1,337 Comments for Middletown State Hospital

Wow great image here..how did you get that sharp depth of field with everything so in focus?

I DO think it's sad that people will form their images of groups based on the extremes. I think that to work with people that the rest of the world has rejected, it takes alot of commitment to your job. When you become detached enough from the world it becomes a very real thing, the amount of freedom you have. It feels as though nobody cares about you, and nobody WILL care about you unless you either look at them the wrong way, or break the law. It's a sobering feeling knowing that you're the only person you can depend on. To know that there are people out there who will give their time and energy to help those whose friends and family have given up on, it's one of the most encouraging things one could know. I've BEEN close to the bottom. Well, at least enough to have that feeling of fending for oneself in an apathetic world. I've wound up in a homeless shelter before, and the first night I was there, I slept happy knowing that I wasn't sleeping alone in an alley with my stuffed animal for security. I was actually around people that were there to help. Of course there are those who just help others for money, and the select few horror stories of abuse, but there are also those that work because they care about the people. I'm rather tired at the moment, and droning on, but the previous posts sort of triggered a thought and response. It does bother me how ignorant the general public can be about others, simply saying things they've heard others say for sake of conversation. Like people without cars that use gas prices as a conversation starter... My appriciation to the people here who help the hopeless for a living.

I will say that the pictures is worth a thousand words. In ohio where i live a man was cleaniing out the attic of a house he recently bought and had never known the history (it was purchased during an esate auction) While cleaning we found a pine box that had a name brand casket companys name on it when we opened it there was a new casket inside. The shipping date was from 1982 and this was in 2003. After asking around we learned a lady lived ther in her eighties and had no family and died in a nursing home. He sold the casket for a prop. but was interesting.

The funny thing is this one doesn't seem "haunting" to me at all... because I grew up working with horses, the dirt and exposed beams remind me of an old barn more than anything scary.

Well, you turn them in, of course, and that second, or you are equally culpable. My poor husband knows that if I ever caught him treating someone badly who lives at the place where we work, I would turn him in to the authorities in a heartbeat. And I am fairly certain that he would do the same about me, or at least I hope he would. That is because if he is the sort of person who would be abusive, then he isn't who I think he is and needs to stop. THEN he needs to get help, but my first aim is taking care of the folks who need protection.

Sounds cold to a lot of people, but that's how it is. I am a psychologist but right now I am also in risk management, and it is my job to make sure people are safe and secure and getting what they need or else I raise hell about it. Doesn't always make me the most popular person around, but I REALLY care about what other people think about me - keeps me up late at night. ;-)

The concern you are hearing from some of us is that people make an automatic assumption that because we work in this field, especially in-patient care, we are all abusive and the taint clings, even though there is heavy duty nonstop (and I mean that literally) policing and training and interventions.

But the irony is that when abuse or neglect does occur, it's not usually because staff are bad people and it's not because the folks we work with are bad people and it's not because institutions are inherently evil. It's because the funding isn't there and the community support isn't there. Generally all the community wants to do is toss rocks; they don't jump up to the plate until a court mandate (and lots of money) comes in. It's not like there are lots and lots people out there volunteering to do this out of the goodness of their hearts. If the community money dried up everyone would be right back in the institutions tomorrow.

And that sucks, because that isn't where they should be, except in rare cases and usually for short periods of time. But that isn't because they are necessarily being abused; it's because everyone has the right to live in the community if the supports are there.

Again, we just want people to give us a break and quit assuming that all places are torture and doom and gloom and that no one but outsiders cares.

I have said this before, but it's still just as true - whatever you focus on you become, so it behooves us all, advocates more than anyone, to also look for the good in people and not immediately seek out the negative, because every one of us has a nasty side to us. It's just that those of us who work in in-patient settings get our fair share of having people talk about our dirty laundry and then they give us their fair share of dirty laundry as well.

Thank God I am on the soapbox, because I have been trying to see if there is any soap left in it to scrub out our dirty laundry.

Hi Absynthe, I think I have heard a bit about "memento mori"...thank you for mentioning that. Since my grandmother's family was relatively poor I imagine these may well have been the only photos they had of the children who died...it's so sad!

Can we agree that any time one human being has power over another human being, there exists a potential for abuse, and then move forward from there?

Lyric - I find myself kinda doubting, based on his grammar, that sean's comments are based on experience. But you shouldn't make assumptions about everyone who visits the site. Yes, I've seen and done some of the things you ask about. One of the little charmers I'm working with raped his last caseworker. I'm aware that working in the field of mental health is no picnic. And someone really does have to do it.

Think people are mistreated in asylums? At least they are warm and fed. Not like the homeless guy downtown who has lost all his fingers from frostbite. The police feel sorry for him - they arrest him when it gets really cold, hoping to save his life. He has a perfectly good sister who would let him stay with her, but he won't stay anywhere - he can't stand to be inside a building. Because of current laws, his sister has had no luck having him committed, so he's out there today, in the cold, with a lot fewer fingers than he had this time last year.

Then there's Kill Guy. He has a name, presumably, but I don't know it - he screams "KILL!!!" at anyone who speaks to him. Well-intentioned strangers offer him money and he scares the pee out of them. Kill Guy was having a bad day last time I saw him, rocking back and forth on a bench and shouting in his own personal language. I haven't seen him since it got cold. I hope he's locked up somewhere safe - not lying dead in the lowlands next to the icy Nonconnah creek. I know the stories of a lot of the deinstitutionalized mentally ill who live around here but I don't know his story.

My point is, yes, these places served a function. They were and are needed, and they arose, at least partially, from the desire to help the mentally ill. But they also arose, at least partially, from the desire of most folks to walk down the street without bearded strangers screaming, "KILL!!" at them. Both desires have an effect on the way people are cared for.

Involuntary committment may be a necessary evil, but it's still an evil. The mentally ill may be safer locked up against their will than they would be on the street, but they are still locked up against their will. That's sad. It's not unreasonable for people to imagine them suffering. They ARE suffering.

Now: about abuse. There are a few dedicated caretakers who regard their jobs as a calling, but a more typical profile - in my experience, locally - is a divorced women with small children who went back to school because she desperately needed money and someone suggested a degree in something related to health care. Health care, where I live, is the largest industry - 40% of people in this city work in a health-related field! Not all of them can be inspired, kind, loving people. Given the superhuman stresses and temptations of the job, It's no wonder that abuse happens.

Lynne - for the sake of argument, I'm going to take the numbers you suggested: 98% good, 2% bad. That means in a small staff of 50 people, one is bad. Not good odds, if you happen to be completely at the mercy of the staff. What SHOULD people do when they hear stories of abuse? Should they keep quiet so that the innocent workers in the field don't have their names blackened? I would think that a truly innocent worker would be the first in line to denounce abuses and make sure that no one ever forgets them, so they don't happen again.

Lyric,
**10 from the east German judges, 10 from France, 10 from America, and 1.2 from all the soooo well informed perfect people, and 1000 from those who really know.**

I am speechless (If you have seen some of my posts you'll be surprised)!!

*Don't loose that soapbox, it's needed around here.*

Thanks "G"

I have had a short fuse due to other stressors, so I have been semi avoiding this site, because I am not wanting to misplace my anger on an unsuspecting person.
But the recent Horrific Romance that has been posted lately finally sent me over the edge. ....

excellent rant, Lyric,
I hope it makes people think twice about the people around them and the people who care for them.

I doubt Lynne minds that you borrowed her soapbox, you put it to good use.

Thanks

Whoa.. You guys really did it this time.

You know, there are people on this site who work in the medical field, not just mental health care.

Those that do work in mental health care (or would that mental HELLth care?)

Those that do deal with patients on a daily basis do know a thing or two about what we are talking about.

EVERYONE OF US.. agrees with you all in the fact that ABUSE HAPPENS. We can't help it unless we know about it. However, what everyone forgets is the fact that not every patient that came into a hospital or school was abused, degraded and treated like garbage.

Not every worker who has ever been in this field treats the people in their care with such little regard.

But let me ask those of you who think you know more than we do?
Have you ever jumped out of an ambulance to physically wrestle down and restrain some body builder on a Steroid rage who thought it would be cool to do his Horse 'roid cocktail mixed with Methamphetamines?

I didn't think so.

Have you ever had to take a patient in who is beyond their mental, emotional and physical limits that has them kicking and screaming and howling in the most inhumane sound you have ever heard and have to make a choice to do what is best for them, even if it might look bad to anyone on the outside of the situation?

I didn't think so.

Yet, without having to put yourself at risk, so that someone who needs help badly doesn't get hurt.. You are the voices of authority..

Give me a break.

When was the last time any of you looked at a person in a wheelchair on the street and thought about what you could do to help them?
OR
What do you do when you see someone of diminished capacity TRYING to live in normal society at the store and doesn't understand the concept of counting money, so they are frustrated and screaming.. Do you look around with that obvious uncomfortable look on your face and wait for someone else to come and solve the problem?

Oh wait... What about the homeless guy on the street; yeah, the one who smells like urine and vomit and is talking to himself and swinging at the air screaming about something you can't quite understand.

What exactly do you do? Do you call your congresspeople and other officals to lobby and push bills for mental health care funding, or do you and your friends point your fingers and laugh?

Those of you who like to point out the horrid treatment of these patients need to stop and look at your own behaviors before you point fingers at us.

WE are doing something about it.
We put our own mental health on the line going to work.
Some of us women have had to cut our hair, take out our earrings and forgo all privileges of being a woman to go to work so that we don't get hurt.

We know that abuse happens, and those of us who are responsible and caring blow the whistle on the abusers to get them out of the system and reported to the authorities so they can't do it again.

We aren't proud of it.. But we can't stop caring about the people at our jobs.

We don't romaticise the morbid and cruel things. We don't imagine blood on the walls of a building that has been closed for 10 or more years.
We don't picture some lonely heartbroken soul behind these bars and windows..
No.. we leave that for those people who have never done what we do.

When we see the peeling paint of a building that was closed due to abuse and other violations we breathe a small sign of relief that maybe they were placed in a better facility.
We cringe at the homeless person on the street who obviously needs his medication, and we get angry.
We get angry because the place he/she (doesn't matter) was living got closed because the Taxpayers (that's you) wouldn't pass a bill or a city approval for a group home in your precious neighborhoods.

And yet... we get criticised; for going to school, learning how to take proper care of these people, about the laws and rights they have because they are people too...
You hear one case of abuse and the world blows it up into something awful, making all of us instantly bad.

*jumps down from the borrowed soapbox*

Night all... I'm ticked off and going to bed.

And *I* say ignore the 98% good ones and find the 2% bad ones and make fun of everyone in the field and tarnish their names because of it! Maybe you'll smear a few innocent people, but if you brand them ALL as liars and sadists, surely you'll hit a couple of the worst ones, right? THAT'S what justice is these days. Can't let a guilty one possibly escape, so we'll hang 'em all!

Wish I could find another field with that "high" a percentage of obvious losers. I'd jump right in there with both feet.

Whoops! Sorry! Lost track of where I was!

OK, thank God everyone else is perfect but those sick freaks in the health field, eh? I say take the lot out and tar and feather their evil hides!

Wait! That means that some of us would have to go there and take their places if we want these people to stay alive (unless we dumped them all out on the streets without any resources and they would die). If we took the place of the evil staff WE would be the ones who would have to put up with mandatory overtime, crappy pay, occasional aggression, frequent incontinence, high injury rates, no respect from outsiders, frequent audits from outside agencies, and being called a piece of crap for daring to work with these fragile folks.

Hmmmm . . . .

Oh well, *I* don't have to do it so I don't have to worry about it.

Check out Mary Kay Gonzales' story, and what happened to her in Oregon. Most hospital staff do their jobs, but there are always a few oirderlies that are truly dispicable.

Little late on the post here, but I felt the need to defend the use of Photoshop. When photography first started been viewed as art, those who considered themselves to be "true'" artists pooh-poohed the photographic artists as "hacks".
There are still some who consider photography to be "cheap" art. I am not one of them. As a photographic artist (featured in several private collections, including the permanent collection at the Chicago Musem of Art), I see photography as being no less a artistic medium than drawing, music, etc. Getting back to Photoshop...
It CAN be used as a crutch, but I have yet to see Motts as using it as anything more than a tool, much like Ansel Adams used "F/64 and be there" as a tool. Does the fact that Ansel Adams used filters, dodging/burning or push/pull processing make him any less of an artist? No, of course not. Photoshop is a tool, nothing more. Does Kevin still make his own processing chemicals? If not, would he consider buying them a "crutch"?

Kime: The patient side (shown) of the door would not have a handle, but the employee side (the back of what we can see) would have had a handle.