history / society / neglect The Suitcase Exhibit was born from the chance discovery of personal possessions in the attics of Willard Psychiatric Center in New York's Finger Lakes when it closed in 1995.
     Workers discovered hundreds of suitcases in the attic of an abandoned building. Many of them appeared untouched since their owners packed them decades earlier before entering the institution.
     State Museum Curator Craig Williams brought the suitcases to the Museum's storage facilities. He contacted Darby Penney and Peter Stastny bringing the suitcases to their attention.
     They, in turn made the effort to once again breathe life into the spirit of those souls long neglected after their hospitalized imprisonment ~ for warehousing is nothing less than that - imprisonment. A website memorializing those souls whose lives were unjustly frozen when confined into long-term institutional custodial placement speaks to what they found:

The suitcases and their contents bear witness to the rich, complex lives their owners lived prior to being committed to Willard.  They speak about aspirations, accomplishments, community connections, but also about loss and isolation. From the clothing and personal objects left behind, we can gain some understanding of who these people were before they disappeared behind hospital walls.  We can picture their jobs and careers, see them driving cars, playing sports, studying, writing, and traveling the world.  We can imagine their families and friends.  But we can also see their lives coming apart due to unemployment, the death of a loved one, loneliness, poverty, or some other catastrophic event.
     The suitcases and the life stories of the people who owned them raise questions that are difficult to confront.  Why were these people committed to this institution, and why did so many stay for so long?  How were they treated?  What was it like to spend years in a mental institution, shut away from a society that wanted to distance itself from people it considered insane?  Why did most of these suitcase owners live out their days at Willard?  What about their friends and families?  Are the circumstances today any better than they were for psychiatric patients during the first half of the 20th century?

     The project has included: an intensive study by Peter, Darby and the photographer Lisa Rinzler; a major exhibit at the New York State Museum viewed by more than 600,000 people in 2004; a portable traveling version of the exhibit, on tour since 2006; and a book, The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny. It was published in hardcover by Bellevue Literary Press in January 2008, featuring Lisa's wonderful photographs along with historical photos. The paperback version was released in November 2008.
     Would that this was an isolated phenomenon, but it isn't. For well over a century people who died in mental hospitals across the North American continent were buried in unmarked, sometimes numbered graves. The "conventional wisdom" of the mental illness treating establishment erroneously believed that being labeled "insane" was so shameful that people identities were masked, hidden, rendered confidential!
     Too bad the perpetrators of this gruesome myth could not see - indeed they still cannot see - that the real shame here is to hide from society the lives of these souls captured and confined and put away in psychiatric facilities.
     This injustice is still done today, albeit more subtly - it is now called "STIGMA" but, in truth, stigma's face is still irrational prejudice and bigotry held against those of us who get labelled as mentally ill.

Labels: abandonment, abuse, anonymity, bearing witness, mental hospitals, psychiatric survivors, warehousing

  ¶ 09:40 0 comments

  institutional abuse Esmin Green was killed on 19th June 2008 in the psychiatric emergency room of Kings County Psychiatric Hospital. She was waiting for a bed after haiving been involuntarily committed.
     She died sfter waiting in the area for approximately 24 hours before collapsing on the floor. It was almost an hour before any hospital personnel gave her any attention. It was captured on the hsopital's video surveliiange cameras.
     According to CNN reports, hospital personnel falsified records stating that "Ms Green was up and went to the bathroom" and was "sitting quietly" even though she had not been moving but was lyig on the floor. The surveillance camera, instead, showed her on the floor, unmoving, while people walked around and past her.
     Perhaps ironic is that Kings County Hospital, on its own website, proudly touts how it has spent $140 million dollars [US] adding to and improving the psychiatric emergency room and building a new multi-storey behavioral health inpatient unit on the campus only this year. Too bad funds weren't similarly dedicated to staff training and face-to-face care.
     New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, when asked of the incident. said: "I think what they said was, 'Oh well people sleep on the floor all the time and I didn't pay any attention.'" Some staff attending the emergency room were fired from their jobs for inattentiveness, but, in fact, they abetted in committing murder by neglect.
     Tonight, prayer vigils will be held in her memory at various places on the globe, including in front of Kings County Hospital in New York City.

Where: Kings County Hospital Center, Psychiatric Emergency Room, Building G. 606 Winthrop Street Brooklyn, NY 11203
Date: Today: July 25, 2008
Time: Demonstration begins at 5 PM, Candle Light Vigil, 8:30 PM

Other vigils are to be held in Eugene, Oregon [at 6th and Willamette Avenues] sponsored by MindFreedom.org, the State House in Boston Massachusetts [from 6 to 8 pm, sponsored by a Massachusetts based patients' right group MPOWER; at the Centre for Addition and Mental Health, 1001 Queen Street, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA [1 to 3 pm} and at 16 Mano Close, Thornbury Heights, Rochestown, Ireland [7 pm to 8 pm]

Labels: abuse, mental health, mental hospitals, neglect, psychiatric survivors, suffering

  ¶ 13:22 0 comments

  dissing free speech, sanctioning torture

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WWE Impressario Vince McMahon crossed the line last night from gruesome entertainment to violence porn.
     I find the abusive beating that popular wrestler Rey Mysterio received at McMahon's instruction totally "...without any socially redeeming value..."
     Even worse, the rationale for McMahon's ordering the assault was because Rey Mysterio disagreed with McMahon's opinion. "I know ~ you can say your opinion, there's freedom of speech here..." baited McMahon to an obviously skeptical Rey Mysterio. And when Mysterio disagreed, McMahon ordered Umaga, a massive Samoan wrestler to trounce on him. Some respect for freedom of speech.

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     Before I go any further on my rant, let me make it clear that I throughly enjoy wrestling matches. For that matter, I find the matches erotic ~ I know I'm not alone on this one.
     I have watched WWF/WWE matches for close to a couple of decades. I regularly tune in to WWE Smackdown on UPN Friday nights and try to check out Spike-TV's Thursday night lineup of Ultimate Fight Competitions and Total Action Wrestling. Hell, I've even watched Fight Club twice.
     Frankly, I find Ultimate Fight Competitions more exciting than RAW or Smackdown. There's more focus on fighting and no wasted time devoted to pseudo-psychodrama or contender-preening sideshows.
     I also recognize that the guys [and gals, what there are of them] who sign into the WWE empire do so of their own free will.
     As combatants, they are fully aware that they may get injured in the process, even seriously. As entertainers when they go into the ring they often play out a role, and that could include acting as though they are injured.
     That, in essence, is what is Kayfabe is all about. I know that a good part of what I see is replete with such as feuds, storylines, and gimmicks, rather like soap opera, and made to appear as if something is worse than it appears. ...so I'm not beyond thinking that what I saw might not have been real ...the seriousness of the injuries sustained by Rey Mysterio.

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     Having said that, I return to what was shown on Friday night. First there's the build-up. It comes in a couple of parts:
  •  Rey Mysterio enters the ring to cheers from his fans and a home town crowd. He's been out of the ringa few months, after his leg was broken by another challenger in a gruesome match. I can deal with that.
  •  McMahon comes in full bore bully [playing the role of heel to Mysterio's crowd pleasing face, has the ring surrounded by a phalanx of beefy henchmen, effectively banning anyone from entering or leaving the ring without his say-so;
  •  McMahon then challenges Rey Mysterio to disagree with him on his choice of a wrestler against one that Billionaire egotist Donald Trump will select; Okay, so it's a big stunt designed to promote a bet between two rich boors; No problem with that either.
  •  But then the problems begin...
  •  After bringing the Samoan into the ring, who lurks thretening in the background McMahon asks Rey's opinion, "It's a free country. You have freeom of speech..."
  •  When Mysterior disagrees with McMahon, first showing him disdain, then outright disagreeing with him, McMahon sics the big wrestler on a man using a cane, obviously still physically disabled, attacks the injured leg with vigor and slams him down to the point that Rey appears to be unconscious.
  •  McMahon, clearly undisturbed at the actions he has put forward, leaves the ring, smirking, giving yet another plug about his challenge to Trump. Meanwhile, a team of EMTs rushes in to cart newly re-injured Rey out of the arena.
  •  The inherent messages?
  •  As I said at the top of this screed It's perfectly acceptable to beat the crap out of a disabled person in front of an international audience ~ and ~ this kind of treatment is an acceptable response when dealing with someone you disagree with ~ if ~ you are rich and powerful enough to get away with it.
     For the rest of us, there is no freedom of speech.
     It's not clear to me that McMahon has violated WWE Corporate's code of business conduct, but then it's McMahon's name on the front page of the Corporate Governance website, so perhaps he can change the rules as he pleases.

Examples of prohibited conduct include, without limitation:
  * Interfering with a person’s ability to perform his/her job, or creating an offensive work environment through insulting or degrading remarks, gestures, propositions, jokes, tricks, displays of ...offensive symbols, objects or pictures or similar conduct related to a legally protected basis...
  * Any threat of, or actual, retaliation against any person for reporting or filing claims of unlawful harassment.

     But Greenwich, Connecticut-based WWE and Mr. McMahon are still technically bound by laws that govern all American citizens, and aggrievated assault is a crime in my book, a serious one. Arrogantly beating another person into submission [or instructing some lackey to do so at your bidding] is evil, pure and simple.
     As I said above, it may have all been an act. But in the television drenched brains of many, the act was real. The audience at the San Diego area remained in stunned silence as McMahon strutted out.
     The actions, even if faked, were disgusting. McMahon should apologize for violating another person's freedom of speech, and maybe publically set up a foundation ~ over which no one at WWE has any control ~ to promote the free discourse of opinion, as well as to establish a fund to aid disabled persons who have been assaulted by thugs.
     What do you think, reader?
If you let WWE's Corporate Board of Directors know, will McMahon send a thug to trash your house, too? Here's the phone numbers and addresses to reach the WWE corporate offices.
     This time WWE and McMahon personally went over the top. Return to entertaining us, Vince. Step back on the weird not so crypto-fascist politics.

Labels: abuse, censorship, criminal acts, torture, Vince McMahon, violence porn, wrestling

  ¶ 10:37 1 comments