March 8, 2015
I hate the phrase “the inmates are running the asylum!” I have, on two distant past occasions, been involuntarily hospitalized, and if by some error I suddenly had freedom the worst thing I would do is leave. I would not trust in my ability to operate it as a business. Using the word “inmate” suggests an expectation of a prison-like state of affairs; what do you think most prisoners would do? Stick around and wait for Batman to show up? If you think they are wearing strait jackets also (and they would not be) then they would be in no condition to fight!
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Charmlatan sez:
What happened? Why have you been hospitalized, if I can ask.
chesse20 sez:
oh no what a bummer
Frimpinheap sez:
In the past! In 1994 and 1998! I started out saying “twice” but I considered that the 1994 did not really count, but I think now that it did because I was not permitted to leave. I shall amend that statement. Gosh if the staff let me use my computer in there I should think it would be counter to the purpose of isolating me.
Charmlatan sez:
Thank goodness. I never had to be involuntarily hospitalize before. I was worried something awful happened, like severe depression.
Frimpinheap sez:
I know better than to tell anybody I do not trust when I “want” to die now! It happens now and then but I have too much foresight and fear of death to act on it. Also there are many things I need to destroy and/or explain first, and have inadequate time to deal with that at the moment. What I vaguely alluded at on the old linked page is that I felt like I was being punished by the school I attended at the time (Cedarhurst, rubbish) with the hospitalization and little more than that.
Indighost sez:
If I understand you correctly, something maybe like that happened to me once, Frimp. I was a rash 11-year old and I made some grumpy comment at school which caused the “guidance counselor” to flip her lid and call all sort of authorities on me. However now, as the webpage says, I am a more or less productive, caring member of the community, if unsuccessful in general.
Indighost sez:
Also, I’m pretty sure the phrase you hate, mentioned up top, was coined by a certain famous story by Edgar Allen Poe, referenced here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_System_of_Doctor_Tarr_and_Professor_Fether
PurpleSpace sez:
I may have heard that phrase before, but is that really such a common occurrence that it requires its own phrase?
Frimpinheap sez:
I admit I had not thought to research the origin! Mr. Poe lived in the nineteenth century, when the prevailing popular opinion was that the mentally ill were, if not possessed by spirits and worthy of death, thoroughly lost causes who should be tied up, locked up and forgotten if their conditions were not suitable to be made spectacle of (in the manner of a traveling carnival). We have ample evidence that these are people, with feelings, but the stereotype persists among orators (and zany cartoonists) who would otherwise seek to behave in a decorous manner.
Frimpinheap sez:
Space: The expression is not used literally, generally; primarily when someone you dislike or distrust is in charge of anything and doing a bad job, possibly making the existing problems worse. Or you might say it in advance if you expect them to do a bad job, when majority control of a senate or parliament passes to an opposing party, for example. Being a [by now] casual expression, many people say it without considering what the words mean.
Indighost sez:
Frimpinheap, I looked up this “Cedarhurst” place (which kind of sounds like the name of a horror movie). http://cedarhurst.yale.edu ? What’s your overall opinion on it?
Frimpinheap sez:
At the time it was a gang of thugs instructed by an older, more organized gang of thugs. They maintained order by treating non-thugs as if those were also thugs. There was one general method for dealing with students, and if it totally failed, then it must have been the student’s fault alone for not adapting to the system. Attendees were treated with the mindset one uses to breed animals; dump them in a cage together and eventually they will get along. If you leave for an hour and one has been mauled you separate them and make a note and find different partners to force on each and that’s the end of that. The difference is that animals have the sense to abuse each other in ways that leave visible evidence so that the boneheads neglecting them will at least accept that abuse has occurred when they check in on it/contentedly watch it happen.
Supposedly each student had an “individualized education plan,” more commonly abbreviated as IEP. Everything over there was a dopey abbreviation that would never be explained in advance of its usage. If I had a grievance with something, well my IEP, a non-sentient infallible stack of paper I did not have access to or conscious input on said I had to do it. IEP is right, the
teacher“advisor” is right, the doctor is right, Yale is right, you are wrong. Always.I suppose I help nothing by being bitter at the past but it is a nice change from being bitter at the present!
PurpleSpace sez:
Heaptyfreapty, I probably wouldn’t use that phrase as it implies the people in charge don’t know what they are doing, when more than likely they know all to well of their actions and are doing things for their own gain rather than their organization.
Indighost sez:
That’s fascinating. I had a girlfriend recently whose job it was and whose job it still is to manufacture IEPs. (Until I came, she could not tell the difference between Pakistan and Palestine.) I also once interviewed the Yale chief professor of child psychology, and I remember thinking he seemed overly smug.
Indighost sez:
I have theory that “psy- stuff” is more about salesmanship than much else.
Frimpinheap sez:
ghost: I attended Cedarhurst in 1997, 1998 and 1999, I believe. I referred to a program director “werewolf woman” in an earlier website post but am not sure who was at the next stage up during my tenure.
However, could it not compromise your anonymity and journalistic integrity to call a respected medical professional that you interviewed in an impartial context a “dingus” after disclosing the nature and organization of your interview on a public (admittedly, barely so) forum?
spack: people who speak in an inflammatory manner rarely have much reservation about mis-characterizing an opponent’s viewpoint or intention.
indighost sez:
I stand chastened. My comment should probably be deleted, you are of course correct.
Frimpinheap sez:
I will remove the details! But at the same time I think respected dinguses should be identified and challenged. For what it is worth I could not turn up evidence of your identity with that information and my own meager tools.
indighost sez:
You are kind, Frimp. : )
Frimpinheap sez:
Not really! Just practical, when I can manage it.
It makes me feel important to have to hide sensitive details! This is the second time, not including the 2009 cease and desist letter for that was over pictures I posted that in retrospect I think could have been categorized as “educational purposes.”
PurpleSpace sez:
I seem to recall my elementary school basing your learning experience on multiple choice exams that they told you were not for a grade; however, they were actually more important because they would determine if you were taught more advanced subjects.
Indighost sez:
@Purp: That’s interesting, I remember something similar.
I don’t have a clue as to what criteria they used, but my elementary school (somewhere in Pennsylvania) placed me in something called “Challenge”, which at the time I thought was a secret training group for the future Illuminati.