Refections of a Red Rocking Chair of Despair

Rooms like this left behind in an abandoned institution paint a picture of the once neglect and abuse suffered by those institutionalized these state run mental institutions...that the public were able to view for themselves on evening television news programs that only a few photo journalist news reporters took it upon themselves in the 1960's adn early 1970's to make in their mission to expose the deplorable living conditions in places like this that were meant for and intended to care for the well being of the mentally and physically challenged. The one thing they all noted during their reports is the one thing their cameras could not depict to their viewers was the smell, the smell that pervaded through all the common rooms and hallways such as this one over crowded with 80 or more residents filling a room with no one to care for their needs, shown lying on the floors in covered in their own human waste or vomit, rocking against walls, malnourished, un-bathed, they noted in their news cast it was an inconceivably putrid smell...and the footage shown on these local news stations which depicted these deplorable inhumane conditions of these institutions... was hard for the regular viewers to stomach especially knowing this was happening in their own community. On the flickering monochrome televisions of this era shown images of full-grown hands and feet bound by straps and restraints to adult-sized crib beds. Inmates of the institution were shown half naked, rocking, pacing, and twitching. Many were severely disabled either mentally or physically, but others were quite lucid and coherent yet were very withdrawn into themselves because of over-stimulation of the senses in these loud and sometimes frightening places, and a lack of much-needed mental stimulation and physical care for their needs. I one of these news segments a reporter asked one of the patients, a 12 year old boy who was left in the care of this place bc he was an abandoned orphan at the age of 3 and left in this institutions care...what he would like most in the world, if he could have anything he wanted, and the child with a sad and withdrawn response simply replied, “To get out of this institution.”
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