394 Comments for Massachusetts Mental Health Center

I worked there as a Mental Health Assistant for five years from 1984 to 1989. I worked on the locked PICU or Psychiatric ICU on the fourth floor and on a psychiatric transition unit called the Fenwood Inn on the third floor. The pink rooms were for solitary confinement. We called them the "Quiet Rooms." Some QR's were painted a light green. We would put patients in there after assaults or suicide attempts. Often we wrestled them using a technique termed "folding the patient." After folding the patient a nurse would administered a "chemical restraint." Typically the Chemical Restraints were Haldol, Ativan, Trilafon or some other psychotropic drug.
It was an intense place to work. it was a Harvard Teaching hospital and guys from Dorchester (like me) had the opportunity to date girls on their way to medical school from Harvard (just like in Good Will Hunting). Lots of romance. After the evening shifts we would go to a bar in Brigham Circle and drink and do coke and crash at some staff persons house. Sometimes we would get to practice our skills and "fold up" some at the bar starting trouble. Hey, it was the eighties. What a great time.

I was a patient on Service 2 in the late seventies...I was only 16 and massively psychotic for months...the psychiatrist had me on so much thorazine I could hardly get out of bed and I gained a lot of weight...I feel like my mental illness robbed me of life...now I am 55 and it has been a long struggle in and out of hospital and with stigma...I managed to graduate from UMASS with a BA in English lit, worked for many years, married a beautiful understanding woman and moved to Europe to live with her...we are still together after 17 years...I do not think we will ever part...I managed to experience a little bit of life despite schizophrenia

I remember the doctor who was in charge of all this. At the time(late 80’s-earlt 90’s) this study was ground breaking and he got a lot of noteriety for it. I also can vividly remember patients walking up and licking this display as well.

I believe these were the 2 ladies who worked in the phlebotomy department. Very nice people. If I remember correctly they worked on the 5th floor.

This building had a courtyard in the middle so what you see in the distance is the other side of the building.

This was on the 4th floor which is where the secured unit was and this had been done over more recently than the rest of the hospital so that’s why it is in better shape. I can remember when patients would smear shit all over the walls with there fingers. What a smell.

This was what they called a seclusion room where when patients went out of control they were locked in and monitored the entire time. One time a nurse was monitoring a patient and the door was open. He grabbed her and pulled her into the room and attempted to rape her but others heard and stopped him before he was able to.

Kiinnostava valinta pyörätuolin pysäköintiin! :)

I use to work at Mass Mental Health Center. It was A stat hospital, not especially luxuriant, but had a good, caring philosophy. Its
objective was help patients to get well, not to keep them.

Ouch

Yoooo!I wanna explore this building!To bad it got destroyed before I had a chance :(.

Fascinating photography l

This photograph of the ruins of a place of suffering reminds me of something i forgot to remember, like those piercing eyes peering through the sunbean.

I am not sure why this would have been on the walls after the closing. Unless the subject had died?

Applied for a job here in the 90's. I walked in the front door, and a long queue of all sorts of colorful folks were waiting to be seen for appointments, med scripts or what have you.
It was old and spooky then, as the bare necessary minimum of upkeep was employed to keep the place within codes. I remember the old radiators worked very well, but large areas of paint had previously peeled off many parts of the interior walls. The floor was old but shiny. Windows in the corridors flanking the entry were covered in plastic. It truly gave the sense at that point of something either descending or rising, at the time it wasn't apparent which.