Searching for 1980's Golden Valley MN Psychiatric Patients (Wilder: home, tax)

[Kayekaye]

Sammy, this is so true, who would listen to my sister and my friend? My friend is a public speaker and has just barely touched on her time spent there. She doesn't want to get into it either. Yes the abuser do know this and work this to their advantage. It's not fair and it should change. Just don't know how it can. My friend has found much healing and support in the church. I hope you can too, best wishes.

[Laurie83]

My name is Laurie and I was at Golden Valley in 1983. I spoke out for years about what happened to me. Yes, the scars remain.

[Sammy Williams]

So sorry to hear this, but please know you are not alone. It may have happened years ago, but I still struggle with the pain, suffering, and scars they left on my heart and soul when I was just a youngster. What is baffling is how this was allowed to happen at all. What is so wrong with our mental health community thst this was done to the weakest and youngest of their clients/victims.

What I find mist tragic is despite how much i hurt from having been at this facility, and the scars I carry and struggle to confront daily, I believed for a very very long time that it all my pain, suffering, and scars were my own fault. I thought I suffered from my time at this torture chamber because of the way that I am (or was) and because of my problems, my weaknesses, my failures and this us why I was hurt by my time at that place, and was not helped, like my peers. It was not until a couple of years ago, while talking to my psychologist, that it was brought into my awareness that what happened there was wrong and what they did to me was abusive. I knew it hurt and was difficult for me to cope with, but I assumed it was because of how sick or screwed up I was that was the cause of my pain. It took somebody else being appalled and shocked by this facility's treatment methods for it to even cross my mind that they are at fault and it is not because of me that I was hurt or bound my time there so traumatizing.

Well, I hope you're healing and able to move on, accepting that you are blameless in the situation and you did nothing to cause them to treat you and hurt you as they were so good at accomplishing. Wishing you all the best,
Sammy

[Laurie83]

Dear Sammy,

We are most definitely not alone in our experience. After I was released from GV (I was turning 18), I went to college, left for Europe for a year, and when I returned, I decided I wanted to file a law suit against GV for what was done to me. I contacted legal aid and found a man named Tom Wilson who was working against what I discovered was huge story happening to many teens. 60 minutes was doing a story on the subject, and were interviewing victims the very evening I contacted Tom. I spoke with them, but I was not yet ready to go public so I declined to do the story. Upon getting more information about what happened to me and countless other teens, I decided to go public and my first interview was with the Wall Street Journal. After that, I did many interviews, spoke to the Minnesota State Legislature, and I was asked by the Governor to serve on a board of advisers regarding children's mental health. I started a non-profit, which is no longer running, for children to speak out regarding such matters. I worked tirelessly for years to speak out about the situation for children, especially teens being put into locked units where the law had no standards for "practitioners". Children could be treated worse than adults because the laws only covered the adults. It was an insurance scam that made many business people and doctors very rich because children were an easy target and it went far beyond GV. I am trying to retrieve the Newsweek article I was in (I have lost all the past articles and I am living in Thailand so getting them is difficult) so you can read about it. A man named Bill Johnson was a child advocate and worked far harder than I, and we celebrated when the doors of that miserable place closed. So yes, I have worked hard at healing old wounds. I had the same therapist for 25 years who actually went with me GV to look at my records (this was before they closed the unit). She wept as we poured through the pages. It helped me get over my shame by speaking out, and you seem to be on that very path. I wish I could find some of the teens I was on the unit with because I want to see how they are. Thank you for speaking out, thank you for surviving! All the best to you, Laurie

[Sammy Williams]

OMG!!!!! I had absolutely NO idea. As I read your post, I cried. I think from relief, but am not sure, as I can't explain it. Validation definitely! What year were you discharged from GV?

[Laurie83]

1983

[Sammy Williams]

I thought perhaps we had crossed paths back then, but no. I was admitted in 1984 and you were gone by this time.

[Laurie83]

Hi Sammy,

I can't get the past issue of Newsweek without paying money, and I would, but the mail here (Thailand) can be hit of miss so I don't want to waste my money. I believe the article is this copy of Newsweek, but I am not certain.

Newsweek January 20, 1986 (KADDAFI - THE FLAKY FANATIC - THE REAGAN PLAN TO STOP HIM - PSYCHIATRY: TREATING TEENAGERS, VOLUME CVII, NO. 3): JOE BISCOTTI: Amazon.com: Books

I did find an article you may find interesting.

Unjustified Psychiatric Commitment

I hope you are well...I am sending light your way.

Kind Regards,

Laurie

[Sammy Williams]

Laurie,
Thank you so much. I will definitely read the suggested article, and will search for the January 1986 issue of Newsweek. Some library must gave it on microfish or something. Thank you fir the emotional support. It has been a very long journey to this point in my life, and I still have so far to go. But, atleast I know I am capable of healing these old scars and history of abuse. Wishing you the best as well,
Sammy

[Dana W]

I was in it in 1978, in the smaller juvenile building down the hill between the two larger hospital buildings. I can remember it well. Unmitiagted sadism, I had my lip split, people pissed on my bed, and in my shampoo, punched me out regularly, stuff smeared on my face when I slept, I remember being fed mega-doses of benadryl and walking around in a haze, and when the misery was too much I threatened to escape and spent a day manacled hand and foot, spread eagle to the bed.

The group activities were a horror. I know this is a silly one. But I can remebr getting in real trouble becuse we had to vote on a song about how we felt as teenagers, we were half Kiss fans and Half fans of Earth, Wind and Fire. the Earth Wind and Fire side won, and I was supposed to tell them How I Identified with a song I didn't know from a band I hated. I told them I didn't Identify with it, I was told the group said yes, so therefore I DID identify with it, and I was seriously punished for refusal to co-operate. they were that nuts. Almost none of them were even mental health people, they were just picked out of the nursing pool staff.

The lounge program sounds familiar, The earning system, "Earn it all system?" what a joke, you didn't get any rights or freedom at all till the last week or two before you left. If you want to, email me at vw_tak@yahoo.com its my spam catcher address, so it may take me a while to respond. My great grandmother always said "That place ruined me"