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Gaebler Children's Center | | | Control | |
I have a sick sense of humor so I could see how the satantic stuff could be funny considering that it was painted over such jolly things!
this reminds me of It.
in some strange way...
):
hahaha! i am not afraid ,..those kids werent much different than any of us,so screw you all who fear that we are not human any longer
I am still with heart! and compassion and i have loved ..
Thsi was an evil fucking place and there is no doubt about it,..evil in every sense of it EVIL
THINK ABOUT IT!
DO YOU REALLY THINK THE STAFF MEMBERS AT ANY POINT FOR ANYREASON WOULD BRING us CANS OF SPRAY PAINT AND MARKERS AND LEAVE US WITH ENOUGH FREETIME TO DO ALL THIS DAMAGE,..WE WOULD HAVE BUT IT WASNT ANY ONE WHO WAS EVER A RESIDENT AT GAEBLER WHO DID THESE ARTSY FARTSY THINGS ON THE WALL OF THIS GYM!
AND THE PENIS ART ALSO ,...
KIDS IN WALTHAM WHO LOVE TO PARTY LOVE GAEBLER SCHOOL...
THEY CAN GET AWAY FROM HOME AND GO TO A PLACE NO ONE WILL LOOK AND FUCK AND PARTY ALL NIGHT LONG AS WELL AS .
.ITS A WIN WIN! ROCK ON! PUNK ASSES HAVE A BLAST,...But dont make me wonder who really belongs there ,...lol!
The gym has a cement floor, we used to roller skate on it. The doors at the back of the gym lead up stairs to the school.
If you turn around, you come out into a long hallway, B-Ward is to your left.
Still remember those calls..."All available help to B as in Boy." Then the smack down begun and seclusion was next.
Been a long time. I was there back in the 70's, Back then Mr. Heathwood (not sure of the spelling) was in charge of the place.
Signed: An American stationed in Mannheim, Germany.
9:57 P.M. German time
Monday / 24 / March / 2008
A black man, very nice person who I was close too.
We both played sports and we would go into the gym alot and throw the baseball around, both of us thought about going into the Babe Ruth league and then onto the minors.
So we practiced our pitching in this gym.
I think his name was Willie, but I'm not certain.
He was a nice man, and he did help us alot.
Back in 1973 or 1974 we did alot of roller skating in here.
But back in 1981 or 1982 while I was on D-Ward we had "field trips" every friday or saturday night and went roller skating in town.
Although people will believe what they want, Gaebler was not all the nightmarish things people believe, at least, not in my case.
I can't speak for the other children who was here, nor can I claim to know what they personally have gone through, I can only relate to you my own stories and what happened to me.
Like I said before, I have both good and bad memories here, I relate the good memories so others can see Gaebler in a different light.
As for my bad memories, well, let's just say there is still a 6 year old child in a little room down a mid length hallway on B-Ward.
If I was still in mass I would be there in a heartbeat, but I'm not, I'm in Colorado.
What would I hope to find if I went there?
Or seen a full picture of the room I described?
I'm not sure, healing maybe.
But I would like to see the place again before they tear it down.
it wasnt really a lack of imagination or talent, it was a sense of humor.
I hope you don't mind Motts, But I simply myst put this on my profile, penis, snatanic drawings, fluffy clouds and all.
santanic drawings*
When did they Open Ward A?
When I was there it was for Daycare. No one lived on that Ward.
Do you know when Mr. Heathwood retired?
Since a lot of people do not remember him I must assume he retired around 1983 or so.
Too bad i lost the key to the back/front side door in pennsylvania we could just walk in ONE MORE TIME! and do what i always dreamed of.Tear gaebler down and push everything that happened there under the rug.
IT WAS A GODAM PRISON ANYBODY GET THAT! A PRISON BUILT FOR KIDS THAT SOCIETY WANTED TO FORGET ABOUT..STRIPPED FROM THE LIFE THAT WAS ONCE YOUR THE FREEDOM THAT WAS ONCE YOURS AND THE RIGHT TO FEEL SAFE THAT I CAN NEVER FEEL AGAIN...
YEAH SWEEP AWAY ...WHAT A NICE PLACE ..
YEAH I LIKE LIVING IN THE DARK GLOSSING OVER THIS HELLHOLE AS SOME KIND OF PLEASANTRY...GOOD FOR YOU!
Keep that Stress disorder alive! with denial and lies..The truth is still there lkike it or not its in my mind in my heart and forever in my soul..
Disposable And folks wonder why i am so distrusting..Gaebler was so great how could i blame anything that happened to me at that Prison camp for anything...
Maybe i really liked being stripped down to nothing and given a blanket maybe ...later much later after a few quickie peeks from some scumbags who wanted to know what i looked like naked and pissed off!..I seriously doubt i liked that humiliation and degradation i withstood.
I wasnt self abusive either so stuff that thought were !. Alot of us withstood.
Try reaching out for some connection in a place like that and wind up in four point restraints..for trying to be human..
Forget that kind of brainwashing being helpful.
I hate cops until they start to look human to me instead of jailers..
Sounds like you was on Ward E, a lot of bad stuff happened on that Ward.
If you go up to B-ward, enter B-ward, turn left, long hallway, office at end of hallway, door to your right.
look for JD on the wall to your left when you enter the room and around the window.
There's still a child in there, alone, scared....
Anyways.
Thanks.
3rd floor.
Go up to the 3rd floor and turn right, that's B-ward, left is E-ward.
I can't remember if the rooms are inside B-ward or outside B-ward like the seclusion rooms are on E-ward.
Been a long time, remember, I was on B-ward back in the 1970's.
There is a single door at the very end of the hallway, a metal box that has a light switch is on the right hand side of this door. From this office door, turn to your right, this was my room.
I hope this was detailed enough.
I used to listen to the Monkeys on the record player that was in the office.
No problem, would love to see more pictures.
If I had the money I would be at Logan in a heart beat, just to see the place again.
I'm on the other side of the United States, in Colorado. A long way away. LOL
If you need more details about the layout, I'll try to tell them to you here.
From the main floor, 1st floor, I have to do this from the stair well, because that is how I remember it.
From the door to the stairs, turn around and face the wall directly ahead, door to your back.
Turn to your left, an elevator is next to you. walk forward until to come to 3 or 4 stairs, that lead down to the landing.
A door is now in front of you, with a door to your right.
The door directly in front, was used for classrooms.
When you enter this, on your left was the print shop, to your right was the woodshop. Continue straight ahead, a door to your left was a class that taught knitting.
That is all I remember of that area.
Turn around and go back out the door that you just entered from.
Enter through this door, on your left is a long steel lunch line.
Follow this around and you enter the main seating area of the cafeteria.
there is a door somewhere to your left that leads outside.
But, turn to your right, and you will see a large brick wall, there is a door in the middle of this wall.
Pass through this door. You are now back in the hallway, turn to your left and follow the hallway until you come to another set of 3 or 4 stairs.
This leads to the area that we had Coffee Hour in on the weekends.
Turn around and head back down the hallway to the stairs.
Enter the stair well.
Going down will take you to the basement, we don't want that area.
Go up 1 flight of stairs and a door is to your right.
To your left is A Ward.
Head in that direction, you will see the door that leads into A Ward. On your left is another door, inside this are 2 Seclusion rooms.
Back When I there, A Ward was used as a Daycare, no one lived on this ward. So the Seclusion rooms is as far as I have been on A Ward.
Turn around and leave A Ward. D Ward is straight ahead of you down the hallway.
As you walk down the hallway, there is a door on your left, this room had a ping pong table in it and that is where we played ping pong. Continue down the hallway, you will come to another door on your left, this room had a pool table in it. Continue down the hallway.
You will now come to a set of double doors, this is the gym.
Explore if you want, to your left there is a door that was used to keep basketballs and roller skates and stuff like that. At the back of the gym, by the stage, there is a door, this leads up to the classrooms on the 4th floor. We're not taken these stairs yet.
On the right hand side of the stage, if memory serves correct, and please correct me if I am wrong, there should be a bathroom here.
I know there is a bathroom back around the stage.
Turn around and leave the gym.
Turn to your left and continue towards D Ward.
Right before you enter D Ward, there is a door on your left, this was the tv room, when you enter here there is a door on your right, middle of the room, this leads into the office.
Turn around and head back out the tv room. Turn left and enter D Ward.
On your left is the door to the office, on your right is a door that leads to 2 Seclusion rooms.
Continue forward, on your right is a doorway, this is a fairly large room, this was where I stayed.
To your right, is another large room, I also stayed in this room, a night during a ligthning storm, the lightning would light up the boston skyline.
Continue down the rest of D Ward, there is a door to your left, this was the bathroom, continue on, a water fountain is on your left, just kiddie corner is a door on your right, this was one of the girls rooms, continue on, a door on your right, this was the shower room.
Continue on, a door on your right, this was another girls room. continue on and a door to your left is another stairwell that takes you to all 4 levels.
But we are not going that way, that way is dull. Nothing of interest that way unless you like to see the bathroom down the ground floor.
Then the other room to your right
The only place I have been on E Ward is the Seclusion rooms that are on the right hand side just before you enter E Ward.
Let's turn right and head down to B Ward.
As you enter B Ward there should be a door to your left, this has a hallway in it and on your right hand side as your walking down this hallway are rooms, these are seclusion rooms.
At the end of this hallway is a single door, this was an office. My room is directly to your right.
When you turn around and leave this hallway, I think the office is directly in front of you.
turn left, and there is a door on your left, this was the bathroom, (Did I leave the bathroom out on D Ward???)
I think there is a door just about opposite the bathroom, I think this was a large room, we slept in here, continue onward, there is a door on your right, this was the room that they had toys in. Continue onward, a water fountain on your left, and a room kiddie corner on your right, this room was used for visitations.
I beleive the rest of the tour here is like D Ward, a shower room on your right just a little bit down the hallway and another room with that stairwell on the left.
We can now enter that and go up to the 4th floor, or return back to the main stairwell and head up that way.
Not too bad for someone who hasn't been there in 22 or 23 years. And not too bad for remembering the layout of B Ward, and that has been 34 or 35 years ago.
Not too shabby if I say so myself.
Sounds like your in Worster? Or Springfield?
You have been in there Motts, and I'm sure some where along the way you traveled that route to an extent.
I doubt if you get in from the main lobby area, like we did when it was open, the lobby just had candy machines and soda machines, (LOL, Almost used POP, Have to remember it's called Soda in MA, )
Offices on the left hand side, only 3 or 4 offices though, Mr. Heathwood's office was the first or second office on the left, then the door into the place.
I'm pretty sure of it.
The rest of the basement was a crawl space that ran under the two wings, with not much to see.
2 nd floor, turn left, that is A Ward, but, like I said, it was used for a daycare during the day. They brought little kids in during the day and they stayed there, it was a daycare.
At night it was empty.
And if they needed extra room for seclusion, you was placed in here.
Offices on the left hand side, only 3 or 4 offices though, Mr. Heathwood's office was the first or second office on the left, then the door into the place."
I remember those... I used to get the chuckles gumdrop-like candy and a ramblin' rootbeer
I've always wondered about the kids I met, and miss them still. It was a privilege to meet so many wonderful children, adults today but it still feels like it's today. Daycenter was closed and I went to rec. Street hockey, pool upstairs, rollerskating in town, 16mm movies and plants and gro lights downstairs. Tea time on D, schedules and talking, always talking.
i've visited the Gaebler a few times and me and a group are currently planning to view the whole building, and I would like to thank you SO much for your detailed instructions...if all goes well, I will post up some pictures for you.
Group name: GCC2010
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GCC2010
Group email: GCC2010@yahoogroups.com
I also remember the abandon shacks Scott Landry ran through the walls and took a couple down. We used to eat the black berrys that grew in the ditch were we used to play kick ball to the left of the fenced in area.
Does anyone remember the grave yard and all the broken china that was way out back down the trail by the water tower on the hill.
Jesus....
I know up on the 4th floor, where medical and dental was, they had restraint rooms and rooms used for experiments.
I also read that someone went in there and got lost???
How could you get lost?
If your standing in the back of the place, centered, then the caffiteria is directly in front of you, if you enter from the left and go through the doors to the hallway, you will come out in the area where we had Coffee hour on the weekends, then just walk out the door and up the small stairs and bingo, you can follow my directions from there. If you go up the stairwell instead of going down the hallway, you'll be on Ward D, just exit there and go down the hall and out through the door and you'll find the double doors to the gym on the right hand side.
But I guess someone would have had to been there to follow my "tour".
Dennis mentioned he's close by and knows the places I talked about.
I wish there was a way I could fly there and meet Dennis and people wanting to do a documentary before it gets torn down.
I beat Tony 21 to 18, it was a good game and Willie played the ref for it.
Hello, when were you there? I was there 1982-19836, the ist room on the right is a boys room, and you are so right about the gym, and the tv room on Ward D. OMG!! I had the best time in that tv room with my boyfriend, we had the other kids on the ward look out for staff members so we could make out, it wasn't that often that they had the staff door open to the tv room so we lucked out. We used to play dodge ball a lot in the gym on our floor and just before we left we actually had a dance in the gym, I did meet the best friends there, meaning the kids,. I hope you are doing well......
I just wanted to let you know that I drive by there all the time, I still live in Waltham..I was a couple months ago tooks,acutally went inside and OMG it's a friggin mess, the place is trashed, there is graffiti everywhere, and broken windows, and glass all over the floors, the toilets and sinks are ripped out and it's just horrible, there are rooms that I never knew existed the doors were always locked except for where us kids were allowed to go...I posted the pictures on my facebook cause I can't figure out how to get them on here,. Add me as a friend and you can see them, it's Michelle Woods-Godfroy...I am so glad that you are doing well in your life....
I am sorry you don't have the means to get here,, because I totally agree with you , that a documentary should be done before the building gets torn down, I think the public needs to know what the hell went on in there and the abuse that we all suffered and maybe this would help others parents in aiding thier children now to not end up in places like this. We were kids, we weren't criminals, we were just kids and it breaks my hear t that we all had to endure this kind of treatment. But, I did meet the best of friends there, and I have never had any friends like the ones I had when I was there. I do keep in touch with a few of them and they are doing well in thier lives. The reason why places like this exist in this world is because there are adults who control kids minds and make them feel like they are all mentally screwed up & that we were a menance to sociiety and that we needed to be out of the public. I was told that I was not mentally stable to be out in the real world, that I had a personality disorder & had an out of control behavior. I skipped school for 4 days with a friend of mine and the next thing I know, I am locked up here. MY mother actually is the one who called DSS on me who called the courts and signed me away and awarded the state custody of me from the time I was 11 til I was 15yrs old. After I left there I had to go to a school for all girls in Arlington,Mass, it was runned by Nuns and there were a few regular staff members at the school, but, we lived in dorms and I had so much freedom and I didn't know what to do with it so I stayed in my room a lot cause that is what I was used to. I was finally able to go home but, the scars of Gaebler and St Germaine School still haunts me til this day. This society should be ashamed of themselves for what they did to us kids,...I will never get over what happened to me and what I witnessed being in Gaebler, but, I am grateful for one thing, the friends I made, they were the best...
The best friends were there. I would love for a big group of us to go there at one time. Even people that don't know each other. Just to share stories and see the place one more time. Now that its coming down I go there a lot. I'm taking a lot of pics. And for some reason I feel weird when I'm in there now. Scared, happy, sad, mad, and even like I'm home. I know it sounds weird but that's how I feel when I'm there. I want to see it come down just to see how I'll feel. I think it will be a lot off my chest to know its gone. Since I was there twice the place really had an inpact on my life. I lived there for 5 1/2 years total and we all know how long that is to be there. About the staying in your room at the other place. I was just the opposite, once I got out I was never home. I even moved to california just to prove I could go anywhere I wanted and no one could keep me in my room. I finally moved back and settled down and started my company and family. But I wonder if the feeling of family for us is different? To me parents were just people that visited you every month and my family was all my friends that were there with me. Maybe that's why I have a feeling of home when I'm there. Because my our friends were the only people we could trust. Well enough sounding crazy. I have to get back to my wonderful kids. I'll look u up on facebook
Yes the best friends I have ever had were in there, I do have one bestfriend since 3rd grade that was never there but, she stood by me in time of need and til this day we are best friends. I feel sad, mad and angry when I go there, and yes, I would feel better if that building gets taken down asap. I do still keep in contact with Danny, but, he had a really bad time there and he doesn't ever want to to back there, I just saw him on Tues 6/15. I did go into my bedroom when I was there and all the other rooms and all the wards and school rooms, it was scary, there was even a dead bird hanging by a noose in the activity room, friggin scary.. My mother is the one that called the state on me and gsve me up to them because she felt I was out of control and couldn't be a human being in society. when I confronted her she denied it then I got my papers from there and sure enough she did do it to me and I threw them at her and she couldn't say crap to me, it was a long time before I could forgive her, I am married with 2 girls and the best thing that I could have ever done was show her and everyone else that they didn't break me and that I am not a bad kid. Now my mother and I are the best of friends . I just hate that place, bad memories of being locked up, but, I am doing so much better now that I have been back there a few times in the past couple monthis, I am just trying to gt closure/.... I think it would be great to get a bunch of us to go up there together and get closure and talk about the crap we had to endure as children and yes that is all we were was children......
I just wanted to let you know that Gaebler is coming down this week, I just went there today and the company Testa in Wakefield,Ma got the contract to demolish on 7/15/2010. THey have a locked door on the front of the building now and a fench around the whole building, and they have already done a lot of work, not to the building but, like all the poles and things outside have been taken down and there are piles and piles of sebris from the inside of the building that has been taken out of the building. So, IU am assuming that the building will be down this week, cause they are working pretty fast. I am very mad that the fact that I can't get back in there. I have been in there quite a lot this year and a month ago. I wanted to go back to see more of it and go downstairs to the basement but, now i can't, so I am now going to email channel 5, The Daily News Tribune Paper and see if I can't somehow be able to be there when it does go down this week, I feel I have to do something, that by them taking it down without me and any other kids who were patients there and treated like crap and abused don't get to get the clousure that we all deserve. It's the least the state can do, since the state owns the building not the city of Waltham,Ma. I will let you all know if I get anywhere....
Please,someone let me know if its still standing,i would love to get one last look and take some photos.
Its still up. I have some pics of it as of 3 weeks ago. I'll give them to u when I have all of them developed
Hello, if you want to see pictures of the place request me on facebook Michelle Woods-Godfroy, I have a lot of pictures on their and some viideo's that I just took of the place, the building is being taken down, I want to say within a week, the whole thing is completely gutted out, you can see right thru the place from one end to the other, it's freaky, there was a lot of asbestos and lead paint that we all lived in when we were there and never knew it. I don't know who you are cause I don't know your real name but, just request me on facebook,,,Hope you are doing well since you got out of that horrible place....
I was a patient there from 5284 and on Ward D, and I live in Waltham, Mass and have since I was 11yrs old when I went there, and I can tell you that yes the building is gone, I have pictures of it on my facebook of you want to see them, the City of Waltham paid Testa Corp to take the building down because of the high levels of asbestos and lead paint, they did want to put it to good use like a childrens center but, it was going to cost way to much, they will eventually build on that property land, and it will most likely be condos. I have 2 girls in the Waltham school system and know everything that just about that goes on in the city. Gaebler was a sad place for us kids to be in, the abuse we endured was unbearable and no kid should have ever had to go thru that kind of abuse, I am appalled that the dept of mental health thought this was a good place for chldren, they actually encouraged the abuse, sick sick sick people. I am on facebook if you want to see the picutes, Michelle Woods-Godfroy and request to be my friend. I also have videos of the place, and I have been at Gaebler with Boiler1220 quite a few times, inside and out and watched he demised of the building be taken down, and somehow I thought if the building was gone, I would have clousure, but, that's not the case, I feel like a part of me is gone with that building and wish they didn't take it down, they should have paid the money and done something good with it for children like they were going to so us kids that were patients there could see that we weren't forgetten and that we did actually matter.
At the time, we didn't matter. And your right, when the building was taken down a part of me was taken to. And there wasn't the closure I thought there would be.
Hello my dear friend, so happy that we met and hung out a few times, you are right at the time we didn't matter, but, it's high time that we make the people who did this to us pay for their crimes and let the world know just what kind of dept of mental heath system we have and then maybe parents will think twice about giving their children away to the state. It makes me wonder, when they were children how were they treated? I don't think I will ever have closure completely, to much happened to us in there to have that kind of closure, but, we are better people and we proved to the world that we are worthy and that we do matter and that they didn't break us. life is too short and so precuous and so glad that you are now my friend and that you are doing well....
I loved playing dodge ball here
http://wallpaper.metal...s/mushroomhead12.jpg
yes for sure
I am for sure positive that he did moleste the kids there and so did some of the staff members, sick ass fuckers, excuse the language...
Don't excuse anything. There sick ass fucks
yes there were sick ass people, I don't know how they live with themselves, knowing all the things they did to innocent children, just makes me soooooo mad to think that we could have died in that place and they wouldn't have even cared....
They had to think safety all the time. What were they supposed to do when you kids went off. They always warned you before they put you in seclusion. It was your decision to act the way you did.
I talked to staff all the time about you kids and they cared
about you.
Of course, there were some bad ones but they got rooted out and fired.
I was there when they planned activiities for you and saw how much they cared.
I don't know who you are, but, you have as hell of a nerve saying we were the worst kids in the state and that diud we forget we were in a mental hospital, and that is why we there. Don't tell me you had to think saftey all the time, that is bullshit, a lot of the staff purposely set kids off cause it was a high to them to throw them down on the cold cement floor pull our arms behind our backs and cause us pain that was totally uncalled for and then throw us in a 2x2 seclusion room and lock the door and leave us in there for hours on end and let us piss all over ourselves. I am sure you were an abuser and you are lying about your position there. And they did not always warn us that they would put us in seclusion, they knew exactly what buttons of ours to push to set us off, you really are a horrible and mean person for saying this kind of stuff, I am sure if one your children were there you wouldn't be saying this stuff, I pray you don't have any children cause I feel really bad for them cause you probably abuse them. We weren't mental, we were kids with problems, but, I guess since you are the adult then you had the right to judge us and til this day you are still judging us. It wasn't our decision to act the way we did, we got set up and you know it. You talked to the staff about us all the time and they cared about us, bullshit, there were only a couple who did, you must be related to William Gaebler, or Thomas Heathwood who ran the place, or maybe you are Thomas Heathwood who lives in Newton,Ma. You drugged us, raped some of us, beat the shit out of some us, and got away with it, so don't you dare stand there and act like we were the problem, no we weren't, yes we did some bad things but, we didn't deserve the treatment we got, thorazine cocktails, shots of god knows what, rip our clothes off if we said we wanted to die or kill ourselves and leather restraint us to the metal bed in the seclusion room on a green rubber mat, and not even cover us up. I don't know how you live with yourself, we got drugged so we would be calm all the time, we got in trouble for every little thing we did, we were fucking kids and did the normal things kids our age did and didn't deserve the shit sandwich that you and the other staff members gave us. No one was in there for murder, so you are lying on that, I know that for a fact, I have been investigating the treatment that we as kids got, why kids were in there and if there were any kids that murdered anyone, they went to a juvinielle detention hall or lock up, not Gaebler, so shut your mouth up cause you are just talking shit. You are a poor excuse for a human being.
Boiler room makes me think of someone with the initials M.B. with blond hair. Does making cookies or ice cream fit in with you?
A lot of kids that were there had problems that they were labeled with not actual problems that they had and all the therapists answers were the same. "Once you can admit your problems you can move on" once I admitted what they wanted me to admit I left. That then labeled me as a danger to society. after some pretty intense testing and court orders I had that label removed. So the worst of the worst were not all the kids there. The things that happened not all staff saw. I will admit that there were a lot of stuff that cared but the things that people remember most are the ones that did not.
I'm also thinking you might be someone that gave out money above the boiler room
The worst of the worst were there by order of the court. That's where they sent them back then. It was the only place for them.
That certainly doesn't mean all you kids belonged in that category. Some kids were perfectly normal but had to be observed for a period of time and quite frankly for others there was simply no other place to put them at the time. Some were terribly abused. There's a million reasons why kids were there.
I just wanted to tell the staffs side of the story. I could never had done their job.
You know call the people I'm mentioning, you've got me thinking. You didn't answer if you drive the blue bus. Did u drive the van that brought the kids to the school across the street? I remember doing doughnuts in the grass with him
2. No but nothing Karen ever did surprised me.
3. No. I'm not the gym teacher. Mr. Rogers
HInt: My job had nothing to do with the kids but I got to know some of them just by working there.
I snuck in a couple of times years ago and went back to the boiler room. I grew up there. Was there from 78 to the closing.
Easy job I used to sleep down there, have a TV , nobody bothered me but I got bored a lot and often went up to activities. I would play board games or ping pong with the kids.
They called me Billy not Bill does that help.
I was pissed off when they closed but it ended being the best thing as my current job pays a lot more.
I remember changing the coupling a few times on the little circulatiing pump they had under that tank.
I was pissed off when they closed but it ended being the best thing as my current job pays a lot more.
I remember changing the coupling a few times on the little circulatiing pump they had under that tank.
I was very friendly with Sue. She was smart and should have been the head of that department. If you have contact with her tell her she owes me $500.
20 years later I'm still waiting.
I gotta go now. I have your email. I will write sometime. I don't see the staff anymore but I did keep in touch with some of them for a while. Unfortunatley a couple of them that I was close with passed away. I don't want to say publicly who they are.
I'd like to address your long post defending the staff and denying the claims made by survivors here. This is the second time on this board that a former staffer of a place where children were kept and abused came on and denied the stories of adult children who were abused in so many places across this nation. The myopia that allows this has given me an insight into why I can't get justice for myself who was abused in a different institution by staff whom I am sure could get the majority of their co- worker's to genuinely say and believe the good things you said about those you are thinking of when you said it about them, and yet they are monsters. Monsters exactly like Mengele and all the other people who tortured and abused children in WWII.
I'd like you to look at what these adult children say from your adult perspective now. Think of what is common knowledge now about abusive people. How clever they are at hiding, how they work to seduce the adults around them with false front as hard as they work to hide the abuse. The fact is they would never have openly spoken of abuse even with a co-conspirator it would have been in hushed tones in out of the way places. My abusers were insidiously evil. They were the heart and soul of that Hospital and nearly all the medical staff who weren't actually part of the abuser circle praised them easily and willing taught them things about medicine, medical procedures, and record keeping that they then used to abuse more children.
Yes things probably did happen as you say but that is a limited perspective of one man in situations in which other adults are hardly likely to disclose horrid evil things they did to the children they were being paid to protect. On here you have multiple people who reveal experiences and share stories that were apparently commonly spoken of among them at the time about how this or that staffer did this or that form of abuse on them. How is it that you think your limited perspective of situations in which it is hardly likely that such events would be revealed trumps the conversational discussion about what life was on a daily basis for these children?
It baffles me. I think at least part of it is the affection and enjoyment you got out if that job. I'd like you to consider that your perspective no matter how much listening you did was very limited.
I totally agree with you, I am sorry you weren't thru such a bad experience as a child, and yes, "I Worked There" has no clue, he worked in the friggin boiler room, he had no clue what us children went thru, I don't care what he says, he is a jerk and very uncaring and mean and he is just trying to stick up tor the staff, but, he was never allowed on the Wards and if he was it was only for a second cause he worked in the boiler room. Of course all the staff are going to stick up for each other, that's what they did, there was mental and verbal abuse and physical and sexual abuse at us children, we were drugged with Thrazine cocktail, benadryl and shots of I don't know what, there were offices on the 4th floor where the staff could bring any child and do whatever he or she wanted to that child cause we got locked in every room, Gaebler was a sick place, the staff were horrible and abusing us was a high for them. Mr I worked there, has no clue but, he wants to act like he cared about us children. that is bullshit no he didn't, he didn't meet us or hang with us, so he is a friggin liar in my book, and if he knows so much then that leads me to believe that he didn't really work in the boiler room at all and he was a staff member on one of the Wards and he is just playing with our emoions and feelings like all the other straff members did. I think he is just full of shit personally. And this isn't for staff to comment on to begin with, I mean this site was made for us children who lived there and got abused, it's for us to share our stories with our fellow friends who were, it's for us to share and help each other, not for a so called staff member to stick his or her nose in where it doesn't belong, if he cared so much about us children like he said he did, then he wouldn't have called us mental and the worst children in the state. I will not stop and trying to get justice for us children and expose the dept of mental health and the abuse that they caused us and still cause children to date....
WOW, you really have a nerve. Yes, the staff did want to work there, what they got paid had nothing to do with anything or any of this. They loved to egg as on so we would act out, you weren't there on the Wards with us, you weren't there to see what the staff did to us and how they would munipulate us and verbally,mentally and physically abuse us, you have no idea what went on. As for we had a great school with teachers, Yo ASSHOLE, we were locked in the fucking building to go to school, if we got priviledges to go outside, we were still in a locked black fench with a swing set, merry go round and basket ball net. Once in a blue moon they would take us on a nature trail walk thru the woods, but, once again, you had to earn that priviledge, and it was really hard to get it. Yes, I honestly believe that staff loved their job because they got paid to hurt children. You tell me how you would like to be thrown down on the cement floor, arms pulled behind your back and then thrown in a seclusion room and left in there til they felt like getting you out, they didn't let you out to go to the bathroom so kids would pee all over themselves, and sometimes they would rip our clothes off and use leather restraints and tie us to the bed naked on a cold rubber green mat and never covered us up and left us in there like that for hours, I mean really, you are an asshole to say the least. If you worked in the boiler room like you said you did then you honestly have no clue as to what went on behind the locked closed doors. Oh and this they never talked about wanting to do bad things to us kids, bullshit, yes they did, we as kids even heard it, they would say to us, remember we control whether you stay out of your rooms and the seclusion rooms so you will do whatever we say and want or you will pay the consequences, really? threatening us, you weren't fucking there so you have no clue as to what was said to us. As for planning activites for us, not on my friggin Ward they didn't and I was on Ward D. I got locked in a shower room, a 1 stall shower room, and had to be let in by a key and bang on the door to be let out, can u fucking imagine that? you are so mean to judge us and to stick up for the staff. The staff,the dr's, Thomas Heathwood, the therapists and conselors were in total control of us and made sure we were their friggin puppets. They did do activites once in a while but, that was just a cover up to get our mind off of the abuse they were giving us. As for you comment about the seclusion room maybe being wrong, but, the staff were low wage people working there, that is really shitty of you to say, so if they got paid a lot of money you are saying they wouldn't have abused us but, because we were kids with problems and they didn't get paid much to deal with is they had the right to treat us anyone they felt fit? WOW, it must be so great to be you and not be so judgemental. You really owe all of us on here an apology, you are really a poor excuse for a human being.
I knew the people who worked there, socialized with them and have first hand knowledge of the committment they had to the children.
You can believe it was a cabal of people intent on abusing children .
I know of an OT statf so respected they wrote books on their experiences at Gaebler that are read by people in that field to learn from, I know of staff who were college students in psychology who wanted first hand experience in their chosen field, I know of staff who spent their own money to buy presents for their one to one kids, I knew of staff that when they did find an instance of abuse reported that person to the authorities and who was tried and convicted.
I never knew a staff member conducting Mengele-like experiments and quite frankly to make such a comparison, especially by someone who never set foot in the building, is absurd, idiotic and demeaning to all the staff that tried their best in a challenging envrronmentt.
In closing, get lost you don't have a clue.
Apology? I remember all the times I went to ward B or other wards and the younger kids would see me and say "Billy will you play a game with me" and I would play some board game or just talk with them. I remember buying kids Christmas and going away presents. I remember kids saying to me before they left "I'm going to miss you".
I remember one boy who wanted me to paint his name on his storage box with stencils. I took it downstairs and spray painted his name on it and gave it to him. When he left he gave me that box. That box with the name "Sammy" painted on it is under my bed 25 years later.
Apology? I think not.
That said, nothing I say is ever going to change your mind. I hope some day you find peace.
I
The staff you know may of may not be the abusers these people here are speaking of. Again your experience is limited even though you worked in the building.
I used Mengele as a comparative for the people who abused me and were and still are as far as I know well thought of by everyone who counted. I did not count even after something came to light. You r misunderstanding that plain fact which is clear in what I wrote should point you in the direction of how it is you are misunderstanding the pointy of that post and how it is you are denying these people's valid reports of having been abused.
Your illogical attacks on the adult children and defense of unnamed people for unspecified offenses makes me suspect you. I get a "me thinks thou doth protesteth too much" vibe from it.
You can believe as you wish but you cannot deny that you were not always present and thus are unable to state as a fact that what these adult survivors of child abuse are saying. Your use of code words like "worst of the worst" and other dated and invalid abusive labels applied to children says more about you than you think it does about them.
It's 2012 get a clue.
Have a nice life.
The staff I knew and talked about her yesterday alone (Karen, Sue, Russell, Chuck M. Mary B.) are good people and would have intervened and reported those individuals if they knew. And the staff I knew were of the same moral fiber.
To say a broad statement like "Gaebler staff were monsters" is like saying "Gaebler patients were crazy". Some fit into that category. Most didn't.
BTW Met State closed before Gaebler so the staff that worked there started working at Gaebler. Gaebler never would have hired them. They had no choice. Those people were useless including Haitians who could have cared less about the kids.
Anyways I'm not going to comment on this further. I just wanted to write what I witnessed and I witnessed staff that cared.
Anyways I'm glad you made something of your life.
When I was there I treated the kids good. I bought them presents, talked to them and played with them. I tried my best to an adult who was good to them when many adults in their life weren't.
I was good to the kids then and I'm not gonna gonna be mean or bad to one of those kids today even though you're grown up.
I will leave it at that.
I happened to be a small healthy very bright for my age boy, 4-5 years old placed in a protective shelter for children because of my family being broken up by my father's narcissism and grandparents racism about him as well as to hide the abuse I had been subjected to by those grandparents. That Shelter happened to be attached to a hospital. They, my family fully expected/wanted me to end up dead or retarded. You see the abuses that took place there was common knowledge in the community and I am not the only child so discarded by guilty people trying to hide something. It was common knowledge if it wasn't well known why, that trauma affected the memory of children. It was hoped that if I lived , the experience of being tortured and abused would at least purge the memory of the abuse my family had inflicted on me from my mind.
At worst if I did manage to remember anything and say something they could claim I was confused and it must have been something done to me in the Shelter.
I Worked There, you were a boiler room attendant. You have nothing obvious to gain by contradicting the statements by former inmates of having been abused on here yet you do. You have invested an awful lot of personal energy in trying to undermine the statements of these survivors here.
Now your latest migration in the justifications you have provided for this is that you meant to say there was "no conspiracy" among staff. Firstly as has been the case with all of what you said, you cannot possibly know that. Any two staffers who acted together to do or hide anything is a conspiracy. An idea that no one else mentioned.
Once again I must point out that your mind is not as rational as you are trying to portray. That idea has only been posited by you. It is something that only existed in your head until it was posted on here. So again I point you to your own words to seek the reason you are working so hard to avoid. IDK your motives and maybe you don't either but you are being abusive and negative and that is not ok.
I expect if you are as ignorant as you seem to be then you are trying to prevent something from becoming public knowledge, or if you aren't then you are a Troll just abusing people for fun like the scum whom these people are speaking about.
I understand what your saying, I don't think your sticking up for the staff. Your just saying that the staff you knew weren't like that. And of course you weren't like that. I wish you could have seen the bad parts, and you would understand why some of us former patients get so mad about people saying Gaebler was a caring place. Most of the therapists and DMH workers did not. It was like the more problems they could label us with, the better they would look for helping us with them. That's my opinion. I like hearing from all past staff, but I don't think any of the ones that treated us bad would ever comment here because they know how sick they were to us then and wouldn't want to face real people now. You should che:ck out "Gaebler Hell And Back" there's a letter from s former staff apologizing for how he treated us. It's a good letter to us former kids saying sorry. Mean while if u know anymore staff or kids feel free to have them post. Even though pookie is very mad, its still a real life posting about a place that was torturous for so many children. Thanks
Couldn't be spoken better :)
you should have never been allowed to work the overnight shifts on the wards at all, you were not certified and of course you didn't see anything go on then, cauise we had to be in bed at 8pm and lights out at 8:30pm so we were in our rooms asleep by the time you got there, as for you falling asleep well, a lot of the staff did at that shift and that was fine cause it was allowed, But, please for the sake of us children who went thru hell there please stop patting yourself on the back and telling us what a nice man you were to us kids, cause you weren't nice to all of us, you weren't around all of us, and you should have never been able to be around us since you were not a certified dr.counselor or therapist or staff member of the wards. I am thankful that the kids you did interact with you were nice to them, but, ithat doesn't give you the right to stand here and defend the staff who were abusive,mentally, physically and sexually...If you want to do something good then you should contact the staff members on the wards and have them come on here and leave us posts as to why they did what they did, and to own up to the abuse they gave us and apologize to us, you would be surprised how much an apologiy would mean to us and an explanation as to why they did what they did.....
I love you and you know that, you are truly a great friend to me, and so glad to know you,hang with you and have you in my life....no one will ever understand the bond we have or what we went thru at Gaebler unless they themselves went thru something like that in their own lives or lived in a place like Gaebler or even at Gaebler. what we went thru and lived thru has only made us stronger and more wise in the real world and cautious as all hell and we will never be taken advantage of or abised again and that is also what makes us the most understanding parents to our own children and we know how to deal with things that they do that are wrong and we know how to work them out without taking them to court and putting them away in mental hospitals, lock ups and pysche hospitals.
I am so sorry for the hell you went thru, it should have never happened to you or any of us for that matter. We were kids, Bill seems to think that we were horrible children and that we were in a jail. It was never called a jail, it was and til this day is called a mental institution for kids with problems. Yes, there were kids there that did arson, yes there were kids there that did assualt and battery, yes there were kids there that attempted murder, but, not all the kids were there for those reasons, I was there because I skipped school for 4 days in a row, and that I had a behavior problem and couldn't live in society, they said I tried to kill myself by sticking my head out a window to get some air, it was crazy. So, Bill the Boiler room guy has no clue what he is talking about, he is just trying to make himslef look good and act like he knew everything that was going on when he didn't and he should have never talked to you the way he did. I feel bad for any children he has brought into this world, cause I am sure if he is like this with us here on this web page then I can just imagine the lies he tells his children and he probably has abused them and thinking it's allowed cause it was allowed in Gaebler, I don't know, I just don't like his holyer than thou attitude. No one has the right to say anything unless they have lived this hell of a life when they were a child. I hope that you are alright now and that you are doing well in your life, and I really am sorry that you had to endure so much as a child......
My abusers were Hospital Staff and the kids they used as proxies.
This is not where they kept the children, I was a pt at Gaebler 82-84, this is the gym on the floor I was on at Gaebler, so I don't know who you are, but, get your facts correct before you post on here and thank you...