Monday! I'm feeling a little crazy, so let's see some asylums...
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group gives Kossacks a safe place to check in, a daily diary where we can let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, earthquakes, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It also allows us to find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, earthquakes etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a Kosmail and ask to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
We do have a diary schedule. But, when you are ready to write that diary, either post in thread or send FloridaSNMOM a Kosmail with the date. If you need someone to fill in, ditto. FloridaSNMOM is here on and off through the day usually from around 9:30 or 10 am eastern to around 11 pm eastern.
Monday:
BadKitties
Tuesday:
ejoanna
Wednesday:
Caedy
Thursday:
art ah zen
Friday:
FloridaSNMOM
Saturday:
Siris
Sunday:
loggersbrat
Well, I haven't quite gotten to the point of needing to be committed, but....I'm glad that I live in this century and have tons of wonderful friends :)
However, in centuries past...insane asylums were scary places.
Here is a history of insane asylums.
Some were quite beautiful buildings:
Gartloch Insane Asylum, Glasgow
And some were haunted:
Danvers State Lunatic Asylum- Danvers, Massachusetts
Fact
Danvers State Lunatic Asylum is probably one of the most notoriously haunted and intriguing places on earth. High atop Hawthorne Hill, overlooking the scenic countryside, sits an incomprehensibly massive structure. Donned the "witches castle on the hill". Danvers State Lunatic Asylum was constructed in 1878, costing a mere 1.5 million dollars, and was considered to be an architectural masterpiece. The asylum resides in the town of Danvers, Massachusetts which many people are unaware was formerly known as Salem Village. Salem Village was the first actual location of the 1692 Salem witch trials. Unbeknownst to some, the witch trials did not begin in Salem, but in Salem Village, or present-day Danvers at a church on Centre Street. The trials were later moved to a larger building in Salem when hysteria ran rampant and onlooking spectators swarmed the church. More significantly, the most fanatical judge of the witch trials, Johnathan Hawthorne, lived in a house built by his father in 1646 at the top of the hill, in the exact location on which the asylum stands today, hence the name "Witches Castle". It has also been speculated that John Proctor and 4 other accused withches were hung on Gallows Hill in 1692 , the property on which Danvers was built. Creepy? For sure.
Danvers was the epitome of ever changing health care at the turn of the century and its humane treatment of patients earned it a brilliant reputation. But like so many others of its time it fell victim to rising cost, lack of government funding, understaffing, and over population. Its deteriorated physical state was a hell-hole likened to that of a German death camp. A once humane facility had turned dark by the mid half of the century.
Danvers, between 1940 and 1950, housed over 2,600 mentally ill patients in a structure only designed to house 600. Due to over crowding it relied on medical interventions customary to infamous asylums of that time- shock treatment, hydrotherapy, insulin shock therapy, psychosurgery and lobotomies (the frontal lobotomy was said to be perfected here) to keep its burgeoning census under control. Patients became haggard and ghostly, often spending a majority of time alone and in solitary confinement in a space no larger than a small bathroom. "Poorly clothed and sometimes naked, these legions of lost souls were shown pacing aimlessly on the wards, lying on the filthy cement floors, or sitting head in hand against the pock-marked walls" (Deutsch 1948, 41, 49). It was so bad that a lifeless patient would go unnoticed for days.
More. Ack!
And...
Scary asylums
Well, this is very depressing and I am not actually insane--yet--but still quite fascinating. A friend's mother, who was a brilliant doctor, ended up in a hospital for the criminally insane in New York. It's a scary place, with bars on the windows. I have NO idea what happened. I was in fourth grade. I do remember my mother saying, "There's a fine line between genius and insanity."
On that note...it's MONDAY! I have some things to figure out. Have a good day, everyone!