrained.

@ Mr Jody McMillan, lol,,, yeah i was a a big mouth. I also wonder if you remember me. Were you ever at somerville hospital?

John,
You are absolutely right, we do all have a bond, no one can take that away from us, the bestfriends I ever had were from there...

Lol good to know your the one i'm glad that everyone is out of there and all those places are closed down! if they were up and running who knows if we would all be there still today. with all those mest up drugs we were takeing they had control of us it was as if we were in another world and after being on those meds still today my sleep is mest up up all night sleep alday or sometime i would be up for days cause that throzeen made us sleep thank the lord we out of there

@ Mr. Jody.... i was there when you were. the "screams of some girl" were no doubt me. lol. i was a screamer. thats what i was known for. well that was untill the slap LOL

Interesting.....Here's what I wrote on here back in 2009.

........
I think they should hurry though, I don't think that place will be standing for much longer.
I don't know why, but I'm getting the feeling that very soon, within a year the place will be torn down.
John
Fri 07-17-2009

I guess my intuition is still high.

One thing is for certain, for those of us that was there, we have a special bond that no one can ever take away from us.

Boiler1220,
Hello my dear friend, so happy that we met and hung out a few times, you are right at the time we didn't matter, but, it's high time that we make the people who did this to us pay for their crimes and let the world know just what kind of dept of mental heath system we have and then maybe parents will think twice about giving their children away to the state. It makes me wonder, when they were children how were they treated? I don't think I will ever have closure completely, to much happened to us in there to have that kind of closure, but, we are better people and we proved to the world that we are worthy and that we do matter and that they didn't break us. life is too short and so precuous and so glad that you are now my friend and that you are doing well....

Mr.Jody Mcmillian,
Hello there, I was a patient there from 82-84 and I was on Ward D, the staff members at the time were, Jack,Melody,Joanna, Harvey, Willie,Suzanne, Elaine and I can't remember the other ones, but, I so remember Tom Heathwood, he thought he was the cats ass, cause he was the head of the place and he really made us kids out to be monster, he would give the staff, and dr's orders on what to give us for meds and how to treat us, he was a scumbag, and I so wish I could find him and treat him the way we were treated. We were not monsters, we were children, and the reason some of us had problems was because our parents were screwed up, but, it's so much easier for our parents to just blame us then themselves and give us away cause it was to hard for them to deal with us. I am so sorry that you have had such a horrible life, I can't imagine starting at the age of 17yrs old and needing a pacemaker, that is horrible and now you have to have your 8th one put in, that is terrible, but, I am glad that you are still alive. I am so so so sorry that you had to raise yourself, that is terrible, what the hell is wrong with your parents? sorry to say that, but, you were just a child. My mother is actually the one who called the dept of mental health on me, and signed me away to the state from the age of 11yrs old-16yrs old when she got custody of me back and I came home to live , I was only home for just about 3yrs before I moved out a month after I turned 18yrs old and I never moved back home and now I am 41yrs old, have a wonderful husband and 2 children, 2 daugghters, one ijust turned 17yrs old & the other one is 6yrs old, I have had a tough life but, I promised myself that I would be the best person I could be and not let people cut me down and tell me the kind of person they think I am. For the longest time I hated my mother for putting me in Gaebler, but, I am older now and life is to short for hate, I am now extremely close with my mother and we see each other all the time, she actually lives a couple streets over from me. It took a long time for me to forgive my mother, I got my records and confronted her with them and she had no choice but, to tell me thet truth. As, for the building being gone, it's a shame, they should have put it to good use, like a childrens center, like a day center for troubled kids and have us patients be the staff because we would have known exactly how to handle them and treat them, medicince makes things worse, I do not believe that it helps at all. I wish you the best with your pacemaker going in for the 8th time, and hope that you are doing well and that your life is so much better. Allwe can do is prove to society that we are not as bad as we were made out to be, we are human, and humans make mistakes, some worse than others, but, that doesn't mean that us kids needed to be locked up, drugged, secluded, tied to a bed naked, ;locked int he shower alone, locked int he bathroom, and locked in the building, we shouldn't have had to earn priveledges to go outside, even then, you were still in a locked fench area, unless you were lucky to go get outside priveledges to go on the nature trail walks to Rocky Meadow, which by the way is still there, my husband and I go there every week,, and we go to the chrildren's cemetery. I have tons of pictures of Gaebler, inside and out and vieos, if you want to see them request me on facebook Michelle Woods-Godfroy. I hope you have a good day...

John,
You are right, the demise of the building being taken down doesn't change what happened in there, but, for some reason the dept of mental health feels that with the building and a good portion of the records being gone, that they covered their tracks of the abuse that we incured in Gaebler, but, you can't hide what went on in there, if enough patients come forward we can do something about this...

Belmonster,
Hello again, trust me when I tell you, they are going to put up condos, I know this for a fact, as for the Fernald, they will probably sell it to Gann Academy again, cause they want more space, I know alot of what goes on in Waltham because I have lived here since I was 11yrs old and my girls are in the Waltham public school system, one is at Plympton and in Kindergarten and the other one started in kindergarten at the Plymptom,then went to the McDevitt & now is a Junior at the High School, I do get all the notices on buildings and house being put up, gone to the meetings about the congestion and adding more condos and houses in waltham and the zoning board meetings, so yes, I know alot. I am not saying they will put them up anytime soon, but, trust me, that is what is going to go up there....Anyway, not to sound rude, but, who are you? where you ever a patient at Gaebler?

Well after faceing all those hard time while there then having to raise myself by takeing care of myself as no child sould from those hard time seemed to never end after being out of there but again God took care of me i'm still breathing as long as there is breath there is life. here is what i look like today you can go to my myspace page maybe my pictures will ring a bell to someone and dennies i think i was on the first floor down the hall on the right hand side a room that had maybe 10 kids to a room maybe less. http://www.myspace.com/withinthewind

Thank God no one hasto ever go through what we did and sad to say years befor our stay the people who indoored pain and suffring with shock treament an so on then all shut down in 92 everyone is not nuts anymore the ones who were nuts were the people who put us in those place as if we were some kind of research of some kind the staff and dr's who would make us take all kinds of drugs to make us better made us zombies i was on so much throazeen and lith E M made me unable to learn from any teacher my mind coundn't grasp anything in as if they were talking my mind would be else where in thought not hearing whats being said everything i know today i've learned on my own i thought myself how to read spell and yes my spelling still not so good as you can see lol. I've took care of myself after being released my foster mother was pissed that the places were shutting down so she put me again in hospitals that woiuld only keep me for 30 days such places were marlbro hospital umass hospital worchester and she tried to place me in a place somewhere in lancaster for life a reform school i don't remember the name but i remember the place was huge and all white but the place turned me down didn't feel i was to be locked up. when i turned 15 i took care of myself lived with friends then off to ny been all over the us los angeles seattle tampa fl and always ended up back in ny. I feel like i never was a kid from the stuff i went through but i'm such a strong person from those hard times. with all those meds i was on messed up my heart i had to have a pace maker put in at the age of 17 and been through 6 of em since will be having my 7/th pacermaker put in next year. My father lives in fl my mother still lives in ma sisters RI and brothers ma an ny but i've always been by myself and the things i had to face such as pacemaker 8 hours it took em to place it in. i've only realy been close to one brother and thats my brother dan everyone else was taking away from the department of so so stealers DSS when we were 2 years of age everyone split up to other homes not hearing from them up until 1 year ago everyone is grown up but out of all this God has took care of me out of all the heartless people who did me wrong God has made me careing givging loveing in spite of all the trubbles where nobody else wanted me God took care of me. Today i just feel like there is a black whole where the hospital once stood is now gone i can understand why us kids now adults go back there now that is gone we carrie the memorries as we move on but when i see kids yelling or not treating there momy or dad so nice swearing at them brings the memories of it all back however when i see those kids i would want them to go thrugh what we did even no child sould ever be in a place as we were and today the state and system see it that way you can't even yell at a child nor hit and the school as well amen

Pookie
At the time, we didn't matter. And your right, when the building was taken down a part of me was taken to. And there wasn't the closure I thought there would be.

Jody
I've been there a lot. The first few times there the basement was flooded and I couldn't get to the record room. Then when I could get to the record room the records were gone. As for going there after it closed, a lot of us have mixed feelings about it. I liked going there just to remember my past. I had a lot of friends there and I was there for 5 tears total. I also like to see that its closed and know that know one else has to go through what we did.

John
So right