Apparently Willowbrook was a home for the infamous serial killer, Andre Rand. Creepy right? Magdalene asylums housed “fallen women,” which was used to describe women who worked in prostitution or showed sexual promiscuity. Yeah, that’ll give you nightmares’. Here I Am in an Insane Asylum, 1936 The following is an account published in the Sunday Oregonian June 14, 1936. Originally, it was designed to be a clean, safe home for only 4,000 patients, but it held over 6,000 patients. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Satan is alive and very active and will be until Judgement Day. The College of Staten Island was constructed on the same grounds, along with some of the cursed Willowbrook’s buildings. According to one article, the asylum hired a woman named Mrs. Brown to take over one of the wards that housed nonviolent, incurable patients.  =  The state of mental health care around the world is far from perfect, but it has come a long way. Patients were simply dumped there; years later, experts found many suitcases … Memories From An Insane Asylum: Stories From Rockland County Psychiatric Center Posted by: Scout April 15, 2013 59 Comments Two years ago, I wrote a post about Rockland County Psychiatric Center , an abandoned insane asylum complex that is easily one of the most haunting places I’ve ever scouted. Some of these patients weren’t even suffering from anything, and the extremity of the treatments are what drove them insane. Scare Street is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. The Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians opened for business in 1903. So, if you’re ever around the area, make sure you live to tell the tale of the haunted Willowbrook. How horrific is it, that the place that promises you safety and care is the same place that abuses its power against you when you’re at the most vulnerable state? Story 1, a husband and wife discover they should be careful what they wish for. Here’s the twist, though. Of course. Since the asylum didn’t do anything about it, she was accidentally found in an abandoned ward that was used for patients with infectious diseases. Most of the staff hadn’t had a lick of any sort of training background whatsoever. The universe must’ve heard these children’s agonizing, unearthly screams, because journalist Geraldo Rivera exposed the freak show that is The Willowbrook State School to the nation. The staff used treatments like shock therapy and lobotomies when they didn’t even need to; it was just so they could keep their numerous patients under control. I wanted to go to The College of Staten Island, but changed my mind when I found out where it was built. But to everyone’s surprise this place was about the filthiest, freakiest, and overly crowded places they’d ever seen. Though the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane was initially designed to improve patient care and satisfaction, it became one of the worst places in the US, as per Atlas Obscura. Here are 13 frightening ghost stories of abandoned asylums and hospitals as shared by … Given the circumstances, you can imagine how the murky rooms and halls looked like. The asylum’s buildings don’t exist anymore, but its cemetery sure does. Children were sleeping on the floor, under the beds, and sometimes naked in the hallway. Finally, the asylum was closed for good in 1993, and The Ohio University was built there instead. Experimental medical strategies, orderlies abusing patients, and the ravings of those locked behind closed doors inside padded rooms. This 500,000 square foot building has a gothic façade that retains the original architectural integrity. The piece was co-written by a staff reporter and a patient at the Oregon State Hospital. It isn’t hard to imagine the screams echoing through the centuries, living on forever to haunt the thrill-seeking adventurer who decides to set foot in any of the asylums mentioned above. Most of the time, these are just the imaginations of some wonderfully twisted storytellers. Soon enough, it started to keep patients such as the elderly, who had children that didn’t want to take care of them anymore, mentally disabled, alcoholics, drug addicts, and insane criminals. The Victorian Era ushered in several significant changes with regard to medicine and the treatment of the ill. Psych ward stories have a spooky glamour to them, unmatched by any other spine-tingling tale. Apparently her body had decayed so much that there was still a gooey imprint of her outline on the floor that still exists to this day, despite the staff’s hopeless attempts to clean it up. Your email address will not be published. The historic #Beechworth Asylum for the Insane closed in 1995. The children who had the atrocious misfortune of staying in this place were sexually, physically and medically abused, extremely neglected, and easily exposed to murder. 1 But at least most of these staff was professionally trained to take care of mentally unstable patients, right? Ironically, Willowbrook was owned by the New York Department of Mental Hygiene. The famous institution closed down after the discovery of a mass grave near the hospital. It managed to shock Robert Kennedy in the 60s, who was creeped out by the zoo-like conditions of its inmates, often kept nude and locked in cages, and rightfully called it a snake pit. There was this story that I read a long time ago, about a whale that lived in the ocean somewhere, who was born with an inability to make sounds at the frequency that any other whale could understand. Votes: 50 This whale just swam around, calling out to others in a way that no one could understand or … by Nikolai Gogol, Nicholas Boulton, et al. How horrific is it, that the place that promises you safety and care is the same place that abuses its power against you when you’re at the most vulnerable state? This asylum had a garden, farm fields, greenhouses, a carriage shop, a dairy, and an orchard. If you’re familiar with Lovecraft’s work then you can only imagine how bad this asylum was to inspire such a brilliant author to write the twisted, frightening Arkham Sanitarium that still haunts our thoughts to this day. .hide-if-no-js { Just one date…I really need to hear more about those asylums. It could house 250 patients, each with their own comfortable room. Some patients left the asylum, while others are spending eternity under its grounds. No. It opened in 1888 and accepted only male patients because the female wing wasn't complete. Then again, maybe some of us just like being haunted…. People always feel unbearable dread when they’re around the area, and the stories and rumors only make staying there worse. Required fields are marked *, −  Audible Audiobook $0.00 $ 0. 17 Frightening Stories Of Abandoned Hospitals And Asylums As Told By Urban Explorers And Security Guards Rivera’s investigation uncovered how Dr. Saul Krugman and Robert McCollum cruelly performed inhumane experiments on these children. Story 3, a dead prostitute returns as a ghost. That’s not all. The mental asylums of 19th century England housed the criminal, the insane, and the unwanted. due to the extreme neglect, patients started dying there, and their bodies were found days later. Not only did Danvers State Hospital inspire Lovecraft, but it also inspired Batman’s Arkham Asylum. Sign up for The Lineup's newsletter, and receive our eeriest investigations delivered straight to your inbox. Clarinda was the home of Iowa's third insane asylum. When it opened its doors in 1863, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, renamed the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane, was a model of Thomas Kirkbride’s ideals. Haunted hospitals and insane asylum stories are the stuff of legends, often places of trauma, and death it’s hardly surprising when they become a source for a ghostly tale or two. The Athens Asylum welcomed people with open arms after the Civil War, given the dreadful state that the people were in. One can only imagine how things were with so many patients, and hardly as many staff members. I also want to get Early Bird Books newsletter featuring book deals, recommendations, and giveaways. Fewer places seem more ripe for a haunting than former insane asylums. But it gets worse! The number of patients surely increased, while the number of the staff stayed the same. It offers a unique first hand perspective of hospital life. Anxiety, epilepsy, posttraumatic stress, and high libidos were common, but the treatments were inhumane to say the least. Serial killer Andre Rand is the subject of the documentary “Cropsey”. Check it out. Visitors described how dirty the patients were, how they were creepily wandering in the halls, and sometimes blankly staring at the walls. A Willowbrook State School once stood on the grounds of New York Staten Island. And while Michigan’s Traverse City Hospital certainly has its share of ghosts, its resident spirits aren’t what you might think.. Thank. Shifting political mores brought forth increased investment in public health institutions — one of which included the lunatic asylum, a product of the nascent medical practice of … You. This asylum followed in the same footsteps of any classical insane asylum. One of Georgia’s most infamous asylums–Georgia’s Central State Hospital in Milledgeville–is still a point of fascination for many Georgia residents. Women, who would naturally exhibit signs of sexual desire, would be later diagnosed with hysteria. Haunted hospitals to sadistic doctors and nurses, psychiatric wards have been the inspiration for many our! 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