Institutionalized: The Story of State Hospitals 

Fascinating history. I had a schizophrenic aunt, who spent many years in and out of state mental institutions. She was beautiful, and a talented artist, but spent a miserable, disjointed life because of her mental illness. She would come stay with us during good mental periods, and we kids adored her. She would do arts and crafts with us and was fun and charming. But, ultimately, it always ended with violent outbursts, even threatening my mom with a knife. Away she would go again. The stress on the family was huge, trying to care for someone they love, but, who, at times, was literally bouncing off walls, screaming constantly, and destroying the house. It's awful and I think about my mom, trying to raise a big bunch of kids and trying to do what is right for a very much-loved sister. My aunt told me, much later, some of the good things, and the horrendous things that happened to her in those institutions, many years before. Mental illness is still very prevalent. It is a terrible situation, and so sad for all concerned.

I worked at a big old State hospital way back when I was a teenager in high school, as a "dietary aide" meaning I worked in the kitchen. It was Dixmont State Hospital, founded in 1848 by Dorthea Dix. Dixmont began as the Insane Department of the Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh. This hospital was the first chartered public hospital in Pittsburgh and the first institution in Western Pennsylvania to offer treatment for the insane. I worked there, back in the 1970's. The patients who could walk, would come into the cafeteria, and go through the kitchen line to get their food. The patients had a curious interest in us youngsters. They would seek us out to look at and to talk to. Looking back, I now understand that they were remembering their own youth, it was our upbeat, happy, sincere, carefree teenage attitudes and our normal laughter and chatter that they enjoyed watching. It probably brought back memories for them. There were the old ladies in their house dresses, the Vietnam Vets who flirted with us, the fortune telling lady who could read your palm, your cards or your tea leaves. There was the man that was put in there by his step mother after his mother died when he was a teenager, and he was forced to have a lobotomy. His name was Al. Al was famous for coming after us and begging for a cigarette over and over. He was harmless, but relentless. I could go on and on about all the different people I grew to know that were patients there. There is a place for these State hospitals, and I believe State hospitals should be reintroduced back into our society. It provides a safe community for a certain type of mentally ill patient. These types of asylums do not exist any longer and they should. Society has not improved because they are gone. When they released all the patients, many of them had lost touch with their families and had no place to go to, so they wandered back to the abandoned grounds of the old State hospital and hid out wherever they could. Others started living on the streets, if they couldn't find any relatives to take them in.

State run psychiatric facilities still exist. They are even in the same locations. They have been renamed. They are violent dreadful "hospitals ". I have worked in them. Our mental health services need so much improvement even after all these years.

They released all the patients, to live on the streets, mental health needs an upgrade. And we need to get the people with mental problems in to safe facilities! Throwing medication 💊 at them, and not monitoring them is not the answer…

My 40 yr old severely autistic son lives in a 'state school'. Things have changed drastically. I compare it to living in an in- patient rehab type center or a good quality nursing home. It's clean, he's well fed & well cared for (I visit often) - there's lots of activities and even employment for those that can work. I'm so thankful this facility exists, I don't know what we would do without it. To clarify, the facility my son lives in is for developmentally delayed individuals. The population in the area with mental illness are in a different location - but equally as modern and up to code.

Back when I was a troubled teenager, a psychiatrist diagnosed me with schitzophrenia and recommended to my parents that I be placed in a mental hospital. My parents refused to do this and went private for a second opinion. I was given a cat scan, a pet scan and an mri scan. I did not have schitzophrenia. Five years ago, I finally discovered exactly what I did have; autism. Sadly, mental health care is still not as it should be in the modern era.

I have ADD and I found your editorial to be articulate, interesting and easy to listen to and absorb. I especially appreciate that there is no background music. Great work you are doing here. I wish these people had more advocates and I hope your work helps to change the system.

It's horrible what Mental Hospitals turned into and the same with Nursing Homes! Their solution was to close the Mental Hospitals that was so wrong. They are needed now.

I retired from a mental health facility in St.Louis and they have so much oversight it's crazy. A state team comes in 4x a month to check the charts and to make sure their rights are not violated.

Dorothea Dix is one of my heroes. Thank you for including her contributions. Many leave her out. Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix are my heroes they are why I chose to study medicine.

My aunt was put in Hawthornden State hospital NE Ohio around 1966 when she was only 16/17 years old likely for seizures she had. She was there for a year and raped by an orderly resulting in pregnancy, her baby died after birth. She reported the rape to staff, being hystrical, they put her in a straight jacket for a few days. Once released of the jacket, she escaped. She did not know who raped her because it was night and dark. Justice was never served.

My sister has Cerebral palsy and was put in a state hospital at age 6. The doctor of those days early 60s said she should be there. My mom was single with 5 other kids did that. My sister was neglected and abused. It was horrible in there.

We need these back, we have a serious mental health crisis in the 1st World

We need these back. They needef better funding and more oversight. Instead of locking up the troubled we have locked ourselves up

i recently spent time in a psychiatric ward and it was horrible. i wasn’t allowed visitors even though i was promised them, i was told i needed to take mood stabilisers or i wouldn’t be allowed to leave. i was not treated for my eating disorder. there was group therapy promised and there was barely any. and when there was it was narcotic addiction focused, i was in there for a suicide attempt. i lied to get out because i hated it so much. they did not help me, they made me worse.

As an ongoing ECT patient, I want to also mention that ECT procedures are exclusively done under general anesthesia. I feel absolutely nothing other than some mild lingering muscle pain the next morning. The worst part of it all is getting the IV. If anyone has questions, feel free to ask.

I used to hang out at Maple Manor in Crown Point, Indiana in the 90s. It was a poor farm until they got a new building maybe 1914. Then an insane asylum with a jail. Probably in the 70s it was a old folks home but the county sold it in the late 80s. My friend was the maintenance man. The new owner wanted him to live there so it didn't get vandalized. Him an my sister in law lived there for 3 years. We had so much fun. Everything was left there. We had a big Halloween party in 92. Decorated for 3 months. Got to take whatever we wanted too. It was a scary place. We had a shower there and when we were decorating these 2 metal doors that were chained shut started opening an closing as far as the chain would let them. Me an Sue got the heck out of there! Didn't go back till daylight to finish. The owner kicked out my friends and 2 weeks later he tried to burn part of it down because it cost to much to tear it down an the firemen came in and there was a backdraft and the whole thing burnt down. It was so sad. I saw it on TV an couldn't believe it. The owner was real mad at the firemen and left an ran a firetruck off the road. When the Maple Manor sign fell off the top there was a cement sign under it. Lake County Insane Asylum. That sign broke in 3 pieces so my friend took it to his house and put it back together and made it a sidewalk. Great video. Thanks

These need to be back open today.

I worked in a state mental hospital in the early 2000’s. They actually built a new one not long after and it’s nice.

Great documentary, you have an excellent narrating voice and the story was beautifully written. Keep making videos 👍

I’m watching this video while in my car at work right next to an old abandoned high rise state mental hospital.

I worked in a state hospital for 9 years, alot of us treated our clients very well. You always have afew bad apples of course. I wouldn't mind going back to work there.

the way the state of CT and UCONN have acted about the mansfield training school in the decades since its closed is so fucked. theyve essentially just swept the atrocities that they committed against KIDS there completely under wraps. i go to uconn and one of my friends who’s in disability studies rn is working on a massive piece through the human rights department to expose what happened and the number of kids that were sent over there and just hearing what he’s learned (the campus has HEAVY police presence so him his colleagues and the professor theyre working for had to do a LOT of sneaking around) and just seeing the photos he took while there was spinechilling

My sister Polly and I were abused by adoption parents and taken out of the house and put in the Glenn home for children in Terre Haute Indiana. She went to Texas bcuz we found a letter in the adopted parents room that was addressed to us and it was from our other 4 siblings and they all lived in Texas. She ended up being schizophrenic bcuz she couldn't handle the daily attacks. In and out of hospital after hospital and jail but she got on SSI. But they would cut her off her check when she didn't take her meds. So she spent most of her adult life homeless in Texas all because she hated the meds. Seriously failed system in Texas. rip sis. I just have PTSD and severe depression and I hate people and especially crouds.

These places need to be brought back. There are way to many insane homeless people that are dangers to themselves and to pedestrians. I’ve had a homeless man pull out a k-bar knife just Bc I didn’t have 50 cents to give him. I had to pull out my pockets and everything to prove it. Thank God I didn’t have my wallet on me. I was using Apple Pay for fas

My grandmother’s mom passed away in the 1918 pandemic. That left my great aunt and grandmother with just their father as caretaker. A crooked priest wanted my great grandfather to sell his remaining cemetery plot (next to my great grandmother’s burial site) to him and my great grandfather refused. The priest took matters into his own hands and put my great grandfather into an “asylum.” This left his two daughters without available parents. My aunt went to work and my grandmother (10 years younger) was put in an orphanage where she was raised until 8th grade. My aunt worked and paid (essentially) for my grandmother’s room and board so she wouldn’t be adopted out. My great aunt would visit their dad every week but it was apparently so crushing and horrifying that she never really spoke about it. I often wonder how my grandmother, my mother, and my lives would have been different had my grandmother had her father growing up. The nuns at the orphanage were strict and so that is how my grandmother learned to parent. My mom was also strict in comparison to other parents her age. They were/are both very loving women, but it still makes me wonder how things would have been different.

Loved the show and was very impressed with the commentator. I have experienced mental diseases and am very familiar with them.

I've been thinking they need reopened with all the extreme homeless problems. Find some kind of hand production work to stay occupied. Maybe that would keep down the weird stuff from happening.

Now we use chemical restraints instead of physical restraints

They should not be revived unless they are a lot more considerate to the patients!

My grandmother spent a good deal of time in Dorothea Dix, Broughton and Butter. This was in the 50s. She was addicted to barbiturates. I think she was bipolar because I am. But that's what they did before understanding addiction, was lock u up!!

Great presentation and a very interesting topic that has been swept under the rug. We need to know our history even if it is dark. Thank you!

I think what they were doing was a good thing but the way they were doing it was wrong. These institutions did help and I think they would help a lot if they were done the right way.

I spent some time in and out of a state hospital in SW Va in the early 2000s. I can remember being taken there by a cop and the first thing you notice off to the right is that there was a huge brick wall topped with razor wire. Spaced out along the wall where huge gaurd towers equipped with armed gaurds. I was terrified. The cop saw my reaction and said "That's the criminally insane ward. You're not going there." 😰 There were people there who thought claiming to be su*cidal and being TDOd would a breeze compared to jail. More often than not, they wish they would've just gone to jail instead.

The voices you did absolutely killed me 😂

You stated in the beginning of the video that these hospitals are "extinct" which is not true...there are still dozens of State and privately operated psychiatric hospitals large and small in operation from coast to coast. Treatment methods have changed but these hospitals still operate because there will always be a need...sadly, we need more of these instead of allowing people with mental illness to be housed in jails, prisons or on the streets. During my teens, I spent a short amount of time in a couple psychiatric hospitals due to severe depression. My experiences weren't bad but this was in the mid and late 90's. My first stay was a full two months at the age of ten thanks to a neighbor of my parents who was a total Karen calling the cops and then lying, claiming I was attempting suicide when I was actually collecting rocks behind our house on the railroad tracks with a friend. Emotionally, the experience was traumatizing not knowing why my parents couldn't help me come home etc but the staff were wonderful to us kids on that ward and made every night feel like you were at a sleepover with friends and not other "patients." One of those hospitals that was doing right by those inside yet it too fell victim to funding and outsourcing by the mid 00's.

Western state mental institute in Bolivar TN, right down the road from my house, is still open. They have expanded it and the oldest buildings are empty and look as creepy as expected. Its across the street from walmart too which is kind of weird. Im planning on working there in the kitchen after my baby is born.

All part of what was the great reset. How on earth would all this building be done if you check back on the population at the time ? It's funny how none of these old buildings or any from back in the day was there construction photos. Thanks a bunch for your amazing work you provided for us

Nellie Bly's book is excellent, I highly recommend it. This an excellent video, thank you and well done.

I have discovered 'letchworth' village in New York, and Heard this terrible stories of the poor patients. As a person with hard of hearing I had a break down inside of me, the seven foot creature with glowing eyes haunts my dream sometimes.

I know someone who was put into a mental ward after being sexually assaulted by a doctor in another facility (not mental) , while under sedation but wake enough to know what was going on. They always have and always will cover each others butts.

Very good video. My story: my parents were not good parents, as they were too overprotective of me. They took me to an adult gambling institution (a race horse track) for years. They thought that I could be on my own going to the bathroom, a 5 to 10 minute walk from where they were. On the way to the bathroom, I met a pedophile along with other pedophiles who gang raped me at 12/13 years old. This was in 1969. I began to run away from home, and the took me to a psychiatrist, who said I needed to be institutionalized. So, I was taken/admitted to Ohio's main mental hopsital. Less than 24 hours, me and another young girl escaped and ran to Indiana! Our parents found us and we came back, and was put into a horrible ward. I still think of this young woman who, yes she was at times aggressive, but also deaf. She couldn't talk for herself and couldn't explain what she needed, and they put her in a locked room 24/7. I still think about her after many, many years, and I understand that the system treated her like an animal, and how sad it was for her. Finally, I escaped by running away again from the place, as after a few weeks, granted by my good behavior, going outside for an hour. I just walked away! But, unfortunately, became a ward of the state, and was sent to a maximum security institution for young girls with bad behavior, for 14 months. My crime? Overprotective/neglecting parents, being gang raped and running away a few times. I think about those locked times sometimes, and how much I have suffered in my life for it.

I worked at a state school in Texas. So many of my co-workers were horrible to the residents.

Lord You Didn't give us a Spirit Of Fear, You gave Us A Spirit of POWER,LOVE,SOUND MIND, SELF CONTROL🙏

I do know it All. I was a patient in several State Mental hospitals as a child. I was in the States custody and there were no beds in the group homes or hospitals so I was placed in State Mental hospitals and it was terrifying. I could tell you several things that happened in them that was not legal.

My husband's great great grandmother was institutionalized when his great grandfather was around 4. He and his brother were sent to different orphanages as their father claimed he couldn't care for him. The great grandfather ran away from the orphanage many times to try to reunite with his brother and eventually lied about his age and joined the military in WWI. He claimed in his paperwork that his mother was deceased, but she lived for 25 years at the institution. She never had a diagnosis as far as I can find. The archives only had her intake paperwork which claimed she was homicidal. Her brother had also been noted as having an "unsound mind." I still wonder if the claims against her were lies or not, as that seemed to be common. I wonder what her life was like living there alone all those years. I hope she at least had friends or some visits from her other child who lived in the same town. My husband's great grandfather seemed to always be in a state of loss. He lived in the Canadian wilderness for many years before starting his own family but then leaving this world when the kids were young by his own hand. Ripples from this loss can be felt throughout the generations decades later.

Im surprised that the Ladd School located in Exeter Rhode Island was not mentioned (unless i missed it) its doors closed in 1994, it was a place where the patients were severly neglected and abused

They need to bring state hospitals back! It would solve some of the crime, drug, and homeless issues! Prisons are overflowing with mentally ill because they have no other place to put them!

5 words: Bridgewater State Hospital. Titicut Follies

How come you don't have more subscribers? Good video I love stuff like this. Philosophy of control/confinement/power establishments etc.

I have been to 4 different psych wards within the past 5 years, there are still things that exist to help patients that need mental health care. They can still cause trauma and bad things do happen, but the state hospitals were another level of messed up. No way to compare

These places were warehouses for husbands who wanted to get rid of their wives. In the 80’s, I used to care for these formally institutionalized patients. They are usually were placed on autopilot care and I had a number of falsely diagnosed patients. I had many who were misdiagnosed as mentally retarded when they were actually schizophrenia, a woman who was institutionalized 40 years for “faking seizures” when I had her retested with an EEG which revealed seizure activity, etc. I believe psychology remains a pseudoscience, as most seem to have their own issues, while giving false diagnosis to others along with the manipulation of others to help their struggling business, and they are not to be confused with psychiatry with an MD. It’s like comparing a Chiropractor to an Orthopedic specialist.

We need to bring back these institutions, without them the people don't take their meds like they should. Since they shut them down the homeless population has grown.

Please enable subtitles, even if they are the auto-generated ones. Would love to watch this video as im doing research but i am a little hard of hearing

In response to Klingelsmith: It's a pain taking care of other people in a psychiatric hospital, and wouldn't you rather take care of yourself? They could make some people sicker by requiring them to go down for food. I get agitated if I don't eat enough. So the focus at this point in time is on euthanasia and eugenics. What comments does Brenda have?

When I was in Little League we practiced on the Norristown State Hospital grounds. I don’t know what to think of that as an adult.

I was employed for 16 years as an aide in a mental hospital.. These people need care, and many should not be out permanently in public settings.. I pray that those individuals that require care will find it, and be helped in the future.. There is a profound need for psychiatric institutions...😢

This documentary focused on state hospitals in the New England area, but for sequels, could the research expand to include other regional hospitals in the USA? and abroad?

I work with people who use to live in state schools and now live in group homes. Many of them had never been outside, never knew carpet or grass. Many of them want to be left alone because it is what they are use to. Many are self abusive or agressive. One was taking her clothes all the time because she was not use to wearing clothes. For many years i came across people who ask what is wrong with that person and did not want them living next doors. Even chuches were saying they did not belong there. Things have changed a lot in 30 years. People have accepted people with disabilities and many parents would keep their disabled children at home. There are schools for the austic and no longer do people ask me what is autism because they already know from research and social media. Many people now realize people with disabilities are people with feeling and have rights like everyone else. I now see disabled people everywhere enjoying life now in the community. They go to schools, college, have jobs, and some are motivational speakers. We have come a long way. Lets us never return to locking them all up far away so no one has to look at them. They are human beings, derserving of respect and dignity .😊😊

The same goes for schools right now! The bigger school the bigger the problems! 👍😎

Love the Amadeus song intro ❤ Nice throwback reference

The land around Abilene Texas state school cemetery is being developed. They have removed the gazebo where the funeral service was held and headstones. I feel like they will build over the graves.

This is a really good video. Do you plan on making more videos?

All that you touch And all that you see All that you taste All you feel And all that you love And all that you hate All you distrust All you save And all that you give And all that you deal And all that you buy Beg, borrow or steal And all you create And all you destroy And all that you do And all that you say And all that you eat And everyone you meet (everyone you meet) And all that you slight And everyone you fight And all that is now And all that is gone And all that's to come And everything under the sun is in tune But the sun is eclipsed by the moon - George Roger Waters

My first job was working in a group home, and a few of the individuals had come from the local asylum when it shut down. Even decades later they're still affected by being institutionalized; They'll shovel down their food, because they would only have had so much time to eat, and they learned to keep their feet off the ground when sitting, so then their toes wouldn't be run over by a wheelchair. The difference between older and younger residents is astounding, and it just shows how far we come -- but we still have a lot farther to go, even in a group home setting their's still rampant abuse, and the one I worked at was no exception. I don't miss the job, by co-workers were all crazies hired off the streets, but I do miss seeing our individuals everyday.

Some nursing homes are the new old mental hospitals. More needs to be done on alzheimer and dementia research!!!

Nowadays they are forensic hospitals that are medical and psychiatric. FYI.

Pet Scan results? Pretty elaborate for an initial assessment. Expensive!

I worked in an old state hospital. They turned it into a school and housing for the Department of Corrections for juveniles. There's still a small criminally insane hospital on the campus.

They are not extinct in Kentucky. They’re here now just like they’ve always been.

Dying laughing at your many voices when reading quotes. If you ever come back it would be fun to help you create character voices

Thank You, I was in the Ypsilanti state mental asylum back in 78/79, perhaps 80. If you were sent there by a judge,, and no mental issue at all, they will make you a psychotic.

I lived down the road from the Illinois State hospital, and from what I heard ours wasn't that bad compared to these other ones. Dr. Zeller actually gave a crap about his job and did his best to help people. It was sad to hear how other states treated them, like penhurst and other famous asylums. Ours here in Peoria had Zeller, and he deserves some credit.

They were snake pits.

This can happen to those poor souls who was labeled ( mostly by there own next of kin ) as a person with dementia , and was and still are to be put into an block named dementia...a psychiatrist can make a mistake, due to what the next of kin say to the psychiatrist ... Gudas is still alive, Jezebel is still alive up till to day .

Well researched and nicely presented. Thank you for this video❤

Danvers state hospital is down the street from me. I used to explore it as a teen, creepiest place I’ve ever seen. It’s all condos now lol

Some of those old buildings are beautiful but with their history very creepy

My cousin got a high temperature when 2 years old became severely impaired, when he got to big to handle we had to send him to ridge home in Arvada co where he stayed till rhey shut the doors and transferred him to oregon hes 60 now and hasnt had a vistor for 40 years, he doesn't recognize anyone any more and whatrhey dis to him at ridge home was undescribable

We need to reopen insane asylum. We know so much more about it now.

Great job! I hope you make more videos soon

You lost me with the french voice

In Michigan they just released everyone on the streets of Flint with no resources when they shut down the state institutions in 1999. Only know about it because of my mom working in group homes around that time.

Ive been in one. They are horrific. I was over prescribed, beaten, and locked in a room, where i blacked out and fell on the floor hitting my head. The same place is now shut down because of the conditions.

“Moral treatment“ sounds like an oxymoron since at least some patients are there because they cannot understand right and wrong in the way an adult can and are not willfully doing hurtful things.

I’ve heard stories that police/justice system would offer to have someone admitted to a mental health hospital as a better alternative to prison. A type of “lighter sentence”. I’ve also heard that family members would commit people who weren’t truly ill because they didn’t want them around anymore. The Menninger Mental health hospital in Topeka, KS shut down in 2001 because it was becoming logistically difficult to coordinate with Baylor University’s school of Psychology/Psychiatry. So it was decided that it was easier to move their operations to Baylor. They had university funding and resources. The state wildlife and parks office is located very close to the old hospital. I had the idea that the massive mental health property, being vandalized but appeared to be salvageable, be acquired by the park service and turning the main building into a natural history museum. Exhibits of local animal life. Being located right off the river with a boat ramp. It could serve as a learning center. But instead a few buildings were torn down. Some turned into apartments and office buildings. Charles Menninger I think it was? Was a direct student of Freud. When he had his hospital built here in Kansas. It was a largely unsettled part of the country. It gained popularity through its history because of work with Mennonites I believe it was? A lot of celebrities came to the hospital for treatment. Steven King and Oprah Winfrey are the two I remember but a ton came through here.

Very well done thank you!

I've done my own research and am 100 % convinced I became a science experiment unknowingly and unwillingly. I escaped a community type therapy where my whole family and friends were turned against me because for years since I was a kid I've gathered evidence of all these things happening and now that I escaped it and shown things my life has been under threat and I went homeless. Dementia is something that was given to people who worked in high secret places. The facts pint to similarities in that. These mental asylum all around were opened up after fluoride was introduced in war. The span of time these places were opened and closed and how much ground they covered for what they did to so many people there are very dark secrets. Now instead of institutionalized people they just put it into media as propaganda hidden and put the chemicals in our food than poison whole cities with epa acts that causs decades of study on people without them even knowing.

I'm a little surprised Dixmont wasn't mentioned considering it was named after Dorothea

I love how you used the same piece as the movie Amadeus when they took salieri to the asylum

Concord State Hospital in NH has also been turned into state offices.

Let’s try and move all narcissists and sociopaths in there and see if they can get “cured”.

BRING THEM BACK!!!!

we need to bring these back

Independence Iowa Mental Health Center still exists. My mother threatened to take me there every day when I was a kid.

There are people who are hired for whatever reason to work at mental hospitals. Sadly that's most employees that worked at those places. If you get hired and are full of kindness and compassion with a true desire to help, you will either be fired or forced to quit or become like the rest of the creeps who worked there . That's why it all closed.

Well done

excellent presentation

Thank you for the mentioning of the appearance of Allegheny in Fallout 76... you'd have to visit the place in-game to realize how morbid it truly is. Also, I have schizophrenia and am happy to own my own home and be outside of a hospital successfully.

We need Insane Asylum’s now more than ever!