Patient Belongings

Hi.... while this is just a snapshot and not an awesome photograph like the others you've taken... it's a heartstring tugger.... very emotive. Ever thought of taking the diaries and pictures and putting them on your website for posterity or just plain as a tribute to the forgotten patients? Anyway, you rock... keep shooting.

It would be neat to post some of it somewhere, in a way. Maybe if the children, grandchildren of some of these patients knew this stuff existed, they might want it. Just a thought...it would be kind of labour-intensive to sort it, of course. I was just thinking it might be of value to me if I had a relative who was once a patient....

This gallery alone is the best tribute anyone could wish for.Giving other people the opportunity to snoop in the belongings of others isn't a tribute.So I think Mott's right not to display them.

Jesus, is that a Kim Carnes album?

While some of those diaries would no doubt be fascinating reads I can understand perfectly why Mott would not post them online.It's disrespectful to these people,the lives they led,and their families.

Radical Ed, it IS a Kim Carnes album! (I googled) It's the 'Mistaken Identity Collection'

*sings* "She's got Bette Davis Eyes"

sad picture .........this is what becomes of your life when no one wants or cares about you. i agree leave the things where they are

it really is sad but what i can't understand is why hasn't the famlies of the deseased picked up there belongings

The question I ask myself is "why are those things stil there"?
If some date back to the 1940's, and the place has been closed for quite some time, why didn't administration give an order to dispose of these items long ago... Weird.....

This is the saddest picture yet! Such memories cast aside....

There are many reasons why family didn't claim ones belongings.Those belongings where discarded just like the people whom owned them. The state didn't care about them and still don't. The only voice those people have is what lies in there. It would be nice if someone doing a family tree could have that person's things. But who really cares enough to take the time to gather, place in order and list names on a website. Just names so that these people could be remebered or hell even found by a family. Photo's like this upset me. There sets history and the real truth about life in a mental hospital and we just leave it and forget just like everyone else. Thanks for listening.

Check out the Willard State Hospital exhibition on suitcases of former residents who died and whose belongings were never claimed. Fascinating, if a little one-sided and heavy on the bathos. I dislike that because it reduces people to pitiful one-dimensional victims and robs them of their true humanity, but that's just me. It's certainly less stressful to look at life in black-and-white . . .

Why did they just toss that stuff in there like that? To me, that is extremely disrespectful. Couldn't they "store" them neatly or something. I can just envision a hospital worker gathering someone's stuff (someone that hopefully went to a better place) and throwing it carelessly inside. God, gives me the creeps and makes my heart hurt.

How sad to be so alone. There wasn't even anyone who could decide to toss their stuff.

you can see the article "what they left behind" by
jennifer gonnerman at villagevoice.com concerning the suitcases found at willard psych
center. maybe someone can do the same for the
materials above?

I am so thankful that things have changed in a major way as far as we view how people with mental illness should be treated... with dignity and respect.I do think that unless you have had a family member with mental illness ...there is no conception on how families feel .We do not abandon or forget them , ther person or there belongings. Thankfully society is evolving to change the way we view the mentally ill and will continue to evolve even more so . Families dont forget there loved ones..................

I wonder why this stuff was left behind? It also appears that no 'vultures' have sifted through it. The records and the adding machine would be gone.

Im not sure if Im on a "soapbox" but maybe these things were not "leftbehind" it could be that the items were possibly unwanted or discarded? as far as the records thats a whole other ballgame really, Im sure that nowadays that they would be taken care of in a professional manner. Once again thankfully we have evolved into a society that protects the dignity and respect of people who once recieved care in these facilites.It could be just possible that when patients were moved that the intention was to remove records and belongings.... and we all know where good intentions sometimes fall to.I love this site and i think that the pictures are the greatest...something always comes to mind ..those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it= meaning look how far we have come in our treatment of children and adults with disabilities , We are in no way perfect but we are trying

I would give almost anything to be able to look through some of these things. I don't mean in a disrespectful way but I am very curious to what patients in a phsyciatric hospital would write in a diary.

I'm with you, Erin. I'd like to just look through this stuff. Not to take anything, just curiosity. I doubt that all this was "just discarded". If some of the stuff was from the 40's, maybe the people who owned it had died a long time ago, and had no family. No one to come and claim it. The more recent stuff could have been left in there as time went by, if no ones family (maybe they had no family, either) came to claim it.
Motts was this a real large room? It looks like they had to start in the back, and fill it towards the door....there's no room to walk! Is the older stuff back further, or is it all lumped together, as if it was put there over time...?

I'm with the camp that would want to read the diaries out of curiosity. I think it would be fascinating insight to what life was like in an asylum back in those days.

On a side note, I can understand why someone would want to discard an old Kim Carne's album, though. Hehe.

You're right about the Kim Carnes record. They tryed playing "Bette Davis Eyes" backwards to see if it has any secret messages in it.

Oh, that's hilarous...and what exactly were they expecting to hear?

(also, correction on my previous post, should be "Kim Carnes' album"- stickler for punctuation and grammar)

i feel sad about this poor people didnt get there things the only things that could remind them when they were nomral

Please forgive me but I have to do this. This is NOT a Psychatic hospital it is a place that took care of children who where devlepomeltly and or phyicaly disabled. Many if not most of them where born this way some may have gotten polo or have been in accidents that had made it hard for there parents or other family members to take care of thee child. In some states the state could just take the child and place the child wherever. The reason some of the stuff was not give back to the client was because they had died and nobody knew how to get ahold of the family. The state agencies have a habit of leaving things behind in the building the abondond in mich they leave charts of patients the last hospyital closed was 1999 i think..

Having been hospitalized before and not having much in the way of family or loved ones, I'd be in the opposite camp that would want (if I had anything worthwhile to share) whatever I had left behind after death, available to the public. In my humble opinion, that's another important way that mental health issues become prominent and de-stigmatized is by putting them out there for all posterity. Similar to the thought provoking done by this site.

I realize that, obviously, not everyone would agree with this view, but surely I'm not completely alone.

check out this link, its really interesting about the suitcases that were left behind:

http://www.villagevoic...nnerman,50565,1.html

Joe, thanks for the great link. These souls were once living and breathing, with lives, thoughts, and emotions, just as were are today. Wether they were commited out of ignorance and misunderstanding, or true mental illness, they were all human beings. They deserved more than having what little was left of their outside lives end up in a discarded heap on the floor. It is the same with the older mental hospital cemeteries, who buried their patients with nothing more than a small stone with a number. Not even the dignity of a name. Society doesn't want to be confronted with things or people that are "different", because it forces them to linger on their own venerabilities. So, we hide away those things that bother us, hide along the feelings that go with them, and go along our happy little way, and forget that we could be that person on the inside looking out.

There really is plenty of stuff online and in various publications you could study. No need to dig through this stuff. A brief google search will turn up tonnes of case files, diaries, all sorts of things by, and about, people with mental disorders released for public study. Poetry written by schizophrenics is particularly fascinating. Sometimes, they make me jealous because they make absolutely amazing connections through metaphors and such that I would have never thought of. Then again, all creative people seem to be a bit off. Myself included. 8o}

desperate to find an old asylum that was located in Galway, new york do u know of it?

The Saratoga County Homestead Asylum:
http://saratogahomesteadasylum.com/
http://community.websh...39281068492201MPigqh

Very very sad; peoples' lives scattered all over the floor. If I had worked there and seen that, I would be so upset.

do the wallets have money in them?

the attic where i work is full of cases/bags belonging to folks who have long since left. its pretty sad going up there to add to the disarray at times.

How sad it is to know that what someone once considered important, perhaps even precious, was also considered to be insignificant and worthless by others.

see www.SuitcaseExhibit.org

of all the sad pictures on this site, this one kills me the most...
it really makes me think... if I were in that circumstance and died and my belongings were in this very heap... I want to cry just thinking about it. all the material posessions that mean something to me or have sentimental value... left to rot. since they couldn't be given to their owner's families or taken with them, I can only pray that this will be their grave and not ransacked by vandals or thieves. I doubt that, though, and sooner or later this place will have to be demolished... it makes me so sad...

Screw the family keepsakes i'd take everything that looked worth taking did you search the wallets for money? Did you find any old coins? Do you know a guy sold 1 coin to a dude in birtain for 250 k usd? Are you insane motts the one time i'm angry with you. You should have brought us all back a keepsake, I know that we should pay our respects i would never grave rob ~.- heh heh or would i? Anyways but i would go through that...

Sorry about the last comment :(

I wouldn't be able to help myself... I'd hafta look through it.

My camp is less than 2 miles down the road from that place, i've been in every room on every floor, there is no such room where there is belongings from patients just tossed away

There's a few suitcase left in Cane Hill & other British places. From reading a former superintendant's account patients were almost banned from keeping much, even the more able ones weren't allowed any storage facilies on the grounds they would just hoard junk. This was changed in later years.

This is awful. Not the picture, but what they did. I know you can't keep everything. I'm a packrat. I know this and I move on. They or their familes deserved better than this.

show respect to belongings of those long past

This is a heart-rending photograph!

In an institution that housed thousands of people, the tracking down of next of kin in which to return these items would not have been feasible.

This image pays silent tribute to the thousands of people who passed through the doors of this institution.

This would be all too tempting to sit down and go through this stuff. Being the pack rat I am, I would probably be stuffing what I could in my car. Very very sad but it's a fact of life. I had a job where I would type up estate appraisals after someone died and all I could think of was 'this is what life is about"? You live, accumulate things, then croak and then some stranger goes through your stuff and says this is worth $2, this is worth $5. We should have more respect for the dead.

That is just a shame.

what kind off stuff was actually their

Huh... makes you wonder... what will become of my stuff when I die? And when will people stop visiting my grave? At what point does a person truly become forgotten?

I read this book called "the things they left behind" that was alot like this. A psych asylum was being demoed and these people went in and resqued these suitcases. These people then picked several suitcases to investigate and wrote this book. The book told the life story of these people who were admited and what became of them. It also showed pics of the patient and their belongings.........it was a very cool, awesome, made you think kind of book. It was a super quick read.

Mrph. I'd love to go there and spend a good hour just rummaging. Not taking anything, of course, but just to immerse myself in those memories before leaving.

I saw this pic years ago and came back for a revisit. I too originally though this was such a sad pic and having read eldokid's comment I have changed my mind. The sadness goes to show how much value we place on things. We are not our things. Just think of how much crap we have that isn't even important to us let alone someone trying to retain a keepsake for memory. I know I have a lot... Even with a diary, there is could be a lot of interesting things in there for your family, but would you have written most of it if you ever thought someone else would read it? Sometimes it is best for things to be left alone and just keep the memories of others in our heads.

Dang typos! :)

Wow, this pic certainly tugs at my heart. To know in the afterlife that your stuff has just been left behind without a care makes me truely sad. I have been in the psych ward before and to know that if something had happened to me it would just be tossed in a pile along with so much other memorbelia makes me feel like I'm not really worth anything unless I make some make elsewhere in the world. Makes ya think kinda deep i guess.

In response to Mike's comments after reading mine above, I agree that things are just things and shouldn't carry such importance, what I was trying to say about the appraisals was, is this what life is all about? You live, work, accumulate stuff, then eventually die. If you left a ton of crap behind then someone else has to deal with it and either apparise and sell it or just trash it. I decided long ago that friends and relatives are what's important and the stuff comes second. I plan on getting rid of my crap while I am alive so no one else has to deal with it and hopefully who I've given things to will be reminded of me and how well I may have treated them whien I was alive. Of course leaving another kind of legacy behind like something that actually changed or bettered proples lives is the best thing to do. It's amazing how one of Mr. Motts photograps can induce such emotion.

Right...what if all our stuff got lost in, say, a natural disaster or fire?

If there's cash in it I'll claim it!!!

this picture is so sad, to see peoples things thrown away as if their lives didn't matter........

It reminds me of the piles of personal belongs found in Germany after the Holocaust

Thank you, Joe for the link above.. This subject is so vast and ALL SO NEW to me.
Belongings; our things, you can put a price-tag on that.
but DIARIES! You can´t put a price on a diary in the same way.
What a person thought and wrote is an asset; we can learn from that.
This is a great site, excellent pictures, with clever comments from the followers. am enjoying and learning a lot every time i visit.
Thank you Mr. Mott, all the hours of hard work shared generously for us to understand and learn.

very sad..