Just as long as none of you people ever sit on a jury, I'm happy...

I specifically said that I wasn't calling Marcia a liar, merely pointing out that people's testimony on their own behalf isn't unbiased. That has nothing to do with where Marcia works, what field she works in, or anything else specific to Marcia. It's very simple: people don't ordinarily admit to wrongdoing, so if someone is accused of wrongdoing, their claim that it didn't happen does not prove that it didn't happen. That's called he said/she said, and even a small child knows better than to put stock in it. But, well, whatever they taught in the school you went to, it sure wasn't logic! Lord save me.

Lynne, why so defensive? You may be an expert on the treatment of the mentally ill, but setting yourself up as an expert on abuse seems misguided to me. I would hope that you are not an expert when it comes to abuse within the system at all.

By the way, since the last time I posted, I've read the autobiography of the gentleman Marcia is accusing of "having been influenced" to say bad things about Pennhurst merely because he's retarded. Shame on her. He's the very last person to be influenced or controlled by anybody; he's a past president and a founding member of Speaking for Ourselves, a disability advocacy group run by the disabled for the disabled. His every word is laden with dignity. But don't take my word for it, go read it, let the man speak for himself.

Okay... let me get this straight... a woman who worked at Pennhurst is saying the people who worked at Pennhurst weren't all bad, and complaining that people don't believe her? Forgive me for being the one to point it out, but hers is not an unbiased perspective!

Forgive me, Marcia. I'm not accusing you of being a liar, just pointing out that your own testimony about yourself is by definition biased, and that any reasonable person would look for corroboration before believing the words of a person with a vested interest. It doesn't take a genius to know that people paint themselves in the best possible light.

Why are you so shocked that people don't accept your testimony (which, due to the wonders of internet anonymity, could be coming from anyone) without question? And do you really have to ask why people think someone who worked there might not be the best source of information about what the people who worked there were like?

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.

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.

Re: Mark's comment - this was not a happy place! They closed this place down for mistreating residents. So Lynne's lengthy explainations about how the place wasn't really evil seem to me to be begging the question. Let's HOPE that the practices in a place closed for repeated violations are not anything like those of the places where Lynne has worked!

My perspective is a little different. As a children's advocate, I can tell you that hospitals can and do mistreat patients. Sometimes lack of privacy is used as a punishment. Sometimes the staff is too overworked to care. And sometimes, In the worst cases, individual caretakers consider the mentally ill, the retarded, and the (all too often) perfectly healthy minors imprisoned in these places by their parents as less than human and take pleasure in tormenting them.

I can't see a justification for two bathtubs in the same room with no curtains. It's inherently humiliating and it runs the risk of teaching the staff to think that humiliating patients is standard practice. In a nice, normal hospital, the staff may have to watch you bathe, but they go out of their way to maintain the illusion of caring about your dignity.

Not to mention - it's not safe. If these particular patients really do need constant supervision while bathing, two patients at once sounds like a very bad idea.

I dunno... I've worked with the mentally ill as well... seems to me that compassion, not rudeness, is behind the comments that this place looks more like a zoo than a place for human beings.

The trees look like a wailing face!