During the winters throughout my childhood, I remember going to "Hospital Hill," to go sledding. It was a great big hill, perfect for sledding. It was called "hospital hill" because the hill used to be part of a psychiatric hospital. The story is, that hospital eventually closed down, leaving all its patients to care for themselves, eventually ending up homeless on the streets of Northampton. I also heard terrible stories about how they tortured their patients at that place, as well as ghost stories of school busses being pulled up the that hill by the spirits left behind. Today, there is still a large portion of homeless people in Northampton, and I just wonder if there is a connection to the many psychiatric patients who were abandoned and left behind at that hospital so many years ago.
Today, as I find myself embarking into the field of mental health, I notice all these memories come back to me which relate. I believe that the mental health and psychiatric practices have vastly changed since, say 50 years ago, and I trust that the field is going in a more ethical and healing direction towards wellbeing-- while ceasing to ostracize those who struggle with mental illness. Because after all we are all human, and should all be treated as equals.
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