short notes:
will brady's ruminations
will brady's ruminations
2009-02-18
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:
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.
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 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.
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?
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.
FOR MORE INFO SEE: The Lives Left Behind, and learn about similar efforts like The Eastern State Hospital Project, caring for Patients' Graves and the Disability Rights Center's Augusta Mental Health Institute. PHOTO CREDIT: Lisa Rinzler from the The Suitcase Exhibit Team
Labels: abandonment, abuse, anonymity, bearing witness, mental hospitals, psychiatric survivors, warehousing
¶ 09:40 0 comments
2008-07-25
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.
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 11203Other 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]
Date: Today: July 25, 2008
Time: Demonstration begins at 5 PM, Candle Light Vigil, 8:30 PM
Labels: abuse, mental health, mental hospitals, neglect, psychiatric survivors, suffering
¶ 13:22 0 comments
2008-05-13
poetry corner
Some work produced for the MindFreedom Creative Revolution Retreat held July 2007. This in recognition of mental health awareness month.
IN THE ACUPUNCTURE WORKSHOP
WHAT IS HIS AXIS ONE?
WHAT IS HIS AXIS ONE?
The smartly dressed psychiatrist
Practically yelled across the room.
WHAT IS HIS AXIS ONE?
She cried out, the sharp glint in her eyes
almost bouncing light off her
Severe
designer earrings.
WITHOUT KNOWING HIS AXIS ONE
I’m not certain we can treat him
There are, after all, standards for admission
They have to be met!
And if we cannot determine his Axis One
He doesn’t meet the standard.
But we’ll never determine his Axis One
If all he does today during this meeting
is just sit there –
Crying.
EASTERN
When I was a kid
the place where I lived
was a squat cinder block building
they called “the Cottage”.
Inside there was a rubber room
with thickly lined walls
one could slam ones’ self into
without really doing much harm.
I got to spend a bit of time there
when I was bad.
This was nothing like the room they used
the next door over
for the really bad kids.
When a really bad kid went into that room
the Counselors would call the rest of us together
in the hallway, outside the room
where we could look through the window in the door.
Through that window
we could see, four feet above the floor
the brown tinged blocks
as we would watch
a fresh application get added
to the otherwise white walls.
“If you are really bad
You’ll get to go in there too!”
lesson learned.
If you were only partly bad
You get the rubber room.
At least, there, you get to be left alone.
IN THE ACUPUNCTURE WORKSHOP
In the acupuncture workshop
the breeze closes one door
then opens another - literally
Each of us comes seeking healing
for maladies never discussed.
Then we wait.
and participate in the group
wherein we do not speak
yet get connected.
I have no idea if this treatment will work.
If this seems disconcerting I wonder -
How much different is this
from a blind-faith trust in medication
and otherwise invasive procedures
Such as they are.
So many have faith without even knowing
If those procedures work at all
Give me then, instead
The cool breeze that opened the door.
Labels: mental health, poetry, psychiatric survivors
¶ 21:16 0 comments
2007-11-23
psychiatric survivors
Ron Bassman is a clinician with a history. Diagnosed in 1969 as having schizophrenia, his treatments included electro-shock, insulin comas and massive doses of medication.
After he recovered from the "treatments" he began "... addressing the identity issues that had triggered my excursion into "madness," entered graduate school, earned a doctorate and have worked as a licensed psychologist in a state hospital, in private practice, ...and has been the executive director of a 7-county comprehensive mental health center.
Now he has published a book about his life; A Fight to Be. Directed at individuals, families, students, professors and clinicians with a compelling message: we can and must do better. Dr. Bassman is selling the book directly. Give him a look-see.
Ron Bassman is a clinician with a history. Diagnosed in 1969 as having schizophrenia, his treatments included electro-shock, insulin comas and massive doses of medication. After he recovered from the "treatments" he began "... addressing the identity issues that had triggered my excursion into "madness," entered graduate school, earned a doctorate and have worked as a licensed psychologist in a state hospital, in private practice, ...and has been the executive director of a 7-county comprehensive mental health center.
Now he has published a book about his life; A Fight to Be. Directed at individuals, families, students, professors and clinicians with a compelling message: we can and must do better. Dr. Bassman is selling the book directly. Give him a look-see.
Labels: alternatives, psychiatric survivors, Recovery, Ronald Bassman
¶ 12:52 0 comments
