Macabrepedia: A Marriage of True Crime and the Truly Bizarre

Or is it all lunacy? History of Mental Health Facilities 1247-1968

December 06, 2021 Matthew & Marissa Season 1 Episode 18
Macabrepedia: A Marriage of True Crime and the Truly Bizarre
Or is it all lunacy? History of Mental Health Facilities 1247-1968
Show Notes Transcript

What is the history of mental health services and the places that provide them? Let's find out!




Suffer the little children. (1968).
BBC Mental A History of the Madhouse. (n.d.).



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Marissa:

macabrepedia deals with dark subject matter and may not be suitable for all audiences listener discretion is advised. Happy now

Matthew:

he is a teen Shouldn't he be put with the adults? I was waking up from sleep Exactly. My senses were slowly coming back. He is but is also a high school student so that leaves a bit of wiggle room. I think he should be with the adults who's on staff that could could possibly stop him. The choice was made by the magistrate I assumed it was done sight unseen though. My vision was still a blur of color, a sea of swimming lights, I was dropped roughly down on a thin mattress, my wrists bound by handcuffs close to tighten too close together to accommodate my girth. My clothes are being stripped off and replaced. I could feel the mocking the laugh and the frustration of the people around me as they struggle to move my bulk. Are you seriously going to leave him in those? Well take his shoes, put his pants back on the shirt. That's good enough. I couldn't focus my eyes. I felt the handcuffs come off and I was rolled again and the cuts close in front of me. That was a small relief. The events had lost clarity, but I remembered walking more stumbling forcefully gripped under each armed by a pair of police officers or maybe they were still hospital security. Yes, I had been in a hospital. I remembered that much. There had been a big security guard in there with me. He was nice. He offered me a sandwich. I think I didn't take it. At least I don't remember having a sandwich. But I do remember seeing one. The room had been all glass with desks and drawers. I certainly remember the drawers. They had scalpels in them. Their discovery was what ultimately resulted in me being drugged. I was only pointing out how silly it seemed to put a person on suicide watch in an observation room full of surgical blades. It was across the room from a nurse's station in a glass tank because like they wanted to watch the show. See how crazy I actually would be. I was like an experiment or something to see how long the cutter could behave themselves in a room full of knives. I tore the drawer from the desk and tossed it into the wall. That was when the guard was brought in. He was big, but I was also big. Both of us over six feet tall and comfortably north of 260 pounds. But he was all muscle. Not a doubt he could have taken me apart. But equally doubtless I'd make them work for him. He was nice. I think he offered me a sandwich. I had an episode, the stresses of all that I was faced with it just cracked me a moment picked me up from school and brought me to the hospital. This wasn't that hospital though. Neither of these two were the guards that were with me. It was coming back to me. The guard had me sit down on the bed of a nurse. She was terrified. Fear was filling her eyes and her voice. She came in and said she had to take some blood. Let her use her needles on me. The guard talked to me as if he was trying to distract me, but I saw what she did. So I asked as she secured a bandage over my tiny needle mark. When I've had blood taken in the past, nurses normally leave with a vial of blood. Where's the blood you took? If you took some blood? She paused, discarded the needles and a little red bin and wordlessly walked away. tranquilizers then is that what this is you give me tranquilizers? When I looked at the guard, he just kind of shrugged at me. He let me stand beside the bed where I bopped around, determined to not let the sedative put me out. That was a mistake. They repeated the process a few more times throughout the hours each nurse using some reason or another to stick me it was all Saturdays, no one was giving me medicines or taking blood or whatever bullshit they were trying to tell me it was. And eventually, eventually they worked. What time is it really should have taken that sandwich. That was an edited excerpt from a longer story that I wrote called a room with a whale recounting my brief time in a psychiatric ward of a North Carolina Hospital in 1999. Might have been 1998 but whatever. Psychology psyche psychiatry counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, counseling, whatever. Mental health as a whole has never been well understood. The treatments and practices have changed throughout the centuries for sure. Well, most of them seem to have but the horrific treatment and procedures practiced on the What Are They Now neuro atypical, whatever you want to call us or we call ourselves I don't know that it is what it is. has many of its terrible acts taking place far more recently. Then you may think today we will be discussing a brief history of mental health facilities, what it would take to get put into some of them and some standout treatments of the last 100 or so years. So please join us as we add another entry to this out macabrepedia.

Marissa:

Welcome to macabrepedia a marriage of true crime in the truly bizarre, we're your hosts, Marissa and Matthew and Matthew, what are we talking about today?

Matthew:

I just told you in that opening,

Marissa:

I know but can you please just say it please just say it.

Matthew:

Today again, we will be discussing the the kind of history of mental health facilities mostly in Europe and the Americas concentrating primarily in the 19th and 20th century. But we'll we'll go back to some of the earlier days in there too. And, of course, because this is macabrepedia we're going to focus on some of the darker aspects there of

Marissa:

all sounds interesting,

Matthew:

I hope. So. That's what we're basing our, our listeners to believe as well. So, early treatment for mental health disorders, neuro abnormalities, the truly saying, I don't know exactly what words we use in our current culture, whatever, I feel like I have a few ponies in this race. So I'm going to make some judgment calls as I deem fit, you know, so let's take a second and kind of address this. You may have noticed that I'm going to use the words asylum hospital mental health facility Loony Bin all interchangeably which I promise you I will and similar I may say something along the lines of lunatic madman hysteric insane the touched the neuro atypical, etc, etc, whatever some of these terms are considered offensive or at least have fallen out of fashion. I do not mean any insult when I use them. And like I said, I am pretty messed up in a number of ways that can be found in the DSM five I do think that it would cause more confusion or listeners if I just refer to add the to every all of those terms as the US if you're offended, I apologize. Know that I this this is this is coming from a place where I I'm painfully aware of mental health disorders from a number of people in my family, friends myself also heavily included. So I'm, you know, we goof on stuff here. With that we'll just kind of go ahead and start this whole thing off. It wasn't until the 19th century that state run institutions for the neuro atypical would replace prisons, charities, religious orders and private for profit asylums. Of course mental illness has always been a part of the living existence. But in the earliest recorded cases of mental illness, the behaviors were attributed to evil spirits or demons or something along those lines. The early treatments for mental illness leaned more towards beatings claims of witchcraft being chained to walls forced to consume vile potions and tinctures based on little more than the guesses and speculation of whatever they were calling doctors at that time. In prehistoric and into the Middle Ages, a treatment of trepanning were where the skull was cracked open to kind of weigh and let demons out process that was as likely to cripple or kill you as it wants to cure you was used. And as we will discuss in this entry ideas mature changed, science took the place of superstitions and procedures became based on newer discoveries. patients were treated with beatings tortures, being forced to take potions deliberately inflicted with diseases and again, had holes cut into their skulls. That's right, 2000 years ago, and you can still see the same approaches being used today. Similar results with just new shiny names painted across the top of them. Yeah,

Marissa:

actually, the earliest like, that was like examples of troponin that we found in skulls are from 6000 BC. This is a very old practice.

Matthew:

Yeah. And we'll kind of touch on that a little bit later, too, with with trepanning and how that eventually turns into some other very similar procedures. But for the beginning half of this, we're going to deal on the facilities themselves more so than the treatments. One of the earliest facilities for housing and I really hate to use the term of care or treatment for this kind of a place but a place that held will say, the mentally ill was famously the new order of Our Lady of Bethlehem or the royal Psychiatric Hospital. I'm sure you've heard of that, right?

Marissa:

I have not.

Matthew:

Okay. Well, it was founded in London in 1247. Oh, have you it? I guess it's because of the fact that I use those the more proper terms for it, you may have heard of it or even used its name when describing unbridled chaos, confusion or an uproar. This is a place that gave us the term bedlam. Ah, that is probably as good of a Descriptor to use to get a sense of the conditions that were there. So again, this place was founded in 1247. So this houses for the mentally ill have been around for a long time, even predating this particular place, and and Bedlam or whatever the the different names have the new the new order of Our Lady of Bethlehem or the Bethlem royal psychiatric hospital. It has it has changed names has changed locations, throughout the many, many years of its of its existence.

Marissa:

Yeah, Bedlam was like a threat. Right? A certain point. If you weren't behaving well, they would send you to bedlam.

Matthew:

Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was one of those kind of, like, if you, you know, you're acting, you're acting a certain way. So we're gonna send you off it. I don't know if it was quite like the boogeyman kind of threat or anything, but it was definitely something that could be levied against someone to try to get them to straighten up or even just as an insulting kind of a thing that you'd be better off in Bedlam, a pretty big part of society of the 18th century, even like visitors. When I when I say visitors, I mean more the way of like spectators or sightseers, they could pay a few shillings to tour the facility and marvel at those poor unfortunates that were being kept there. I guess there were that or executions or scandalous trials? And if none of those were being being held, well, a trip to good old Bedlam was a fun excursion for London families of the time in it's still open. Yeah, since 1247. It's it's been actively continuing. It's moved around and whatnot throughout throughout the time, but

Marissa:

Well, I didn't realize that. I mean, bedrooms and a lot of films and, and, you know, books are language. It's a lot. Yeah. But I didn't realize it was still open. Yeah, it still it is changed heavily, but

Matthew:

Right. I think I think now it's the Bethlem royal psychiatric hospital.

Marissa:

Yes. In partnership with the Institute of psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience.

Matthew:

Right. And, of course, obviously, we don't want to make it seem like it wasn't created with good intentions, but And 1247 like, you know, and even beyond their, like, you know, like the understanding of mental health. It's still it's still a bit murky at vaulted ly. So yeah, but it was made with good intentions. And I'm not trying to take away from any of the well intended people.

Marissa:

And no, but it's famous for a reason.

Matthew:

In 1773 the Eastern State Hospital was established in Virginia though established before the the United States it would remain after and thusly be the first asylum in the US in the 500 plus years separating the two facilities conditions and attitudes towards the mentally ill had changed, but then they hadn't really changed that much. Not as much as you probably hope mental illness was still thought as something to be mocked or exploited.

Marissa:

That's still open to

Matthew:

Yeah, I mean, these some of them you know, they just again, they were serving a purpose whether they did so terribly or not, you know, I mean, they had a they were open with good intentions not saying you couldn't go and visit or sightsee their their areas. There was even some that had like really nice gardens and stuff. So you'd go there to just kind of walk around the facilities and you know, it was it was it was like a picnicking and kind of day trippy kind of a thing where you would go and see these beautiful gardens and whatnot that not necessarily in either of these two places specifically but mental health facilities were made with calming lovely areas, natural areas that that the more capable or even the catatonic could be either openly stroll around or be guided around by I called them orderlies when I was there, and they the handlers were whatever, nurses, I guess, I guess nurses will call them nurses. They hated being called that. But But yeah, I mean, they were known. They were known for having incredible, incredibly nice garden areas and stuff like that. So

Marissa:

yeah, the eastern state hospitals looks like it's near Colonial Williamsburg. Yeah. Which is really nice. I went there in seventh grade on a field trip to the hospital. Hello. I don't The hospital the Colonial Williamsburg it's really nice area, like Virginia is beautiful most of it so it is beautiful landscape.

Matthew:

But we're not talking about beauty. We're talking about the dark. This isn't a collar. You weren't, this is bad get on, get it, get it on this. So do the failings of the criminal system poverty issues and the general misunderstanding of mental health, psychiatric hospitals quickly became overcrowded and understaffed. Often these hospitals would have beds crowded so tightly together that one could not move between them row after row of beds, or even like bunk style beds. And cots were packed wall to wall. It was pretty standard for problematic patients and some children, harnesses would be fastened to them and then tied up to the either the bed or secured to the ceiling to keep the individual from being able to move more than a few feet from their sleep

Marissa:

ceiling.

Matthew:

Yeah, there's pictures and stuff of like, they're not like they're not like swinging but there's like, chest harnesses like leather. There's like leather strap harnesses that are fastened to the person. And then there's like a rope or chain that's linked to the ceiling, so that they're kind of like on a little, a little tether around their bed.

Marissa:

So it's like a psychiatric

Matthew:

leash. Yeah, exactly. Yep, their leash to the other better, or the ceiling.

Marissa:

I was a leash kid.

Matthew:

Not to the ceiling.

Marissa:

It's next level.

Matthew:

We're talking your least child like with a monkey backpack. Yeah, but think of that same thing except instead of being attached to your, to your mother's wrist or waist or whatever your being to the ceiling so that you can't do much more than just stand next to your bed keep from interacting with anybody else in your, in your ward. And some were kept in rooms that were rarely cleaned. Just reeking of feces and urines patient were no patients were only being provided a bathroom either like a cold water treatment. Like as part of their therapy, cold water treatment where they would just dump water on the person. And not unlike waterboarding, where they would be brought into a room and forcibly submerged into beds of chilled water. When when technology would allow they would be sprayed with somewhat high powered hoses to clean them off, had buckets of free to freezing water just thrown upon them forcibly scrubbed, by by the handlers.

Marissa:

You know, I'm sure they did have good intentions, but what do they think this is gonna accomplish? You bring in these people with mental health issues, and you're just torturing them. Welcome help?

Matthew:

Well, again, I'm not I'm not differentiating between time time periods here, there was a time where people believe that beating the body would expel a demon from the person or that a person under enough duress would would like snap out of it. Effectively, you know what I mean? You see this depicted even like, into the into like, even movies and stuff into the 40s and 50s, where a person is acting erratic. And what do they do? Slap him in the face? Yeah. And then it's supposed to ground them. That's kind of the way that schizophrenics and epileptics were treated before like the idea of what that all kind of was,

Marissa:

did they? Sometimes they would put you in this device that was basically like a hot water bath. But you couldn't get out of it.

Matthew:

Oh, yeah. There's like, like washing machines. Yeah, they put you inside of like a washing machine that that's in there. Yeah, I don't I don't cover that in detail in here. But yeah, there is more than we can cover, I'm sure. And a series of episodes on this, as well as some of the weirder treatments that are in here. I'm sticking somewhat more well known stuff. So though the US islands were often used as like a catch for all of Europe and America's undesirables, when people were too much to handle for behavioral criminal or even just bothersome ideas, countered to someone else in their family or around them that has more means well, it was time to start looking for an asylum. This was known in some writings as the lunatic trade. Being committed by a family member for reasons without any real proof was not that uncommon. And the proof that you needed was like almost nothing, depending on the time period. Again, I'm in I'm painting very broad strokes here. Um, this is 1000 years worth of, of history that I'm just kind of lumping together.

Marissa:

Well, that was something that's happened fairly recently. That's something John F. Kennedy's sister. Oh, yeah happened to her?

Matthew:

Yeah. Oh, it's unnerving. How? How current some of these behaviors and practices are you can you can still be forced? I mean, the opening scene, or the the cold open that we did? Yeah. I mean, I was, I was 18 years old when I was put into the mental hospital. Yeah. I don't even know where it was. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I know it was in the Charlotte ish area. And I believe it was. I feel like I heard that it was called the seventh floor psychiatric ward. But I don't know for sure. I believe I believe I know what hospital was, but I don't know. Because even though I was 18, I was in high school. So they didn't really have to confer with me. They may have spoken to my mom. But I don't I don't know. And I can't verify for obvious reasons. But the they the magistrate just committed me. Yeah, based on the way that I was behaving. So like, you can be committed what and still be a I'm mostly normal guys. I mean, I mean, it's not I mean, but just, you know, you can just be committed because there's some there's some level of evidence, and that's that was in 1999 2000 error, you know, so I mean, like, yeah, being committed is not terribly difficult. I suppose you

Marissa:

do. Well, you just had a rough, teenage, a few rough teenage years.

Matthew:

This, this is what this one is not about be specific. I'm just saying like, yeah, being committed without any real evidence or any. It's not hard to get somebody put away and back in the 19th century, 18th century, even easier,

Marissa:

super, essentially, if you were, you know, not in a position of power.

Matthew:

Right. That's where I was talking about the lunatic trade people could pay others to have them committed. This could be for anything alcoholism, excessive masturbation. Oh, particularly, particularly for women at worse. Yeah. Well, this was the type of behavior further strengthen that the belief of the woman's womb would consume her. This is where we get the word hysteria.

Marissa:

Yeah, well, didn't they subscribe to some women who were suffering from hysteria? They would go to the doctor and the doctor would masturbate them. Yeah. Yeah. The vibrator. Vibrator was invented, invented.

Matthew:

Yeah, and I think Freud was one of those kind of guys too. But the, the idea was that, and this is where like a hysterectomy and all this stuff was, was coming around the belief that it was a woman's womb that was

Marissa:

driving her crazy. Well, you know, that woman's womb, you could

Matthew:

even have just somebody committed just as for following a different religion than what your family approved of? I believe it. Yeah. Again, if you were if you were on the wrong side of somebody with with the right amount of means you could be committed. This was even you could even be committed for mooching from your family or excessive laziness. So it's for anything. You are like if you showed too much grief or too little grief after some sort of loss. Yeah, you're just just a general burden to your family.

Marissa:

People grieve differently. You just don't You don't appear to be sad. That right. Put you in lunatic asylum.

Matthew:

They can. Sure. I mean, you could just be committed just for anything just seems abnormal to whoever's looking at you. So the 19th century would see most asylums becoming state run institutions and steering that money away from the private sector, there was still profit to be made from the quote unquote lunatic trade, a practice of paying private asylums, and those who ran them to hold people that you may otherwise could be perfectly fine but reasonably able to be deemed mentally ill but for but less so. For those who ran private asylums. This was still happening in the public asylums as well. For the state run asylums, I guess for those in the asylums, having them state run did not necessarily improve the conditions it just kind of changed the flow of of money. Now, again, just to reiterate, not all of these 19th century mental hospitals were as terrible as all this, some for sure sought to maximize profit through overcrowding and little to no regulatory restraints. Some private asylum still worked more as quiet and lovely retreats more akin to resorts such as Mrs. Bradbury's establishment for the reception of ladies nervously affected. Oh my F 1832 In old Brompton, also near London, so in the same general vicinity of as Bedlam, I guess this was a better choice. This place was was much more designed to give a break to people and supposedly had some early forms of much more modern treatments such as occupational therapy and calisthenics. But this facility seemed to be short lived, even if it might not have even been fully realized. really verify one way or the other is to if it was actually just a proposal or, but it has like a layout for the buildings and whatnot to lots of shame. It

Marissa:

seems lovely.

Matthew:

Yeah. And again, some, some of them were like just designed around just kind of being more like retreats. Now when speaking of asylums of the 19th and early 20th century, you will inevitably come across the story of Nellie Bly a journalist who feigned insanity so she could be committed and uncovered the truth surrounding the treatment of the mentally ill in New York's Blackwell Island asylum, which is now Roosevelt Island. It's like the little strip in the East River between Manhattan and Astoria in Queens,

Marissa:

that sounds familiar. Did they happen to cover that in American Horror Story?

Matthew:

Kind of a similar thing happens in one of the series.

Marissa:

Someone acts like she was insane. So as you get into the asylum, I didn't

Matthew:

watch it. But yeah, so something along those lines she she gets, she gets kind of like wrongfully convicted in there to kind of

Marissa:

do something along those lines, directly inspired by Nellie Bly. Fantastic. Thank

Matthew:

you, Google. So but yeah, so I'm assuming from the American horror stories that I have seen that one, it gets a little more wild than what happened to Nellie Bly. But so Nellie, what she did was she booked a stay at a well, let's back up slightly. So Nellie Bly is from Pennsylvania. She then moves to New York with the with the idea of like becoming a journalist. Now this is in the late 1800s. And she ends up she ends up getting an offer to be an early form of like investigative reporting, to try to get committed to the Blackwell Island asylum, and then do investigative report on there. So she, what she does is she books a stay at a boarding house, she claimed to have amnesia, and blamed and then started like behaving a little erratically. And she blamed other people that were also boarding there for stealing her belongings. She refused to sleep and wandered around the boarding house acting again, just kind of weird. Just whatever she thought was weird. Like she would. She reportedly had like, had like spent time like practicing like dead dead eyed stares in the mirror to try to like what she assumed would be like what an insane person would do. But she trying to get committed. Yeah, she was really Yeah, but she was but she would then like walk around and just like blankly stare at people accuse them of stealing things. And eventually, the woman who ran the house had her arrested for being a nuisance. Well, she was committed

Marissa:

to getting committed.

Matthew:

This point did you just ask is it but um, tiss you can do your own room room shot whenever you want. So eventually, she gets arrested, she gets brought in once she's been when she's in the hospital, or in the holding facility. While they're processing her. She's still acting all erratic and weird. And nurses are coming in and doctors are coming in to look at the crazy woman that they brought in and she's just you know, given them that wild eyed stare whatever you wish

Marissa:

you ever practice, she really was like throwing them?

Matthew:

Yeah, well, that's the thing like well, whatever, whatever. Whatever you think you would have to do in order to be like a wild crazy person. That's what Nellie was doing. She's just you know, you're trying to like, I don't know, I have I have images in my head as to how insane she's looking. But it's so she's looking so so odd that people are actually coming into just like take a look at like this crazy ass lady. But once she eventually does actually get committed to going to Blackwell Island asylum, once she arrives at the island, she just acts normal, just right back to normal, Nellie Bly. And her idea was if I'm, if I'm in an asylum, and I am just doing what they told me to do, and I'm completely behaving like a normal person and showing no signs of any ailments, how would they treat me when she arrives? She is given some like cold, spoiled food. Some kind of like like potatoes, and just like just like a cold meal. That's not not quite in date. That's what they were serving at these islands. Yeah, this was just like a standard asylum meal. And then she was then brought in to a like a line of people that were being also committed. And they were all brought into this bathing area where they shared one they're just like in like a line like a grocery store line just queued up, and they would one by one get into these tubs and the nurses assistance at the asylum would then scrub them down roughly and just keep pouring water over them from the from the tub and they didn't change any of the water or anything like that and it was very cold and then when they did change the water it was even colder because it hadn't been warmed up she reported that there was just like like a like a scum that had just felt bent over the top of the of the tubs as because there's just so many people just being washed washed in these things and it didn't matter if the people that were being brought in had like open sores and yeah, clear physical

Marissa:

design they're also spreading diseases

Matthew:

Yeah, they're just they're just people just bringing them in and then you know, combing their hair wildly and stuff and then she was also brought from they're given change of clothes and then brought into her room with a blanket that she couldn't that was too small for her so that she couldn't both cover her feet and her shoulders at the same time. She was just left there to like dry in the the cold of the room with this with this wet blanket.

Marissa:

No I don't believe they believe this would help I think this is neglect there's no way

Matthew:

Oh yeah, well that's the whole basis behind the black wall Island asylum. Okay idea was that go in there and show the corruption that they're not trying to help you at all. They're just this is just where people go to go to be forgotten. She she made she had made statements that the patients were often punched, teased, slapped and mocked until they were so like worked up into a fit that they would become erratic, and the nurses could then bestow some further abuse upon them with less restraint, because now this is like a volatile person who's acting out and then they would bring them into either either just beat them in front of everyone else, or you know, bring them off somewhere and they'd come back just covered in bruises and marks and all this stuff. So the men and women were like separated. But so that's why I'm saying the women, the women the way so if this wasn't like a women's hospital, or anything like that, but the women would be woken at dawn and fra and then brought down to do chores around the facilities, they would be then taken to do a short walk. And then for the rest of the day, they were just forced to sit straight back on benches. For the remainder of the day, like six hours a day just forced to sit, they were unable to talk walk around, they were not allowed to interact with each other at all. An incident happened that resulted in Nellie being restrained at some point in a bed within a locked room. She recounted all of this as like this, like fear that would overtake her that were there she all she could think about was like if a fire was to break out in this place, and all of these doors are individually locked. And there's like a ward door that's also locked. Like if something was to happen here. We're all gonna die. Which the word I mean, that was a realistic thing to because like even in like 1903, which is years after this situation with her at a place called Colney hatch lunatic asylum, which is in London. I'm not trying to just throw shade on on London mental health facilities. But 1903 at this asylum in London, 52 women had burned to death in what was called the Jewish wing of the asylum as it caught fire and just they were all trapped within their rooms and whatnot there. So yeah, so I mean, it was a realistic thing. But

Marissa:

that's reasonable. We have fire safety now. So many people have died and stuff like that. Sure. Yeah, locked door, you can't get out.

Matthew:

So Nellie would go on to write a series of articles in the paper, about her accounts here. And then she would end up writing a book called 10 days in the Madhouse where she tells this whole story. So you can actually find this, it's it's not terribly difficult to locate this, her actual story there. So she recounts her whole ordeal that she was brought back to the Madhouse after being released again, she was there is called 10 days, and she's only there for 10 days. She had reported also that like if a visitor had come, they would bring them fresh, clean clothes, so that but other than that they were just left in like the same dirty. So

Marissa:

if somebody came to see them, they were

Matthew:

so what so they kind of just did that, you know, 10 times 10 times 10 times over when when like the police showed up to like do an investigation here. So a lot of it was just kind of like, you know, her word versus theirs for a lot of it,

Marissa:

but they shouldn't have told them they were coming.

Matthew:

Yeah, well, again, if you if you're if you're interested in the actual Nelly Bly story as to what happened in there, you can go ahead and do that. She does recount all of that it is it is well documented. She was she was a figure that was known for more than just this. I mean, she was on the like, she was one of the first women of investigative reporting, and she did stuff where she would go undercover like pretending to try to sell her children on the black market, kind of really? Yeah, she did some wild stuff. Wow. Yeah, she was pretty badass. She also, probably I think one of her most notable Acts was traveling around the world and 72 days. So like the Jules Verne book around the world, 90 days exactly around the world, 90 days, she was like, I can beat that. She didn't do it in an air balloon the whole time. She did trains and all this stuff and other people tried to like compete against her and she was like, this isn't really like that big of a competition. You want to do this, you do it, whatever. But she actually met Jules Verne, when she went to London. If you look up Nellie Bly, you'll find her her. Her actual name is Elizabeth Cochran. She had changed her name. Nellie Bly was like her pen name. Elizabeth Cochran was her real name. She had changed her name when she went to New York because her family was wealthy. And then they kind of they be well known. Yeah, well, but then when that they kind of felt fell through, they fell out. Oh, really. So she changed her name to not be associated with them. Anyways, interestingly, check her out, though separated by 80 years, give or take another investigative reporter also from Pennsylvania Bill ball, Dini would create a multi part documentary Suffer the little children in 1968. This was highlighting the heartbreaking treatment of those housed in Pennhurst State Hospital which was established in 1908. As Pennhurst State training school for the mentally defectives through a series of interviews with staff and patients. A very bleak and uncaring picture is created in these documentaries. You can find the these this entire documentary, again, it's called Suffer the little children. But it's a multi part series that you can just find on YouTube in its entirety. It's like 30 ish minutes long. Really, it's pretty intense. And of course, returning back to London, or the UK, another documentary called mental a history of the madhouse, was put together by the BBC depicting the neglect abuse and traumas that patients had to enter in some of the UK has mental hospitals. This is again, the bill Baldini was 1968. The madhouse, or mental, a history of the Madhouse documentary by the BBC is, is interviewing people who worked in the facilities back in kind of like the 60s 70s and before and they're, they're recounting their thump therapy, which was just basically like, thump therapy, just slapping the shit out of so yeah, so then again, all of there's plenty of stuff on there for like YouTube and whatnot that you can find this this this kind of thing the asylum was supposed to be a treatment facility at its core, the beliefs of how to best treat patients varied of course, but despite the often terrible conditions, there had to be some who that cared some that truly wanted to help some that wanted to heal their patients and discovered new treatments once again I would like to remind listeners that not all asylums work zoos full of abusers, not then not now. There were many that had a fairly substantial recovery rate. And there were a lot of advances that were made in these facilities throughout all of the ages back from you know, when Bedlam was first created back in 1247, to present day, but this is macabrepedia and we don't do rainbows and happy stories, we do death, we do mockery, we do sadness. We do the McCobb. It's in the name, guys. So we focus on the darker aspects of these facilities. Again, not every one of these was a Pennhurst, or a Bedlam, or something like that. There were plenty of Mrs. Bradbury's retreats for the ladies who were nervously afflicted. But you know, that doesn't make as fun of a story, right? Not, not, at least for what what we're trying to accomplish here. But what we're gonna do is we are actually going to split this up into a two parter. This part being kind of the facilities as a whole. And the next part being in next week's episode, where we go into some of the more some of the treatments that were available to patients in these places. But before you go, please stay tuned for this week's sponsor. Yes, it is at the end. This wasn't intended to be a two parter, but it just kind of got away with us. ran a little long. But today's sponsor is the month of May.

Marissa:

But this is December Yeah, I

Matthew:

know. It's I know this is coming out in December, but May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It reached out to me to remind our listeners that mental health is something to be aware of. Seriously, there are many websites support groups. phone numbers that you can utilize if you are in trouble and you need to talk through some stuff. I know there are even apps out there that allow for email and chat services. If you need to find help, please go find it. We don't have any actual sponsors in this category. I don't haven't utilized many of them that I could recommend for you specifically, but the resources are, they are out there. So use them if you need them, please, on a lighter note, we would we would like to announce that we are launching our Patreon page, this will be a single tier support structure, there is only a $5 rewards tier, which includes whatever we put out. So we are going to launch a discord. We are going to release macabrepedia short episodes, we will be including possible reading of my entire story, it's a short story of a room with a whale, more personal stories that are going to be put on there that are kind of more in the vein of they're still they're still McCobb but they're just they're they're very personal. It's not something that can be marketed out to large people, large groups of people they might be helpful to multiple people can't say one way or the other. But you know just very personal stories and

Marissa:

our mom dad cuz I gotcha, right.

Matthew:

If you need if you need a mom death story, we will do those in in kind of a longer form where it's just, you know, us bleeding into the microphone kind of thing. Probably not going to be quite as comical. It might be because I mean, in my case, I'm still a pretty, pretty messed up person. I guess. I have a dark sense of humor. But yeah, so but as far as that goes, we're going to be releasing things such as extra episodes, we will be doing Ask Me Anything kind of live streams, either through the discord channel, or possibly on our YouTube channel, but you would the Patreon will get notified of that. And you know, the you also get discounts in our merch store once we launched that but it kind of makes it so that everyone has a chance to support us if they want to for basically just buying macabrepedia the two hosts a cup of coffee that we have to split. So it's not even, we're not we're not trying to make this a bunch of material through through a paywall or anything like that. Just if you want to support the channel, you want to support the podcast do so Patreon. Five bucks, you will get a shout out on the podcast. When you sign up. You will also be qualified for gift giveaways where we'll send you just well one, we will just randomly choose a Patreon. I'm sorry, a patron i don't know why I keep saying a Patreon, when we will just choose a patron and send them whatever merch that we have at the time that they hopefully had an ordered. You know, stickers, key chains, hopefully we can bring out some Feagin cannibal forks and just some fun accessories and tote bags, whatever we end up actually coming out with, we're just going to choose a random patron once per month and send out a couple of the things that we have to be fair, and to just curb some expectations at the moment. We do have, we do have pins, we have key chains, we have stickers. So don't mean we don't have shirts or anything at this point in time. But when we do, obviously that'll increase the value of that $5 Once you

Marissa:

are a patron and our undying gratitude and gratitude,

Matthew:

of course, you'll get our undying gratitude, and total appreciation. All of this is gonna go towards making the podcast better getting better equipment, but anyways, Patreon in the show notes, check it

Marissa:

out. Yeah, we'll still be releasing here. Of course, we're there with our weekly episodes.

Matthew:

Lastly, I would like to make a shout out to some of our listeners that have reached out to us on said social media. We of course have some of our longtime listeners like Nicholas white, providing excited ideas for the future of the show. Whoo. Thank you, Nick. William Corley always bring in his weekly feedback and questions from each episode. I'm going to use his screen name here for the anti hero 13 For binging through most of the catalog and letting us know that he is joining me on Hashtag team Ebenezer

Marissa:

Yeah, yeah, whatever

Matthew:

he did it I'm telling you also for telling us that Marissa is a storm of Sweeney Todd was was was done too much and an Irish accent, and more of a Scottish accent

Marissa:

like I'm not good with accents guys. Sorry.

Matthew:

So look forward to a couple of our future episodes just be a done in terrible Scottish accents that I've only learned from dwarves from Middle Earth or Outlander, outlander. Yes, that's for you, man. We'd also gotten input on how terrible are Irish name pronunciations?

Marissa:

Are you talking about when we said Podrick at well?

Matthew:

No. They didn't correct that. Even though that was one that I know that was bad. I think we stumbled over that 40 times in the actual episode. But no, but in the same episode, the lady Betty's actual name which is like Elizabeth I was saying Suguru and then they spelled it out to me and I was like, sorry idea how to do that. But But anyways, yes, we will. I promise you in the future we will continue to slaughter all of these names going forward and to the point where actually the person who said something about that on Twitter I actually don't even know how to say their twitter handle so that's why this is coming out at a inappropriate time. But it was FIFA Murphy I believe and their handle is also something I've I just assumed is to Irish for my Anglican tongue to speak. No, I can't even say American we might we might need to keep everything a little closer to the south here y'all y'all Yans Johannson y'all it's all gonna do for the nurse. I know but I'm just saying we got to keep it we got to keep it American continent thing I suppose at this point specifically the United States because we can't even do all of North North America. We're starting a yeah I know right the people in Massachusetts which I'm from Massachusetts but like Yeah, we didn't we didn't we got a we hit we hit the word we hit the name Worcester so well that we got we got a book.

Marissa:

We did. We got a book which that that episodes coming out soon, actually on. Bathsheba Spooner. Really cool. Yeah. Also, thank you to Andrew pneumonia

Matthew:

to ainger Andrew noon for sending us a book that we will shortly be doing an episode on.

Marissa:

But yeah, werster Wister, was it, it's Western. Okay, I'm sorry, I am not from the area. See, even now, you

Matthew:

just made this episode and episode we're gonna get we're gonna get comments for people from Western. That's now also we would like to thank Nicole Smith for using the soothing tones of macabrepedia hosts as part of her pre sleep ritual. Which, if true crime about cannibalism is part of your ritual. Well, I mean, I don't really want to judge you for that. I'll judge you for other things.

Marissa:

Oh, heck yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

Matthew:

Anyways, thanks to Matt hires, and Danielle Meyers of Carolina crimes for sharing our podcasts and tweets, Pamela Bailey, Jonathan magic Seabolt that I think that would actually make it so that two people that I just shout it out go by the name magic because I think antihero 13 also has like magic shields, but three Penny phungster For and all of you that have macabrepedia in your regular podcast rotations. Thank you. I should have asked permission to announce you all here. But oh, well. Let me know in the future. If you don't want your name to using this show.

Marissa:

We can edit it. Yeah.

Matthew:

Thank you for joining us today. As always, we are good. We greatly appreciate all of our listeners. If you can give us some support, feel free to do so. No pressure. If you want to great if you don't we still love you. We still want you to come back. If you can't financially support us. Please make it a point to share the podcast you can do so by going to Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts download and get telling your friends giving us reviews wherever you can, sharing, liking, commenting on everything that we do. And we really love to hear from you. And we really honestly we really enjoy any any feedback that you give us. So of course you can reach us on any of our social media platforms, such as Twitter at

Marissa:

macabrepedia and also Facebook at macabrepedia. We're also on Instagram which is macabrepediapod and if you want to reach out to us via email, we are macabrepedia pod@gmail.com.

Matthew:

And hopefully once we get the discord up, you can feel free to reach out to us there but really honestly just shoot us a message on Instagram or Twitter and we will be more than happy to respond to you as soon as we knows. See that you you. You sent us up into us. Absolutely. I said Sweeney tweeny taught him and Sweeney beanie. Do you mean Sony been Sony beans? Whatever the cannibals in the caves. Thank you for joining us today and join us next week as we add another entry into this our Chicago PD.