Silent Scream

I think that's a good assumption, Motts! I can't get over the green...it's beautiful!

Not only are the caged rooms offsetting, but the green makes everything look so dark and morbid.

I can imagine fingers poking thru the mesh outstretching looking for human contact and affection. So sad :' (

A lot of your pics have struck me Motts, but this one,,, i don't know I'm just speechless.

"How do you like your steak, patient 3701?"

"Through the door!"

Simply amazing.

Donna,

Most of the folks who would be in an isolation room would not be "poking their fingers through the door looking for human contact and affection". To be in an isolation room means you had almost always been fairly out of control and needed to be somewhere to cool off where you couldn't hurt others. Another reason for being in an isolation room was to be in a "safe" place for someone who, in the days before antipsychotic medications, had to wrestle with their own inner demons during a frankly delusional episode. To someone in the throes of a such a psychotic episode, most other people are looked at as being dangerous or having bad intentions and these folks often don't want to be around anyone else because most, if not all, other people are seen in a very negative light.

People who were depressed or suicidal were NOT placed in these rooms.

Lynne-The justice bringer of mental institutions..saving reputations everywhere!

'Cept my own! ;-)

Fair comment Lynne, I have lived with someone who was supposed to be a gaurdian to me and they spent their working life in an asylum (as a patient at Whittingham Hospital UK Preston Lancashire) So living and breathing with a person who suffers from mental illness can make it seem sad.

It IS sad - it is something that cannot be adequately described to someone who has never experienced it or lived intimately with someone who is going through it. It is one of the saddest diseases there is because we are right on the threshold of finding ways of reducing or, hopefully, eliminating it, and we know we are almost there, but not quite. The toll it has taken is unspeakable and immeasurable, so to me the horrible irony is how the disease not only alienates us from others, but how many others take such great pains to disassociate themselves from people who are going through it.

Lynne-
I must say that I find your comments fascinating. I work with ICF-MR (institutional care facility for the mentally retarded) level individuals whom many grew up in institutions similar to this. It is very interesting and informative to read your postings. You must be very intelligent!!

If being a "smart ass" is what you mean, I think there are plenty folks here who would agree. ;-)

Lynn, Im sure most of them where looking for human contact.......just not the kind thats usually appreciated.

Lynne to me you are definitely a "wise guy" but I love ya for it, lol. I love it when you jump in and educate us all, most of us have no clue about this sort of thing.

One of the things they tried at Whittingham was my gaurdian was a day patient she told us as kids that she was working full time as a cleaner at the hospital and we never questioned this, the hosptial had a policy that if the patient was given as normal a life as possible they could be intergrated, THAT was supposed to be forward thinking in the very early 70's now the UK has a high proportion of homeless mentally ill people on the streets. Whittingham is now waiting as like Danvers to be turned into housing, it had it's own rail link, post office and church even a duck pond which was very unusual given the fact residents were likely to throw themselves in! I spent half of my childhood being brought up by a relative that suffered mental illness and until recently did not know that they were an actual patient. Given responsibilties earned a wage and brought home the bacon. I know this does not work in every patient all people suffer in different ways but my Gaurdian was given a chance. Whittingham tried the intergration system, in house fighting did not help either when they knew the Government at least in the UK were no longer willing to fund such Institution's.
This so called gaurdian accused my dad of being the Yorkshire Ripper and was arrested and kept in custody for 4 days turns out he had got into a drunken fight in town and been scratched by his mates girlfriend, I wont bother going into detail on how I spent my childhood with a gaurdian who really should have been a full time patient (use your imagination's it was not pleasant) but the whole intergration thing did nothing for me it just gave the Government an excuse to stop funding important facilities were people could feel they actually belonged good or bad. No one is ever going to agree on wether these places are good or bad in my case I hope there will always be somewhere for mentally ill people to go too. You never know when the balance is going to tip and those great big doors are going to open for yourself it is people like you Lynne that keep us informed and up to date which I am quite happy to say is a good thing. You don't have to have a mental illness to know what it is like. Living with someone who does is not a barrel of laughs. It is very Sad :(

I actually feel very bad for the people who were released out of those places onto the street. What a culture shock for them! Who would be there when they had their out of control episode in some back alley somewhere? Many are not capable or willing to voluntarily seek help or refuge. These days younger people with meds and support can enjoy not living in the hospital environment. However, the ones who knew of no other type of existence are still suffering on the streets today as abused homeless victims. The system meant well, but it did cause many problems when the patients were released out of the large hospitals so suddenly. Each case is so different, some are better off in a group care facility, and some can handle being out on their own or at least with partial hospitialization where their activity is monitored and they are being supported. I have a relative like that; he has paranoid schizophrenia. I think he is living an apartment building with other people who have problems, but they all have their own little apartment. He does really well, I see him a couple times a year. I am glad the system is working so well for him and helping him get along in society. I know he does go to "partial" as a part of his support services. He was even involved in community activism involving mental health issues. He is very intelligent, and has so much potential. We are the same age and we hung out alot growing up. We were always great friends and did lots of fun stuff. He was diagnoed at about age 17, which is pretty typical of people with schizophrenia.

Donna and weasel,

People blow me away with stories like these. Keep them coming. There are so many sides - anyone who thinks they have the answer, especially someone like me, is bound to be wrong much of the time. The only way to know is to continue to learn from people who have walked the walk.

Thank you for your stories - they are difficult to read and must have been very difficult to live.

I'm a ghost hunter, and the first tinme that I have seen these images is today. There was a lot of abuse within these walls. Please don't take kindly to it. I have a real bad feeling about this place in whole. Thank you

Thank you Lynne, I really enjoy reading about all your experiences. You are one of the reasons I love coming here. I bet I could listen to you talk about your job for hours!

silent screams are not always so silent... am i the only one who has ever been locked behind such doors?

No blue, you are not.

Lynne, Donna thank you for your insights. I care for many that were put out on the streets after a State run institution had closed. And suffering from delusions is a big part of their lives, due to state regs and pharmacies messing with these peoples meds, I see the night and day mares they have on a daily basis. Its so sad.

The cage and door side by side remind me of D-block on Alcatraz.

awyper, I get the cold robbies thinking of how folks are doing right now with all the changes in Medicare. They really got screwed with these changes - the very people who need meds the most. :-(

Oh goodness, yes! We talked about that in my Intro to Social Work and Social Welfare class today. It is really sad.

Don't forget about the folks who are prescribed too many "meds." Some of these cocktails people are put on add up to chemical lobotomies. http://www.breggin.com

There is a lot of incorrect information on that website as well, FYI. Yes, psychotropic medications are nothing to toy with and if there is any way to avoid them, I always counsel it. As a matter of fact, I have a bad reputation (which I enjoy) for getting the people with whom I work down to the lowest possible effective dose of whatever med they are taking or getting them off altogether.

But he is flat wrong about a number of things he says in his articles, plus people in the field were giving warnings about TD LONG before this fellow started - he gives himself WAY too much credit for things he didn't actually do.

Red flag alert, in my humble opinion - or at least watch out for the BS as you tiptoe through the site.

Lynne, never mind about the 'chemical lobotomies'. I used to visit my uncle John in Whittingham Mental Hospital, he was a tall man with a pre-frontal lobotomy that made him look like Frankenstein's monster. They gave him electric shock treatment too. All I remember is this gentle giant who'd never been the same since the war. Even back in the seventies I thought that councelling a patient's mental health issues with a scalpel was just plain wrong.

With the luxury of 20 to 60 years' hindsight under our belts it is easy to say that many things that occurred were terrible and shouldn't have occurred when there were no other alternatives at that time. The true challenge is talking about something that is occurring right now and making sure something gets done immediately rather than waiting until something negative occurs and then complaining that it never should have happened.

However, you need facts and data and experience to find out where the real problems are. If people wait to be told about problems by the press (or by people who are paid to testify for or against something and have a financial stake in things being a certain way) then you have a harder time separating out the facts from the misperceptions, of which there are many. The sorting of the wheat from the chaff is the hardest part of the problem and can only occur if you know the true history of what options were (or weren't) available at the time. But you do need to keep in mind that the public didn't care enough at this time to make sure that this didn't happen by increasing public funding. Most communities worked quite hard to get people who were different placed elsewhere, and for long periods of time, if possible.

Poke at the docs all you want, but they aren't the ones who sent their loved ones away or made laws allowing people to be locked up and have these techniques utilized. Poke at the families, but they had no alternatives as far as community options or funding. Poke at the staff, but they worked long hours with terrible pay doing a damnable job that few would choose, even today. Poke at the people who had the problems, and that will get you nowhere because these are mostly physiological problems.

Sorry - that leaves you and me and our wallets at tax time. Take a poke there and see how many people raise their hands and accept responsibility for the lack of funding and for the lack of interest in people with mental illness and the folks with intellectual disabilities. Bet you'll have damn few takers.

Ask how many would rather blame the docs, the hospitals, the staff, and sometimes the families, and that's where the majority of raised hands will be, because it's easier and we don't like looking in mirrors, especially when the mirror reflects back a distorted image and it's not even a funhouse mirror.

i have been locked in a similar room before... its not any fun, lynn is right, when you're in there, you dont want any company, your troubles and issues are enough to crowd the room... :(

Is not that 'observation window' a bit high? You would have to be very tall to be able to access it.

(steps up on soapbox)
Why do we tear these places down and corral the lambs out onto the streets? Is it so that they will be consumed by the wolves? Out of sight, out of mind? It seems to me that they are tearing these buildings down in an effort to say "Inhumane treatment of humans? Where? You cant prove it!"
Do they not realize that if the cover the mistakes of the past, that we are bound and destined only to *shudders* relive them?

i am doing my family tree and have found out this week my great grandfather died in whittingham mental hospital in jan 1929, i am quite upset by it because i cannot find out where he is buried at the moment as he lived in fleetwood and his family still lived there at the time of his death, my mum knew nothing about this and i am not sure my grandma did as she died when she was only 25 herself in 1943, i cannot rest until i know where he is buried as it is very upsetting as to how he went to whittingham, if he is buried there i am lead to believe the graves are all in bits, i would love to visit his grave wherever he is sometime and maybe go take look at the hospital too,anyone with any info i would love to hear from them, great site and ive read the comments too,
take care

Here is an interesting bit of info about NSH...Connecticut's most recently executed inmate, Michael Ross, who was a rapist and serial killer, back when he was at large, snatched one of his victims, a local girl nearby and took her onto the hospital grounds, in the woods behind the baseball diamond and raped and killed her and left her body there. Creepy...

Lynne, it's so heartening to have a seer of the truth. I hope one day you run for office, I'd be the first to vote for you. Keep up the good work girl.

this has to be the deepest thread I've ever read I feel for you all that have gone threw so much pain I too as a teen of
14 and 15 was in a ward for kids for observation and was locked behind such doors it was frightening and scary
and all I wanted was to be let out I cant
tell you how much I cried I did it so much
I passed out doing it thinking to my self good god I hope this never happens to me agen these picture bring back some horrific memories so from one that has lived this on the inside I can tell you that
I did want affection and if I could have of reached out my hand (I could not cuz they were strapped to a bed) I would have
of .

its interesting (for me, anyway) to read a UK perspective on the issue of release of clients from these institutions to be cared for by the "community" when they closed down, which the majority have. i work with the homeless through choice but my background is in behavioural psych. its incredible for me to see the amount of people with mental health problems who were originally institutionalised in places designed to cope with and assist them now totally institutionalised (and sometimes still raging) in the hostel environment. its like our health ser vice has cast people off for the voluntary sector to deal with because they just WONT assist. community care (imo) was one of the worst things our govt ever did for mental health. i have an elderly (ish) client who is schizophrenic but controlled by a cocktail and depo injections, whenever something alters in her environment she writes letters and signs them off as "shockman".. turns out she was regularly subjected to ECT in one of the hospitals that she was sectioned in.
it just enrages me at times.
i could go on for ages about this venting my various and occasionally confrontational views.. but i wont as im killing for cup of coffee!

novocaine,

What country do you live in?

scotland - edinburgh.. formerly lahndahn.
the uk perspective bit of my post wasnt meant as a thrower.. someone up there ^ i think was writing about england which kicked me into my spiel..

Ive been down for a tour on the hospital grounds and that particular place was eerie and spooky, felt like I wasn't the only one down there that day of many years ago, thats where patients were used on was electric shock therapy many moons ago ,and more than just that dark and dreary door /room more down there that just that, dont know how it could be called treating patients to get well when I think it was inhumane treatment for better recopver of challenged people , http://www.abandonedas....com/nshhistory.html, is the website to read more upon it and not sure if I can post websites if not I'm sorry .and let me know so next time won't happen :-)

Ren

Lynne

SOME MAYBE STORIES AND SOME AREN'T, IVE SEEN THINGS YOU WOULDN'T EVEN IMAGINE TO BELEIVE ONLY TO TELL YOURSELF ITS A STORY WHEN LIVED BY IT WHICH GREATLY YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY YOU HAVEN'T AND HOPE YOPU NEVER DO, DONT PASS JUDGEMENT ON STORIES AND YOU LOOK IT UP AND READ IT AND THEN COME BACK AND SAY IT AGAIN ONLY TO BE IN DENIAL OF THE TRUTH OF WHAT HAPPENS OR HAPPENED IN EARLY 60'S TIL LATE 70'S AND WHO KNOWS MAY STILL GO ON WITH OUT OUR KNOWLEDGE OF IT HAPPENING.
R

kathi cline

were you there as an employee at the hospital? I was once and yes there are spirits there but nothing ive ever felt in danger or scared, but yes can fee l sadness and abuse under the 2nd building of the hospital sitting in back of the big hospital admittance entrance, is where I took the tour under ground of the dungeon, the hospital closed in norwich a few years ago do to state cut funds, in a way I hope that all were there got the fair treatment of better recovery to go back to the community safe_n_sound.
it was a good hospital to work in and even better to better the patients whok were in it. :-)
Ren

angela

on information on whittingham mental hospital , go or call the town office records file or call or go to the public library should have all the information your enquiring on of the town of where whittingham mental hospital is located at.
I hope this information will be helpful to you if you havent already gotten the information you needed .

Let me know if you like and goodluck hope its a happy turn out for you all around angela.

Ren

Chris,Theres some truth to Michael Ross,
he did kill a child but it wasn't where it really happened after he escaped he grabbed a child in front of a store and repeatedly stabbing a child in front of his mom I beleive or it may of been Dad, same day he escaped I lived in Norwich Ct at the time this had happened when I was at work and heard it on the news on television.May of been another time what you heard you expressing about Michael Ross, but that day i'll never forget, glad He got the death penalty too bad today there not so up on the death penalty as it should be and eye for an eye back in western times as well a hangings. I beleive true here and if not dont mind be corrected either :-)

it wasnt from norwich hopsital that michael ross escaped from it was from another hospital he escaped from. when this happened.
have a great weekend. :-)

dis place looks scary as S***! but i gonna go dere anyway!

Wow... beautifull pictures man. When I was stationed in Groton me and some of the boys snuck from the park and ride station behind the hospital through the cemetary and into the first small house. You can get down into these underground tunnels that go on for miles it seems. Awsome for hide and seek at night.

Does anyone know anything about a patient there who was supposedly posessed by a ghost and killed her brother with a bedsheet? Then bit off her own tongue to bleed to death? Any other ghost stories there? Motts ever hear anything spooky there?

I myself bit off my own tongue once to keep myself from responding to a bizarre comment I read somewhere. Sadly, though, I am still alive.

Lynne, no WAY a comment had the same effect on you?!

Truly, m'dear. I was so afraid I was going to say something obnoxious that I would later regret (as hang-danged funny as I thought it would be) that I actually had to chew the entire thing down to a nub just to stop myself. :-)

Amazing, apparrently Lynne is possessed by a ghost. Somebody should save her before she dies

maybe for the spitters or biters or the ones who tried to kill the doctors or nurse's remember they weren't all there

Made my first trip alone today to the far right of the land. Went into a few buildings and one DR. house. Unsure which is the Salmone building. Can someone tell me which one it is and location? Is this photo in the Salmon building? There was TOO many people today walking around, I left, till next time...any advise on times to go? I love this sight!

End of days'''springs to mind. ive just gone very cold.

lynne, i applaud you. Everyone has different views but being aware is the difference. In the early 70's they stopped sterilization of mentally ill patients- my mother had us- she is and always will be bi-polar and schi.with knowing the genetic factor now- my whole family has one or another illness- then the family had children( except me) the children show signs of illness. Mental illness has two disturbing factor -poor impulse control and high sex drive- I get scared- it's knowing there is no CURE to mental illness and meds do not always work- that keeps me from passing my gene to the next- my mother in her delusional state has beat me into another world has tried to commit sucide over and over and still to this day I do not know who she really is- I think people forget that this happens- I wish people would visit a group called nami ( for the families) and see the horror of it- these places mr motts takes such beautiful pics of saved I am sorry that I have gone off the dep end but people do not know how it feels to be in a full circle of mental illness where often you see the new system not work and pray for the old one back........

i've been in the Norwich Hospital so many times. i live right down the street. the scariest thing there is security. but this door is creepy as well. if you go stop spending time looking for ghosts, keep you eyes out for rent-a-cops

I was there last night its cool the scary part was the rent a cops

Ah.... =) brings back old memorys of my early days of Asylum studying for some reason. Probably because norwich was one of the first Asylums I've seen before.

Just curious, how long usually those patients keep lock inside the seclusion room?

Usually inmates are locked in a seclusion room for about 24 hours or so, Koalabb.

i think...these rooms were for the medical students.

amazing photo and location

Donnaweiller....affection??? How about tear off your frickin head. You have no clue.

so many responses! damn. good shot!

Hasent there even been a dwarf mental person?

wonder what that room was used for its awsome but it gives you a feeling of dread and sorrow

Ah, deinstitutionalization. Great in theory; in practice just an excuse to cut funding and turn the mentally ill out into the streets -- or let them rot away in prison.

Interesting. That solid door probably prevented more than just spit but shit from bieng flung as well.

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I was in one seclusion room that was like no other I had ever been in. It had a big window in the wall with a partition on the other side that could be easily moved aside by patients or staff. You would be given a bedpan to squat over and pee in on the floor like a dog. When I was on the other side of the window i never knew what the patient locked up needed more, human contact or privacy to pee or shit. By the way, some people have been put in seclusion rooms so depressed and lonely that they have suicided. I don't think seclusion rooms are designed for particular populations like "spitters".