GRIFFIN

This post might be all over the place and crazy but bare with me. So those of you who know me pretty well know that I am obsessed with a psychiatric hospital about 25 minutes from where I live. I used to visit every single Saturday that Shayne and I went out on a date.
Sadly, there is no way you can get in the building without actually being admitted or a worker or a volunteer. You can't just go in for a tour. Recently they opened their doors for the first time for their 100th year anniversary of being open. Another sad thing- they are tearing the buildings down! Its so sad...
They opened their doors for a tour of one of the buildings, "Hope Hall". Instead of it being a tour with stories and I guess what I expected, it was more of an attempt to remove the stigma of mental illness and mental facilities. Which is a really good thing but at the same time I feel like some of the volunteers that were speaking tried to sugar-coat what was going on their. Its no surprise that there was neglect in those facilities. Lets just be real for a second...those places were built to hold may 800-1,000 patients. There were over 3,000 in Griffin at one point. Nobody can say for one second that there wasn't a problem. There was an overcrowding problem, a neglect problem, and a treatment and care problem. Some of the volunteers were very blunt about that. They were like "Yea, there was a problem, there was probably lobotomies performed.." etc. Which isn't a false statement. That was actually pretty common, as was electroshock therapy, hydrotherapy and other not so nice treatments.
I just feel like if you are trying to remove that common thought process they should be completely open about what went on there.
Anyway, here are some pictures!

This was such an amazing experience! 

-K