Occupational Therapy

and what kind of occupation were they preparing these people for who were never going to get out/

believe it or not christina, alot of people who took care of the patients actually cared about them. Maybe someone actually cared if the patient could brush their own teeth, or even dress themselves properly. or god forbid know how to buy something from a store. You just cant take care of someone year after year and not have some kind of bonding . I know i was a care giver for years.

And to add to what anna said, the majority of the people DID get out. There was a massive "mental health revolution" in the 70s. It's in all the history books, even. Almost everyone was "freed" - well, dumped on the streets without any resources, is what many of us would call it.

It helps to work in the field a few years before getting romantic Gothic ideas that everyone was trapped for a lifetime in a mental hospital and that every caretaker was a sociopath. Some of us who read this list HAVE worked in the field a long time or still do, and in many different places, and it hurts to get slapped by people with "ideas" they read or heard about and didn't experience first hand. Or maybe heard about it from a friend who heard it from a friend who SWEARS it was true.

Yes, it's true - life sucked for many people in institutions for many years in many places and still does for some, but some of us were actually trying to make things better and we're not thrilled with the knee-jerk reactions of "outsiders" after watching "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" one time. If someone hasn't personally done something to make life better for these people, we wish they would spare us their weird beliefs and ideas that aren't based on fact.

I am boring the same people again, but please, people, get out there and work in the field and/or ask for increased taxes for funding for people with MR/DD and MI and cut us some slack.

And to you-know-who - "I already done been called worse things by better people than you." :-)

I've heard alot of the horror stories Lynne, most of the clients my wife cares for in group homes were "dumped on the streets" from a place called Fairview in the early 80's. And, who the hell is calling you names?

No one today, but I am just practicing in case. :-)

It's okay Lynne, I think most people really do know that you and others in your field try to make things better for the patients.

Except when we ask the Buildings & Grounds crew to paint the violent ward red to make them even more disturbed, eh? ;-)

Hee hee! That's what we are always striving for - make 'em crazier so we can get our butts kicked more often and have more "days off" for Workman's Comp when someone gets irritable and chucks us through the window.

P.S. It is truly awesome to watch someone pick up an entire loaded metal file cabinet or bed and toss it across the room. It makes you a little less critical of wire mesh and thick glass after you've been beaned with a large chair a few times. Luckily the worst I've gotten is several cracked ribs, but that was back before I picked up better skills at de-fusing upsetting situations. And what's funny is that I still love the people I work with and wouldn't do any other job in the world.

Ouch! Cracked ribs must have hurt Lynne!

iam totally gratefull that there are people like you out there lynne :-) if i was to end up in a mental hospital i would want my care persons to look after me like you have done to your patients.

I do lubs my clients very much, and I am happy to say there are many MANY more people out there who feel the same way. There really are a large number of people who care about folks who have disabilities or who have psychiatric issues or who have dementia or Alzheimer's or any of those things. As is always the case, you hear more about the bad stuff and the bad people, and you tend to remember the bad things that happen more than the good ones. Lots of terrible, terrible things have happened in this field. This field has ALL of the elements of a potential disaster in the making. Tough work, terrible pay, little respect from outsiders, high injury/accident rate, few resources, little support from management/government, and still so many of them do a great job. I am always thankful and often frankly shocked that there are as many people who give their time and effort and concern to people with as many issues as these different groups have. If people truly understood what a service the average staff person does keeping these fragile, complicated, medically complex, sometimes very difficult people alive, they would be amazed. That's why I said I lubs my staff almost as much as I lubs my clients.

I wish everyone felt the same way about the field that I do because I am still always excited to go to work, even after all these years. And, on the selfish side, you get more reinforcement when your clients see you and light up and smile and reach out for you than you could get if you were President. You'll hear this again and again from the people who work in this field - THIS is what keeps good staff coming back for more, even with all the rough work and the terrible pay.

Yes, anna?

ive been to this site many times, and look foreward to all the comments. i totally agree with lynne, i work at an institution, we have all kinds of people, homeless, mentally and physically challenged, and alot of people who are in total need of care for all aspects of their lives (feeding,grooming, communicating etc. ) we aides are all some of these people have, so they become our family, i also love my job, and look foreward to each work day. thnx lynne for all your insight . motts, great pics you are truly an artist!

Lynne, funny story, I had a client in an electric wheelchair. Every time one of the staff had their back turned working with someone else she would run them down. In the end we had a mainenence man tinker with her chair and make it so that it just wasn't so darn silent. It at least gave the staff a chance to duck and cover when they heard her coming! ;)

pollo,

Ha! We were just discussing that very thing at work this week because there is a gentleman who uses a wheelchair who sometimes unintentionally runs into other folks who live here. He truly has no concept that he can hurt them and they can't get the concept that they cannot co-exist in the same space as another person, so people get tangled up and we have the occasional injury. The whole process occurs at such a slow pace that you would think it could be caught, but that's why it's tough to see - it goes TOO slowly. Someone is tangled up all of the sudden and down they go. We discussed getting a "back up" beeping device like trucks have and attach it to his chair when he backs up because that's when he is more likely to nail people. When we thought it through, however, we realized that the increased noise level would make everyone's life intolerable and probably increase the number of accidents due to stress alone. I wish we had a sensor that made a low sound every time he's within a foot of someone, however. That way staff could be alerted and keep an eye on the interactions before someone gets knocked down. :-(

Did anyone think to point out that occupational therapy has nothing to do with jobs??

I don't think so...have at it Kate!

Occupational Therapy is for people with motor issues like not being able to hold a pen correctly or not having any coordination. It's not career counseling! =)

I was in that OT room many times and often it was only for coloring. We held many groups there using all the fine and gross moter skills we could.
I worked at this hospital for many years and we changed many lives for the good. Yes many bad things happened but may good things happened tto. I have spent many years telling the history of the hospital to dispell the miths told about us.

All right! Another veteran! Please tell us some of the history when you have time. A lot of people seem to think all we ever did in residential facilities was ECT and lobotomies. Well, that's after we drugged and restrained them, apparently. :-)

Having been an inmate back in god knows wnen - you see the scary thing is I am still out there - when am I going to get around to you?

MJ- Care to share any of your stories with me for a book???? Email me if you're interested. plumperfect415@aol.com

I'm an OT and I absolutely LOVE this picture. Wow!

Ray Crocker where are you? It was exactly what it says, occupational therapy. I remember Ray well, he treated our patients with kindness and compassion, don't have to read much more into it. Yes, it was ceramics and fun little things that meant a lot to our people.

i agree with some of u on how just because these patients were considered insane doesn't mean they didn't need care and love. all alot of them probably needed was someone give them some kindness.

Now we know where they got the workers for the Big Dig.

So what happened to all these people who were DUMPED on the streets?

Short ansewr, they recycled through the system eventually.

I spent some time as a patient in a Psychiatric ward, and understandably, saw many things that really rocked my world. It was one of those cases where I was in crisis, and everything seemed evil and cold... In retrospect, the people in my particular ward acted pretty neutral to our situation, that is, they seldom talked or anything. Yeah, there was one really bad councilor, but he was really the only one I would lable as truly dispicable. I met a few very caring individulas that I will never forget. One of which was a nurse who totally changed my life when she was talking to me about Brian Wilson and how he came out of his mental problems. Just a few examples that psychiatric wards are just like school. You'll have a bad teacher every so often, but you'll also get very good ones who care.

Couldn't have said it better, Alex. Take notes, nae-sayers ... that was comming from a former client. One of the "abused and tortured" masses according to 75% of the drive-by posters.

Thank you, Alex, for realizing that not everybody in the facility where you were wasn't out to hurt you.

Correction:

Thank you, Alex, for realizing that everybody in the facility where you were wasn't out to hurt you.

Lynne, reading your comments, I've seriously begun to consider a job in mental health care. You show such sympathy and concern for your patients.

Cool! Come on down - we need you! :-)

TO:Lynn,the best love is the love you give and you give alot. This other half of the comment is for those who think that these instututions were grounds for abuse,the worst thing I wittnessed was not the people in the instution { old folks home ,shcools for the mentally ill,and a safe haven for those who are lost in socity } including those who work there, are those who forget that there loved ones are there.Just drop them off or know there, there and do nothing but let them rot, thats the worst abuse ever seen.

Surprised the door closer hasn't fallen off

WE went to the NH Mental Hospital, could have been one of the most scariest experiences i have ever encountered. We went with a bunch of our friends, on halloween of last year. We drove in, and our tires just boom, POPPED. Then we all go out to see what it was, and my friend saw a flashlight n the window of the hospital. However we just thought it was a cop patrolling the night. Then we called out to the cop, and right when we started screaming the light shut off. My dare-devil climbed up those metal barcades on the side, then the rest of us followed him up. When we got in i saw the light again, as we started to follow it, it would shut off. My boyfriend and his friend we screaming and were no where to be found. We both folowed there voices, and we found them in the boiler room huddeled up. Then we all left, scared and confused.

MJ, I am truley intrigued by your story. Please tell me more about what happend to the state hospital when you were there. It would be greatly appreciated.
Aries_hockey7@yahoo.com

Would love to learn more on this site

A sense of humor and perspective are also necessary for working in the mental health field. You have to be able to separate the person from their illness and the "bad" or dangerous behavior it can cause. One co-worker was severely injured when a delusional patient came into the building and swung a large hammer at his head. Another was hospitalized for a couple of days when a patient sprayed a toxic chemical in her eyes (he didn't understand that it was ok to use it for cleaning floors, but not for squirting people). Another patient brought a gun into the building, and one of the doctors disarmed him without violence. After these incidents, we made our building more secure, more Plexiglass windows and locked doors, so that there would be a little more time to defuse a situation before it reached the point of personal injury, and we made sure we were monitoring signs and symptoms more closely. No one wants patients to have to get into a crisis before they get the help they need. I've learned that virtually anything can be used as a weapon. I recall an enraged man running down the hall at staff, swinging his three-foot bowling trophy. If you take all of these things too seriously, you can't last in the field. You have to keep reminding yourself that this is why you are here. If the people didn't have problems, they wouldn't be where they are, so sometimes you have to suppress what would be a natural reaction in most settings, and just go on loving them and doing the best you can. Probably the funniest episode (again, in a gallows humor kind of way) was when two large, very strong, and very angry young adult male patients got into a fight. The secretary was so flustered that instead of using our standard code for calling for help, she got on the intercom and yelled "We need MEN on the third floor!"

I am out in the world, working on a successful career and family because people like Lynne cared for me and about me and helped me conquer my own illness. I'll never be free of it, but they gave me the confidence and the skills to know that I don't have to let it define who I am or limit who I can be.

For those of you wondering what happened to the severely mentally ill after de-institutionalization, well, many have found their way into the prison system. The mentally ill inmate population quadrupled in the past 20 years in GA. I worked as mental health counselor in the prison system for 6 years (2002-2008) and saw many men (and women) who, fifty years ago, due to the severity of their mental illness, would have been hospitalized for the rest of their lives. Very sad really.

Well, I've spent the afternoon viewing photos and reading comments, thank you lynne. Today ,my sister and I visited the hill for the first time since our childhood. We never wanted to go back there. Wished we visited sooner. It is so very different now. Our father spent most of our growing up years at Hamp. We would visit him on tuesday in the day room. Many years we couldn't even visit him. That photo brought back memories. Some of the comments were heartfelt, others empty, ugly.. thank you Mott for these photos. I am going to researcdh photos taken in the 50's , when I used to visit my Dad.

i know a girl who is mentely unstable and, even if she can be alittle annoying sometimes, it's the greatest thing to see her smile when she accomplishes something.

My Grandfather was an OT at the hospital, this is the door he walked through everyday. When i saw this picture it brought tears to my eyes and made me miss him and my grandmother who was a nurse here(my uncles were also all orderlies here). the hospital has been a fixture in my life and now that its gone i feel like i lost another piece of my family and its history

Why are the same speeches made about the care actually given to patients and how all of us who aren't in healthcare are "romantic Goths" on so many pictures? Asking what someone would be trained to do do here (although, true, "occupational therapy isn't actually about jod training) is not an off-the-wall or disrespectful question. Don't take things so personally! Most of us out here DO have the utmost regard for the healthcare industry, and DO elevate caregivers of this type to deserving hero status such as that of firefighter or EMT. It's gotta be a rough job. MANY jobs are misunderstood, many people are brash and without respect. Most of us have used the word "retarded" to describe something and regretted it, trying sudsdequently to rethink our wording... one who does so does not need a speech at every turn. That finally said: nice shot, Motts!!