W. Ray Bertram is the man behind 'A Tourist In The Land Of Reason. Born in 1968 with blue skin and having seizures at birth, W. Ray Bertram was officially diagnosed with 'an un-diagnosable brain disfunction.' Having spent the first part of his life lost in mind-altering anti-seizure medication, Ray has spent all of his days struggling to fit into mainstream society while simultaneously battling and contending with his own private demons, limitations, and difficulties in a nonstop lifelong battle that he has had to wage largely in solitude and completely unbeknownst to all of the people around him. Ray was ultimately declared fully disabled in 2012 at the age of 46 for psychiatric-based reasons. 'A Tourist In The Land Of Reason' is his story, the journey he has had to make, the life which he continues to live, the lessons that he has learned, and his thoughts and feelings about it all.
Hello sir. I really do appreciate and enjoy these videos. I happened to stumble on this channel by chance while doing research on the State run facilities in my home state of Delaware. We have four State run hospitals still running here. One psychiatric hospitals one hospitals for the intellectualy disabled and two state run long term nursing homes. One for the general population and one for the stats military vets. Thank you for remembering the history of these places
I would like to know is this hospital is still opening or not since they closed drown the other hospital with not enough money on hand sorry. ❤❤❤❤❤❤😂😂😂😂😂
In the course of my family history research I discovered that a great-grand-aunt was a long term patient at the Overbrook facility - from 1900 until her death in 1931. Sadly, one of her daughters also became a patient in the 1950s, remaining at Overbrook until her death in 1980. I've read many of the newspaper articles about Overbrook through the years, and I've wanted to weep for my great-grand-aunt and her daughter and what they had to endure as resident patients. Truly terrible. I'm glad the buildings are gone - I see no sense in trying to repurpose any part of a facility that housed such horrific pain and sorrow. Thank you for a very informative video!
I couldn't agree with you more...I'm currently working on self-publishing a volume of poetry pertaining to the ongoing tragedy of the largely unregulated warehousing of today's mentally ill and mentally disabled in our nation's prison syste.
My father did work here on the plumbing in the 70’s and was in the tunnels which he said also had patients roaming. He said it was horrifying. He was a young apprentice then and still doesn’t like to speak about it.
Thank you so much for your comment, your continued interest in the page, and especially for your concern :-) I am doing well and already have the next video partially done. I am taking a brief break from producing videos while I work on self-publishing my next book, which will be a collection of poetry conctrating on the ongoing tragedy of how today's mentally ill and mentally disabled are being warehoused in our nation's prison system. I am hoping to have this process completed by the beginning of next month, and then I'll finish producing the next video currently in the works :-)
The footage used shows both Bryce Hospital that is now located on the University of Alabama campus and the Jemison Hospital that locals call Old Bryce in Northport (Cherokee Ridge).
This is the hospital where a doctor was killing her patients but it didt matter they closed it drown not enough money to run it that a change sorry lilailove then s ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤😂😂
One day I was parked outside of Credmorr Hospital had a flat tire as I changed the tire I dropped the bolts inthe sewer know what to do an inmate behind the fence was watching me and said why don't you take bolt from each wheel you will have 4 bolts for that wheel problem solved I thanked him and he said I may be crazy but iam not stupid
We wouldn’t need places like this in the first place if the general public would start treating the disabled like actual human beings. I am in a wheelchair and I get treated this way. Every time I get on the bus I get called a wheelchair freakshow retard. I once went into a parking lot and I had a woman look at me in my wheelchair and said why where is your mommies a hold your hand and I am freaking 51 years old. I hate it when people think that my wheelchair affects my brain we need to as a community stop treating people like that. So I guess I need to go into a place like Willowbrook or Penhurst because I can’t walk due to osteoporosis a.k.a. bone loss brought on by… menopause. My bone loss is in my lower buttock or a couple inches above above it. therefore, it is excruciatingly painful to walk. I wonder why a society thinks that is my dang fault why don’t we just throw every woman into an institution because they all go through menopause but a good portion get followed up with osteoporosis like me, let’s create mental institutions for women going through menopause.
Cherokee’s Mental Health Institute has never been abandoned! It remains an active treatment facility, for patients with Psychological Illnesses, and houses over 100 sex offenders!
My Great Grandma died their.My Grandpa,my Mama , and cousin visited her my Mama said it was a horrible place .It disturbed so bad he couldn't go back.She died 3 year latter .She buried there .She's buried at Show Creek cemetery in Livonia Georgia .It's a cemetery you don't even want to in the day time .
CSH is a large hospital with many buildings. To do a good job, you must show everything. I've yet to see a pretty good video of the hospital grounds. Everyone picks out the same bldgs mostly. People are the same wherever you go. Ain't that the truth. Now the Washington & Bostick bldgs are long gone. You can still see them using Google Maps. I was 17 in '69 when I was put in the Washington Bldg. Im not going into great detail here like I've done on other videos. I will say this, I went to school there cuz I was still in school on the outside. The Boland Bldg was the school. Younger ppl stayed there much younger than I.
Thank you so much for having taken the time ot watch this video and to have commented upon it, and thank you for comment, too - what you've shared is both very telling and very interesting. It adds depth to the video and a human element that goes far beyond what I myself have been able to manage. I continue to be both humbled and fascinated by the comments that this overal video series I'm working on receives. And I agree with you, it would be good to have a more elaborate video along the lines you've suggested, though to do so would probably require the producer to live within travelling distance of the facility, instead of producing the video remotely from a distance and having to rely solelly upon the Internet for information and images. I will say that, on a strictly personal note, your comment on this video is very well timed. I'm currently working on the novel adaptation of he overall video series and I've been working on the chapter that pertains to the Central State Hospital, so this particular video has been on my own mind these last few days, as well :-)
@@atouristinthelandofreason5284 I've been there so I have first hand knowledge of what it was like from '69-'71. I could write whole chapters on my experience You had bldgs that housed the crazies. The Yarborough Bldg was like a hotel. When you go there, you are on your way out to the free world. I didn't wanna go home. So I didn't. I think it was June of '69, when I was committed. I wasn't voluntary. Remember "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", when Mc Murphy was asking, "Cheswick and Billy Bibbit" you're committed, right. "No, no, no, no, no" says Billy. The only one committed was Chief and Taber, says nurse Watched. Of course I was with the women and not the men at the hospital. Medication call was pretty much the same. We were allowed to stay up and watch the moon landing, July 20, 1969. You can go to Google Maps, street level, CSH Hospital, and walk the hospital grounds. A lot if the blds are still standing. I think the Greene and Walker Bldgs were recently demolished by order of the Governor. Even tho I was committed, I was able to walk the grounds, with other ppl. We would walk from the Boland Bldg after school, that's the school, to the music bldg which is by the auditorium, which sits up the street from the Powell Bldg. Mr Cunio was the music teacher. I took up clarinet and was pretty good when I left. I once played with the Atlanta Community Orchestra on a Christmas show at the auditorium. I'm reminiscing here 😆. I wasn't crazy or anything. Schizophrenic is what they say. I didn't object to going to the hospital. I never heard of the place. As you probably have already guessed, I enjoyed myself. I'm not lying. I wasn't around crazy ppl. Never seen ppl after having shock treatments, like Randle M. McMurphy. We would walk from the music bldg back to our bldgs after music class. Sometimes we miss supper, which is at 5. That's life. The Washington and Bostick bldgs are pretty close. The Bostick is men. But Bostick 10 is the receiving ward for the Washington Bldg. We always kept a window pane out for the boys to come up and talk. They were in the courtyard. They also had an apparel shop on the grounds for ppl who needed clothes. An attendant would take you. I could go on and on but I want. ❤️💛💚
I belive that hospitals should have stayed opened but there was not enough money to run then that's a change sorry about watching videos lila❤❤❤❤❤😂😂😂😂😂
A pity our PROTESTant dominated society had no recourse to the relics of the saints for the remedy of their possession. Search here for Fr. Carlos Martins relics. Amazing power!
Worked security here from 1997-2000. They wanted us to keep the Reporters out along with the vandals. of course the male & female juvenile center plus boot camp. This is a very nice video by the way
