2,712 Comments for Fuller State School and Hospital

Maybe sometimes the better patients were left temporarily to their own devices while the aides had other work to do, maybe readying the next patients for bath, and they used the window to make sure no one was drowning, getting hurt, or hurting someone else.

You could liken the tapeworm to the hospital, sucking the life out of it's poor helpless victims.

What was the rather large protruding box on the wall? It sticksout far enough!

What's more disturbing then what it says is how it is painted.

As a Teddy Bear collector I find this picture fairly unsettling. The poor thing, abandoned except for the passing photographer or miscreant. He just cries out to you! "Where is everybody?" "Someone tie my shoe and hood!" "Where is my girl/boy at?"

On another note, I like the craft projects. I wonder if they were going to paint these pieces and hang them outside their doors or off of the end of their beds (wards). It was a very creative idea that I intend to share with my sister who is an elementary art teacher.

CAS,

I know. [sob] I feel the same way. [heavy sigh] The only thing that keeps me going on, bravely, is the sheer terror that if somehow I break down, they will haul me away to a psychiatric facility. And you know what THAT means. It means that there is (apparently, from all the creative writing posts I have had the extreme pleasure of reading) an extremely high chance that I will:
1- be kept away from society against my will for long periods of time for no discernible reason.
2- be locked up in seclusion for long periods of time at the whim of cruel staff (mostly those "fast-assed lazy nurses").
3- be starved.
4- be forced to use the torturous machine of jiggling weight reduction.
5- be stuck in a small room with only a slot in the door near the floor, forced to stick my fingers out, looking for nonexistent human warmth and contact.
6- be put in hydrotherapy for weeks at a time in ice cold water after they dump trays and trays of ice cubes in it.
7- be shocked.
8- be lobotomized.
9- be given a "chemical lobotomy" in the way of massive oversedation, mostly as a form of experimentation, partly as a means of keeping me tranquil and zombied out.
10- be given no privacy when bathing or using the bathroom.
11- be forced to sleep in a large crib.
12- have my fuzzy teddy bear taken away from me as a particularly cruel form of abuse.
13- be cremated if I die there (and I probably will, given all the horrors I have described above).
14- be compelled, after I die, to roam the halls of the deserted asylum I last lived in, only in the shape of a fat white blob (not too different than how I currently look, at least), caught on photos only when a piece of lint happens to fly by or a drop of water gets on someone's camera lens - mistaken at times for the orb of Radical Ed's beer instead of the tortured soul I will be.

But worst of all, they will force me to read comments like the ones I previously quoted and they will try to brainwash me that these were the only pieces of reality that ever existed and that any other beliefs I might have had were just delusions - the ramblings of an overactive and demented mind.

And I will be released only when I come out of there thinking that everything is black and white.

CAS - help! They are trying to make me (gasp - choke - sputter) "NORMAL"! AAAAEEEEIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!! Run for your very life, my friend! =8-o

My heart has been broken, my hopes shattered. My life seems pointless.

My post was written a month or two back when I still had enough energy to try to deal with peoples' negativity and lack of attempt to see that there was also a positive side to the field, both historically and presently. I have spent many hours hoping to get people to see a more rounded picture and not a one-sided picture, such as is commonly portrayed in the media and only attended to by most of the public if there is something gruesome or terrible involved. Like everything else, the field has changed as our knowledge base has increased.

However, I admit that I have had so many people try to argue me out of this larger more objective viewpoint that I don't care anymore. Yes, we have had so much in the way of "art is in the eye of the beholder" here that I might as well join along with the rest of the people. So I offer this as my humble part toward apologizing for trying to paint a larger, more hopeful picture of where we have been and where I hope to see us going. I will now stop trying to be objective and will start demonizing the entire field and admitting that there was never anything good that happened ever even one time no I'm not kidding what a bunch of evil-doers bad bad people shame on you all.

Yes, that cute little bear belonged to some perfectly fabulous child who would have been fine if he had not been kidnapped by the bad institution staff http://www.opacity.us/...ows.htm#comment_5907 (or placed there by an obviously unloving family because who but a pervert would abandon their child to such a hellhole? http://www.opacity.us/...ib.htm#comment_5334.) This child was starved and forced to work out in the "torture room of weight reduction," http://www.opacity.us/...ss.htm#comment_27916 and then they dangled the teddy bear in front of him, sneering that he would never see it again.http://www.opacity....ange_bathroom.htm#comment_27931

Then they did experiments on him - hideous, unspeakable tortures that we can only dream of.
http://www.opacity.us/...ub.htm#comment_31014 http://www.opacity.us/...ame.htm#comment_8435

Then they put him in a hydrotherapy bath for weeks at a time, full of ice cold water and ice cubes.
http://www.opacity.us/...py.htm#comment_13309
http://www.opacity.us/...te.htm#comment_16897

Then when his little body could hold on no longer, they probably burned him in the crematorium that was handily attached to every single residential facility that was ever built ("just in case").
http://www.opacity.us/...ts.htm#comment_34248
http://www.opacity.us/...ck.htm#comment_34808
http://www.opacity.us/...nt.htm#comment_19205

And with all those hand-dandy coffins lying about, they could just zip him away with no one the wiser.
http://www.opacity.us/...raw.htm#comment_1713

Yeah, I guess you are right - art IS in the eye of the beholder.

lynne.... dont you think that art is in the eye of the beholder, as a former mental health student i can understand your point of veiw on this subject matter..... but the history of mental health practice IS one of the nastiest sides of medicine and horrid and terrible thing DID occur, granted this was often the result of incredibly low funding and low staffing combined with a lack of understanding on how to treat patients, regardless, it did happen. The best we can do is to learn from the past, admit that mistakes were made and work towards better care for those who require it........ and whos to say the teddy bear wasnt a beloved chum to some child?

"Uhhhhh..no thanks. I'll just stay and drink my coffee up here while I wait for all of you. Have fun!"

A little too early for christmas

There was a book written by a woman who lived in a village on the outskirts of northampton, close to the buckinghamshire border. I forget her name but she wrote an interesting account of secrets kept by her family, particularly her great grandmother. She drowned her twins at birth for fear of problems and disability as well as the fact that she was not entirely well after the birth. I'm gonna rack my brains for the author! There was a documentary on nearly a year ago about mothers who had had their children forcibly removed from their care at birth, for various reasons. My nan has also told me stories concerning babies and children that were removed from their parents at birth or infancy. You seemed to have misunderstood my earlier statement, I was in no sense implying that snatching and drowning happened on a regular basis but it DID happen in extreme cases. The stigma attached to having a baby with a deformity or disability used to be so great that families did put their children in the care of mental facilities. Sometimes it was for the best. I know of a lady who kept her down syndrome son against the advice of doctors. She wrapped that child in cotton wool and he was never able to do anything on his own. He was a quiet withdrawn boy, polite but non-conversational. When his mother died his father placed him in an institution (for want of a better word). He thrived there, learning new social skills and gaining some much needed independence. A few months ago my nan saw him walking alone late at night. Worried she rang the people who cared for him and they assurred her that he had enough common sense to come home when he was ready and that he would be fine. The next day she spoke to him on the phone and he chatted for over an hour about his new "family" and all the new things he had learned.
Apologies for any offence caused by the earlier comment, looking back it does sound ignorant but that was not my intention.

THIS IS SO COOL . I GO INTO SCARY PLACES TOO.IN CHINO ,CA THERE TRASHING A LOT OF FARM LAND .I HAVE A LARGE COLLECTION OF JUNK FROM MEAT HOOKS TO BONEY DEAD KITTY.

ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS TEXTURE , I LOVE THIS PICTURE

"Patient" = a medical problem instead of a person.

Now THAT'S a mind-boggling picture! Thanks, Motts, for all the beautiful photography! You've made time stand still for a part of my morning.