5 ms·

Percy Crosby's Last Masterpiece: Kings Park Psychiatric Center

37 points by salgernon 4y ago

encryptluks2 4y ago
Don't forget that this was sanctioned by medical professionals at the time and is not much different than what occurs today throughout America where psychiatrists and psychologist work with corporations and police gangs to justify almost every despicable behavior you can imagine. Cop rapes and murders a teenager? You can find a psychologist that will say it was due to the pressures of the job. Government conducting experiments on people against their knowledge that results in harm. You can find a psychologist that authorized it and that will try to destroy the lives of people trying to expose it. Company uses sex or lies to sell a dangerous drug? There is a psychologist behind it.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  Sometimes I ponder what a world where every respected profession had a (reasonable) “Hippocratic Oath” equivalent, and where this oath was bolstered both by the culture within the profession and by sanctioning authorities alike. I’m usually all for decentralization and individual liberties, but yet I still find myself thinking this way.
  - stew-j 4y ago
    > “Hippocratic Oath” equivalent Excellent idea! This would definitely apply for investors, entrepreneurs and software devs, like myself, if you consider those "respected" :). I took an "Ethics in Computing" course in college, and our reading contained a lot of Sherry Turkle. I don't even think doctors are required to take the Hippocratic oath, they have a lot of power over our lives as does law enforcement. And as technology becomes more-and-more of the fabric of reality (a disturbing trend, IMO), we as technical people have more responsibility for what happens. Thanks for your insight.
- derbOac 4y ago
  There was a podcast a few years ago -- This American Life, or Criminal? I don't remember -- about a corrupt cop that tried to frame someone and get them committed to a psychiatric unit for some reason in retaliation for something. It sounded preposterous, except the person had recorded audio of them busting into their home and they played it on the podcast. Chilling.
  - mesofile 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
  - stew-j 4y ago
    > It sounded preposterous That's what everyone I told about my February 2014 incident in Wichita Kansas said, including now ex-friends I knew since elementary school. At about 1 AM in the morning, I was soaking in the bathtub after a long day working on my startup, and I heard pounding at the door. My wife who was asleep got up and asked if she should get it. I said no, I would get dressed and handle it. Before I could the police were already inside, weapons drawn, IIRC about 8 of them. I didn't see my wife--but she told me later they immediately took her outside in the cold, handcuffed, in her socks and no jacket and grilled her about how I treated her. They ridiculed her for being a university instructor, for some reason. She denied that anything was going on, which was true. I have had issues with mental illness, I know I seem weird to some people, but no history of violence--mostly I was withdrawn. A few years before, I was attacked by dogs in a remote area in Colorado, my doctor said it was one of the worst incidents he had heard of, so I still had some residual issues from that. The experience with these police was strongly similar to that attack--which didn't help my condition. They said I had threatened my wife which was a complete fabrication (she is in reality my better half, best friend, and I can't imagine life without her). One of them said, "What's going on tonight partner?" I told him I wasn't his partner, and I had no idea why they broke in. The officer who had apparently lead the charge said, "You threatened your wife." I said "What the hell are you talking about? What evidence of that do you have?" He just pointed at his head. I am not kidding. All these people seemed more psychotic than they accused me of being. I was my normal rational self. Anyway, they ordered me on my knees, still only in my boxer shorts. Then, two of them yanked me up by my biceps, pincer like, which gave me deep muscular bruises the next day. I wasn't resisting or putting up a fight at all. They cuffed me behind my back. I really couldn't figure out who I pissed off so bad to treat me this way. My wife later told me they rummaged through our house, looking for weapons, which we have never had. They kept saying "Where's the gun?" She said, "There is no gun." As they put me in the back of a marked car (apparently against Kansas statute for treating the mentall ill), I said (stupidly, I guess, but you have to understand I was a little mad), "This is how they got Stephen Biko--in the middle of the night." "Who is that?", one asked. I said "Haven't you ever heard of Apartheid?" "What is that?" "Like Nelson Mandela?" A note in my medical record subsequently read "Raving that he is Nelson Mandela." :) I guess the details of the tortuous night in hell I went through should be elided somewhat to lessen the trauma to my readers here, but they injected me with antipsychotic drugs at the hospital against my will, faked my wife's signature, refused to give me water or let me go to the bathroom (Geodon makes you thirsty and have to go to the bathroom), put me in 5-point restraints with a spitmask, and kept gaslighting, insulting, and mistreating me and my wife all night. In the morning, I was rubbing my eyes to lessen the headache, and the intern on call asked me "Why are you rubbing your eyes?" Shit, why do you think? She advised me to stay a couple days there, that it would be like a vacation. I politely declined, and they released me with my wallet and other effects the police had removed from my house after rummaging through our belongings. Into a blizzard, which I had to drive home in because my wife was a wreck. When I got home I had to shovel 10 inches of snow from the drive. I went in, we took pictures, and started looking up lawyers and realtors. When the police came back knocking again, we were prepared and able to get them to leav. We couldn't find a lawyer or mental health agency in Kansas who would believe us and take our case, and even a national search failed. After a few years, I tore up the photograph of the bruises on my bicep as it was too painful to remember. The police report was almost incomprehensible, as most people I showed it to, including lawyers agreed. My medical record said my injuries were due to fighting the police, and my wife's own doctor put a note in hers that said, "This is clearly odd storytelling behavior." The hardware store where we bought replacement locks and hinges remarked, "Them old boys had a good ol' time that night, breaking down your doors, didn't they?" :) The root cause of all this was a next-door neighbor, who I had never met, who kept swatting 911 until LEO came out and decided to have fun. After that, I kept an eye on him, and he was extremely crazy--he let his father who had Alzheimers ride around on a tractor waving his cowboy hat around and driving around in a circle around the bare feet of his grandson's children. The police never did remove him from his home, to my knowledge. I never have really recovered, nor my wife.
kmeisthax 4y ago
The whole Skippy Peanut Butter thing deserves an article of its own. Massive, massive TIL.
wffurr 4y ago
Horrifying what happened to Crosby. Lots more stories like that from the institutionalization era, e.g. My Brother Ron: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/31/book-review-my-brother-ron/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/31/book-review-my-brother...
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
That place is down the road from me. I did a photo essay of it, about 13 years ago. I saw Alan Ginsberg in Brentwood, back around the turn of the century. The reason he was there, was because his mother had been hospitalized in Pilgrim State (another huge mental asylum -still partly open), and he had been doing some kind of memorial.

37 points by salgernon 4y ago

Don't forget that this was sanctioned by medical professionals at the time and is not much different than what occurs today throughout America where psychiatrists and psychologist work with corporations and police gangs to justify almost every despicable behavior you can imagine. Cop rapes and murders a teenager? You can find a psychologist that will say it was due to the pressures of the job. Government conducting experiments on people against their knowledge that results in harm. You can find a psychologist that authorized it and that will try to destroy the lives of people trying to expose it. Company uses sex or lies to sell a dangerous drug? There is a psychologist behind it.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
Sometimes I ponder what a world where every respected profession had a (reasonable) “Hippocratic Oath” equivalent, and where this oath was bolstered both by the culture within the profession and by sanctioning authorities alike. I’m usually all for decentralization and individual liberties, but yet I still find myself thinking this way.
- stew-j 4y ago
  > “Hippocratic Oath” equivalent Excellent idea! This would definitely apply for investors, entrepreneurs and software devs, like myself, if you consider those "respected" :). I took an "Ethics in Computing" course in college, and our reading contained a lot of Sherry Turkle. I don't even think doctors are required to take the Hippocratic oath, they have a lot of power over our lives as does law enforcement. And as technology becomes more-and-more of the fabric of reality (a disturbing trend, IMO), we as technical people have more responsibility for what happens. Thanks for your insight.
derbOac 4y ago
There was a podcast a few years ago -- This American Life, or Criminal? I don't remember -- about a corrupt cop that tried to frame someone and get them committed to a psychiatric unit for some reason in retaliation for something. It sounded preposterous, except the person had recorded audio of them busting into their home and they played it on the podcast. Chilling.
- mesofile 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
- stew-j 4y ago
  > It sounded preposterous That's what everyone I told about my February 2014 incident in Wichita Kansas said, including now ex-friends I knew since elementary school. At about 1 AM in the morning, I was soaking in the bathtub after a long day working on my startup, and I heard pounding at the door. My wife who was asleep got up and asked if she should get it. I said no, I would get dressed and handle it. Before I could the police were already inside, weapons drawn, IIRC about 8 of them. I didn't see my wife--but she told me later they immediately took her outside in the cold, handcuffed, in her socks and no jacket and grilled her about how I treated her. They ridiculed her for being a university instructor, for some reason. She denied that anything was going on, which was true. I have had issues with mental illness, I know I seem weird to some people, but no history of violence--mostly I was withdrawn. A few years before, I was attacked by dogs in a remote area in Colorado, my doctor said it was one of the worst incidents he had heard of, so I still had some residual issues from that. The experience with these police was strongly similar to that attack--which didn't help my condition. They said I had threatened my wife which was a complete fabrication (she is in reality my better half, best friend, and I can't imagine life without her). One of them said, "What's going on tonight partner?" I told him I wasn't his partner, and I had no idea why they broke in. The officer who had apparently lead the charge said, "You threatened your wife." I said "What the hell are you talking about? What evidence of that do you have?" He just pointed at his head. I am not kidding. All these people seemed more psychotic than they accused me of being. I was my normal rational self. Anyway, they ordered me on my knees, still only in my boxer shorts. Then, two of them yanked me up by my biceps, pincer like, which gave me deep muscular bruises the next day. I wasn't resisting or putting up a fight at all. They cuffed me behind my back. I really couldn't figure out who I pissed off so bad to treat me this way. My wife later told me they rummaged through our house, looking for weapons, which we have never had. They kept saying "Where's the gun?" She said, "There is no gun." As they put me in the back of a marked car (apparently against Kansas statute for treating the mentall ill), I said (stupidly, I guess, but you have to understand I was a little mad), "This is how they got Stephen Biko--in the middle of the night." "Who is that?", one asked. I said "Haven't you ever heard of Apartheid?" "What is that?" "Like Nelson Mandela?" A note in my medical record subsequently read "Raving that he is Nelson Mandela." :) I guess the details of the tortuous night in hell I went through should be elided somewhat to lessen the trauma to my readers here, but they injected me with antipsychotic drugs at the hospital against my will, faked my wife's signature, refused to give me water or let me go to the bathroom (Geodon makes you thirsty and have to go to the bathroom), put me in 5-point restraints with a spitmask, and kept gaslighting, insulting, and mistreating me and my wife all night. In the morning, I was rubbing my eyes to lessen the headache, and the intern on call asked me "Why are you rubbing your eyes?" Shit, why do you think? She advised me to stay a couple days there, that it would be like a vacation. I politely declined, and they released me with my wallet and other effects the police had removed from my house after rummaging through our belongings. Into a blizzard, which I had to drive home in because my wife was a wreck. When I got home I had to shovel 10 inches of snow from the drive. I went in, we took pictures, and started looking up lawyers and realtors. When the police came back knocking again, we were prepared and able to get them to leav. We couldn't find a lawyer or mental health agency in Kansas who would believe us and take our case, and even a national search failed. After a few years, I tore up the photograph of the bruises on my bicep as it was too painful to remember. The police report was almost incomprehensible, as most people I showed it to, including lawyers agreed. My medical record said my injuries were due to fighting the police, and my wife's own doctor put a note in hers that said, "This is clearly odd storytelling behavior." The hardware store where we bought replacement locks and hinges remarked, "Them old boys had a good ol' time that night, breaking down your doors, didn't they?" :) The root cause of all this was a next-door neighbor, who I had never met, who kept swatting 911 until LEO came out and decided to have fun. After that, I kept an eye on him, and he was extremely crazy--he let his father who had Alzheimers ride around on a tractor waving his cowboy hat around and driving around in a circle around the bare feet of his grandson's children. The police never did remove him from his home, to my knowledge. I never have really recovered, nor my wife.

kmeisthax 4y ago

The whole Skippy Peanut Butter thing deserves an article of its own. Massive, massive TIL.

wffurr 4y ago

Horrifying what happened to Crosby. Lots more stories like that from the institutionalization era, e.g. My Brother Ron: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/31/book-review-my-brother-ron/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/31/book-review-my-brother...

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

That place is down the road from me. I did a photo essay of it, about 13 years ago. I saw Alan Ginsberg in Brentwood, back around the turn of the century. The reason he was there, was because his mother had been hospitalized in Pilgrim State (another huge mental asylum -still partly open), and he had been doing some kind of memorial.