freddy3rd's blog: "open door virgin"

Marlboro State Hospital 1977 age 18 I was taken by ambulance to JSMC where I tried to escape admission by running across the parking lots with foam slippers and signing in with obscenity's. From there at night I was taken by ambulance to MPH. On the way with the lights going they asked me if I had any last requests, I remembered the mercury poisoning in the lakes north of here and told them all the useful things to do with mercury like thermometers and electronic thermo-switches. As I was bought into the carport they had me stripped and showered and took all m y belongings for state issued hospital wear. They interviewed me and gave me some pills. I don't remember why I was there but did not answer up to drug or drinking inquiries from the male nurse. I was placed in a room with around fifty people who were all waiting to see the doctor most of them in hospital gowns and a few of them showing all. There was a black and white TV playing bugs bunny cartoons Tom and Jerry and stuff during the daytime they played soap operas. I was taken to a dorm at nighttime after half choking to death from side effects on the telephone while begging to come home to Moms. They gave me a shot to stop the reactions and put me in a dorm with just the men who were mostly older than I. I slept on a cot and was awoken at six am for more drugs showers and breakfast. The usual powdered eggs thick bacon and cold warped toast. That evening I was taken to see the doctor who asked me allot of questions like the foreigner he was did not know who was the president what day it was time or year? While he was talking some women outside his window caught my attention flirting with me they said we could do it tomorrow. As a fact he asked if I heard voices referring to the girls outside I said yes. They told me in the morning I would be transferred to a cottage. I pictured a little cabin or bungalow in the Forrest with plants and acoustic guitars and went to sleep. The next morning after our routine they walked me down a long sidewalk to Monmouth County Men’s Cottage 11. Along the way there were folks playing ball and sitting on benches. We got there and went inside a large building resembling an English university size room with checker board floors and pool tables and a fire place with big rubber chairs all around with chrome handles. In the front were two offices and they began a chart on me saying I partied too much and would have to stop or I would be there forever. Across the lawn in the morning people did calisthenics on the lawn each morning I would try to join in but they would chase me away saying I was sick. I did not feel sick not the usual way but it was scary there and the people looked dangerous. Some of them would hurt themselves on purpose others would scream day and night and allot of them were smoking and doing favors to get more cigarettes or extra coffee, both of which I did not like much. After going into a room at night with a soggy bed wetters were escorted to the bathroom with dirty draws every night around ten. I got visits from my girlfriend and my friends from Freehold they brought me things and my mother would talk to the staff about how weird I was liking music like Frank Zappa or Wildman Fisher and tell them how much I loved to play chess. After meeting Dr Keycig I was told he knew I smoked pot and offered to keep me high if I gave it up he also gave me prescriptions for Stalinize Thorazine Prolixin and other inject able major tranquilizers and also a hypnotic called senequan, tremin and cogentin. I could not sleep with my feet twitching at nigh and nurse Holland would give me a shot to help me sleep. I went around with my clothes off to the pond to go skinny-dipping during the day and get away from the nuts. A group of student nurses walked by as I rose from the pond nude. They thanked me for my display of the male anatomy. Most of my cellmates went out to a bar the 520 bar at night I would not go and went to bed early at first. After seven days of working on my mother she agreed to take me back in I had not lived with her in almost a year by then. I went to court where they explained the hospital had to prove they could help me or let me go and had a grand mall seizure on the floor from the shots. They ran in as the judge exclaimed and hollered at the Doctor look what you did to this poor boy and they gave me another needle of cogentin in the butt. I was released to my mother’s custody. A month later after fighting about my medicines with the Red Bank Clining on River Plaza And staying away from they CPC on Court street I was working at Great Adventure and Fire and bar hopping when some one slipped me something. I ran from roof top to roof top firing an imaginary stick gun at the cops below climbing the bill boards over top the building downtown and running through back yards while playing army, I hid in the garage and the police and ambulance came in with flashlights and guns to flush me out for another visit to MPH>Age18 My girlfriend and I were ending it after she tried some of my pills and her neck got stiff admission two was in Cottage 11 also. Except the made me go take a schedule and I complained about the bed wetters and was place with the lifers. Who one at a time I got all there stories I got to see most of the folks were still there and gravitated towards another hippie looking guy like me to play Frisbee allot. I took green house and made some baskets and took music and banged some synthesizer and took gym and learned the speed bag basketball and played piano frequented pork chop hill and fell in love with Bridget Bardoe her real name was Mary Joe brewer but she was a prostitute and the preacher would not marry us. I was gullible and learned to steal what I needed with a master key I got addicted to cigarettes and coffee with lots of sugar and went to AA once a week. We went on Bus rides and I was caught in downtown Freehold after escaping the staff used to take me out to the club at night overseeing dope deals. I was a good straight man and figured with my fathers influence and the high school mates who now worked there I would not get into trouble. Month later I was discharged by Mr. Learner a social worker to The Asbury Carlton Hotel In Asbury Park and save up enough for a Beach badge. 6 month later I was taken back into jail for obscene ludeness and resisting arrest in Freehold Twp. I got into a fight with a patrolman while looking for some one at Stone Hurst apts. Here Name was Helen Skaffitti and worked with us on the parade. She wanted the steps for the grandstands and only I knew where I put them but I could not barter a deal to get out with them steps. I went to the holding tank covered in maise I was taken to court to see a deaf woman and a broken cop. I was in the holding tank when I decide to go down the hall and take a shower with out permission when the cell door was unlocked. I got humped into my cell and was moved with out apparel to Isolation in Civil II with a big dog growling out my cell I was taken to a priest) NO HELP) I was taken to Debalsy my old pal from tennis at JSMC where I had played and rapped bandages at future house he gave me senequan to sleep I flushed allot of things down the toilet like pills food and saw my mother very upset. A week of torment in my head went by and signed the paper to commit myself to MPH. I was transferred and soon after I was sentenced to 6 months for disorderly charges or something. I fought with the violent I lusted the girls I worked on a tractor in Freehold twp I overdosed over and over. And Often saved up my pills to do it. I made $900 working on that farm and went into a six week rehab called atlas I signed up for any Ginny pig treatment they had I went to DAC and Pathways while in gateway house awaiting to be discharged, I wound up in Men’s II to die twice I went to ITU for fighting with staff allot took place in six moths but I fell in love with another working girlfriend. I was discharged after going to see more then one place by Dr Nadis to The Carters boarding home first of sixteen more. I was brought in the next time and escaped Riverview's oppressive punishment for a motel in Sea Bright that makes four we are half way to now. Admission#3 was under a detainer and although the wood shop taught me allot the fact that folks were dieing and committing suicide was always wondering what happened to the old people from men’s II when they died. I thought sometime we were eating them. Admission # five age 22 I had just lost my case to raise my own baby I fought with a minor at Monmouth medical where I was being detained for extreme jealousy. The Gyn Had offer me shock treatments to get over the court decision but I turned them down he said one incident from you and your going to MPH. That’s how I got there the put me in admissions cottage O. allot of the hospital was coed by then and many of the old amenities were gone like the green house the wood shop the pool tables and the dining room in the service building was sectioned off and they had instituted a level system. I performed a wedding in the Admissions building one day and I hear the couple got out and moved to Florida together. I signed up for rehab in cottage 17 in order to get with a woman I kind of fancied but she was a marine and only like alpha males. While in rehab I kept a diary and signed up for another try at ridge lane where I had done three months prior. Ridge Lane was nice we had to cook our own meals do our own laundry and go to AA each and every night almost. I may have got this out of order a bit. But........... In Cottage 17 they were strict they urine tested us every time they left the building. I was always loosing privileges for pulling pranks at first but the judge said I had to complete that program and ended up in school again each night I went to building classes at the Monmouth county career school in Freehold by bus and came back and peed and started my time as the chairman of a meeting or going to meditation or getting treated for something else. By the time I got out I was on 8 medicines and had a long constantly changing diagnosis it went from combative to undifferentiated type of schizophrenia and the like. I had beaten a worked senseless for not allowing me a walk and got thirty days for fighting and I had worked over a social worker at Riverview who is in charge of Medicaid funding now. I was getting the reputation as a scrapper. I had had numerous hospitalizations in private hospitals and often had nowhere to go after spending all my money I was on the streets in a car or park awaiting the welfare office to auction my *** off somewhere else. I had turned to prostitution and worked the money into promises of homes and cars. So no matter what Atlas cottage 17 was not going to break my spirit of legal liberties. None the less I worked hard for five years as a Technion in a union after did not drink till my stepfather died and wound up in crisis and on the run from treatment for a year and a half I was 33 years old when the put me in Monmouth and escaping getting caught into Freehold’s Center state Hospital, and punching a doctor and back in MPH not knowing if I was animal mineral or vegetable going to court after thirty days to buy back a new apartment with the money I had save and thanking my father for getting me out of there. I did not sign anything mess with the women or volunteer and mph closed down a couple years later I was on the 450 plans. And had spent over two year of my life in an institution and 8 admissions at MPH and often very defiant. I happened to come across your journal a few minutes ago and was very intrigued by your story of being at the MPH back in the seventies. I'm writing a novel and part of the book takes place at this hospital. I grew up in that town and I always wanted to use the local area for a novel someday. I was only a kid back in the 1980's when the hospital was still running, but was always fascinated by the place. At the moment I'm doing research on it's history and when I came across your profile I was curious to ask you more about what it was like there (if you don't mind me asking). Anything you could recall from the place would be useful. I don't even know if people are allowed to go onto the property anymore since it closed down 10 years ago. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my email. I hope I haven't in any way intruded on you too much. Sincerely, Mandy Sent by freddy3rd Leave a NoteSend MessageAdd as FriendFreddy3rd Male, 49 years Highlands - NJ Member since Nov 2006 Mood: freddy3rd is ...Journal Entry: "Marlboro State Hospital 1977 age 18 I w..." [Read] Jul 01, 2008 05:15AM Dear Mindy, I love talking about the years I spent at Marlboro. It was like the Wild West and would definitely spice up your book if I told you all the antics that went on there. Most of the folks were older than me at the time and have since passed away. Probably without ever getting out. There were nicknames for everyone. We had a service building that the prisoners fed slaughtered and cooked for us from we had rows of trees and bushes in circles that we would do the nasty in as well as Pork Chop Hill a wheat field to really get some privacy. We threw parties in our men’s cottage to invite the three separate women’s cottages and swap medicines in and escape for beer and liquor in the woods. I would climb down the drain pipe and go jogging at 6 am and come back after stirring up some cattle (cow Tipping) into the coffee bar where the sold cups sugar and a spoon of instant coffee to mix up in the bathrooms before breakfast. We had pool tables in every cottage. We had a nursery where we did planting and macramé. We had a wood shop to build almost anything you wanted I even threw a concert in the lawn of the tramburg music dept for MPH day. I could go on forever telling you stories I just don't know exactly what you are looking for...call me up on my cell at 732-337 4859 we will talk. Thanks for your interest Fred Jul 01, 2008 06:10AM More about the little 900-acre self-contained community at Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital. Beneath Marlboro were a series of tunnels that ran under the sidewalks connecting each building with fall out shelters beneath the buildings. During inclement weather they would go down there to stay out of the snow. Sometimes in the summer months folks would stay down there with out checking in as a patient and get to hang out on the grounds with out being forced to take all that Thorazine. Marlboro grew its own food and raised there own cattle the had a power plant and an auto shop a police station laundry service. What really killed Marlboro was the government insisting on paper work on everything in triplicate. They came out with every trial drug ever known for any kind of malady and the gave them out to chart side effects unknowingly to many of the clients. We played allot of sports ad the student nurses would treat us like real nice and invite us to volleyball games in the gym. Above the administration bldg. were rooms for residents up in the addict. Across the other side of the property was a disciplinary cottage for people that broke all the rules. They had Isolation cells for each client. They also had an in closed court yard and a dining hall. They would let the clients outside in the cement yard to walk in circles and smoke. Every cottage had a cigarette lighter built into the wall you just push the button and it would light up. Cigarettes and coffee were the name of the game and were more valuable the dollars and cents. Mostly everyone was paid in Cigarettes Coffee and cookies. AA meeting got you a whole pack. Usually you would only get 3 for normal chores like making beds or mopping. At 9am everyone had to leave the building and go outside to let the clean up crew in. Toward the later years before it closed the put 70 people into one small room off the porch to get locked in while they did that. It was pretty bad when the over crowding came. We were locked inside all day and everything was whom you knew to get "privileges". They did a fifty-dollar allowance once a month and took you to the jigger shop to by smokes that you were not allowed to smoke and decaf coffee or soda. Usually discharge was in the boarding house communities in the poorer section of towns and day programs ruled your life. The Boarding home operators all met to talk about who was a threat and how they would get the doctors to teach them who was in charge. By way of hard meds. It seemed like in the institution the prisoners were getting jobs as human service teck-ni-tions they beat robbed and locked up anybody who acted up. The quite room became my favorite place to get away from all the fighting. The compliance was a double edge sword if you were compliant your treatment lasted longer the meds were stronger and the side effect drugs had there own side effects. If you were unmanageable you would get thrown out and your money would be taken away. Seemed like legalized black male to me I don’t know how I survived all the over doses and abuse. Sent by freddy3rd Jul 01, 2008 06:53AM As a young adult I found myself turning tricks for the man in charge of the dining room. He had a few houses and a personal collection embezzled treats in his house out back. Cases and cases of cookies and samples like juices and smokes. We were enlisted by Rich Cody to put a stop to this drug trade and bad treatment. So every week we would meet anonymously in a small cottage on grounds. I was going out at night with special privileges to witness transactions and be the straight man. Then tell him the street names for the drugs. Often there were death threats and the good nurses would trade look-a-like patients with other cottages for the night till the police would weed out fugitives in the night. One night I had to climb down the sewer to turn over a large stash of different pills. I stayed with the old folks for a few weeks after that in a ward where all of them stayed tied up all day except me. The inspectors came and everyone was out and about, but after they left they were tied up again to poles and metal chairs. I think most of them wished they were dead. Some of them must have been real asylum people escaping their country in hopes of freedom but got caught. They did not speak English or Spanish. During those couple weeks I did not have to take anything and had a girl friend they let me visit with. One of the nicest places I every stayed there was an independent living program past the restricted area over pork chop hill on Ridge lane. I was a beautiful home with 8 men and women the same age and counselors for each of us. We took our own medicines and cooked and cleaned and went shopping and out to shows as well as self-help groups. I got a job as a waiter in a cafe' on grounds and made decent money. They include allot of free time to unwind and gave me a fresh start in a three bedroom house in the community after loosing my daughter to adoption along with another patient and girlfriend. I stayed there for three years making great income and paying for very little but they sold the house and close down the program and I ended up living in a car I bought and fixed up from the junk yard, only to get caught and committed again. ALLL MENS LOCK DOWN COURT ORDERED TO REHAB 9 MONTHS MORE INTITUTIONALIZATION. Ooops ha-ha Sent by wildcard81 Leave a NoteSend MessageAdd as FriendWildcard81 Member since Jul 2008 Jul 01, 2008 12:29PM Hi Fred, Wow, that is quite a story! Thank you so much for sharing some of it with me. I would love to speak with you further about the place and your time there. I am in the process of speaking with the state about getting an opportunity to go and get a tour of the place, but so far no luck. I've read many stories of people who like to sneak onto the property at night, but I'm too scared to do that...lol. I have to make a trip down to the library in a few minutes, but I will give you a call later on today if that is OK. I look forward to speaking with you and I will talk to you soon! Mandy Sent by freddy3rd Jul 01, 2008 10:42PM There are a group of recovering NA's that retreat there back to the old days once a year. Sent by wildcard81 Leave a NoteSend MessageAdd as Friendwildcard81 Member since Jul 2008 Jul 01, 2008 11:36PM Oh really? Have you ever gone back to see the place? I called the state Treasury Department today and left a message with some guy to see if I could get permission to get a small tour of the place, but I'm sure it will be a while before I hear back from him. Some of the things I'm interested in knowing are the ages of the people who were patients there. You said most of the people were older than you while you were there. How much older? In their 20's & 30's? Or older? What was the youngest that was allowed to be admitted? One of the other questions I had was about the treatment of the patients. Were the nurses and doctors kind? Or were they abusive? I've read articles that said there was a lot of abuse in that place and that the patients weren't cared for very well. But I also heard that the place was very clean and nice. I'm just trying to get a better image of what it was like back then. What did the main building look like on the inside? Why were all of you medicated so much? Some of the deaths of some of the patients were due to over medication from what I've read. I'm also curious about was the tunnels. I read that a lot of patients escaped through the tunnels when they tried to get out, but because of how confusing they are, lots of people couldn't find their way out so they just died down there. Did that really happen? And last but not least, can you give me a description of how the cottages were set up? I know that the men and women had separate cottages, but where did the nurses and doctors live? I've seen the cottages, but it's been a while since I drove past them. They're all boarded up now...it's actually kind of scary there, especially at night! Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully we can talk more tomorrow. P.S. Do you know when the NA's retreat back there each year? Sent by freddy3rd Jul 02, 2008 08:19AM Hi Wild Card. There were all ages divided by county's I was mostly in Monmouth County Men’s Cottage 11 the women were in Monmouth County Women’s Cottage 12. There were 7 cottages facing each oth. C-11 was the one that later got the high fence. The Children’s cottages were #16 + 17. Off in the back by the baseball field it later became a Volunteers for America Cottage and finally it was ATLAS (alternatives to living something substances) A rehab. The Administration Bldg Had allot of floors in it (the main Bldg) they did dentistry. They believed in the fifty's that if you took out all the teeth of a patient they would not hallucinate. They took care of all medical problems there and had a court room on the main floor .All the people had to go through there in the basement were the car ports are off the sides were the admission units where they grouped all the folks in a room with a cigarette lighter on the wall and a black and white TV. The smell was bad and every one was in hospital clothes. The fly's buzzed around all day. The doctor would come into an office surrounded by social workers and immediately mobbed by patients. The most of them barely knew English but they were in charge and made reports for the judge. On the top floor the attic they housed residents and clean up people in rooms with slanted ceilings from the slate roof. It over looked the green house, which some pyro I met burned down. It was run by Mrs. Karnes a very friendly woman from Scotland. In the wings of the building upstairs were men’s II and women’s II that is where the geriatric patients stayed I mentioned that place before. It also housed all the administrators’ offices most of them had houses up on Doctors row behind the east gate and some wooden houses on Ridge lane across the south west side. Across from the east gate was the prison Where New Hope And Discovery house are now. As far as getting lost in the tunnels it was easy to get lost down there. Our old comrade Wally lived down there. He had Turret’s syndrome and would cuss out you mother and call you names and spit on you. He was also the head whoremaster and did vile things. All deaths were ruled suicides. Personally I escaped by the south side woods over the barbwire and took the old railroad tracks to Freehold. I took rabbit trails for 6 miles. I don’t know how to get out from underground unless you took it somewhere where they had and unlocked unpopulated building. The Main Building was beautiful on the First floor It had stone archways and paintings big sofas all the whole place had heated floors and they resembled a checker board. The woodwork was especially nice it was like the old chambers you see in old movies. The nurses had a cottage over by the post office. All the staff ate in a different dinning area at the service bldg. across from the clothes store and police station. Allot of us wore Army surplus clothes or MPH stamped ste issue clothing. Your own clothing would disappear soon after your first transfer. The Nurses were very nice most of the were black, some were in school still. The Doctors I met were all foreign and it was not they but the drugs they prescribed that were bad. They caused you to suffer in your sleep and shake all day if you could move at all. The orderly's were especially mean if you fell asleep and his pencil was your enemy Each cottage was set up the same way you had a vestibule and then an entrance with an office on the right and a med room on the left and as you look across the day rooms checker board floor there was a fireplace in the back in front of the porch and two doors to the porch a TV to the left and metal and rubber chairs butted up to one another with patients sleeping. Under the lower wood ceiling were the pool tables and card tables. The left and right wings had cubicles for patient sleeping areas and lockers with a desk in each cubicle, it was past the shower rooms an on the second floor first down below the stairs were the tunnel entrances then up stairs were more cubicles and another day room a little cozier up stair some of the rooms were private. The third floors had sleeping quarters for the janitors. I had seen some folks taken away from hangings off the fences over the tunnel entrances in he stairwells. All in the entire place looked like a big old University and had very decorative designs in the buildings. Leave a NoteSend MessageAdd as Friendwildcard81 Member since Jul 2008 Jul 01, 2008 11:36PM Were the nurses and doctors kind? Or were they abusive? I've read articles that said there was a lot of abuse in that place and that the patients weren't cared for very well. But I also heard that the place was very clean and nice. I'm just trying to get a better image of what it was like back then. What did the main building look like on the inside? Why were all of you medicated so much? Some of the deaths of some of the patients were due to over medication from what I've read. I'm also curious about was the tunnels. I read that a lot of patients escaped through the tunnels when they tried to get out, but because of how confusing they are, lots of people couldn't find their way out so they just died down there. Did that really happen? And last but not least, can you give me a description of how the cottages were set up? I know that the men and women had separate cottages, but where did the nurses and doctors live? I've seen the cottages, but it's been a while since I drove past them. They're all boarded up now...it's actually kind of scary there, especially at night! Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully we can talk more tomorrow. P.S. Do you know when the NA's retreat back there each year? Sent by freddy3rd Jul 02, 2008 08:41AM Lobotomy’s and potters field were our biggest fears. Call me I will give the guy to look up for the retreat's Name. Jul 02, 2008 09:06AM A little bit about my first couple visits there; my first stay was a week for observation. The men peed the bed and crapped in their sleep, we woke up at 10 pm each night for the place to get hosed off and mopped up. After complaining about men that pissed and shit themselves they put me upstairs with the murderers, they all had interesting stories but took no crap from punks like me. Each night around midnight somebody rang the fire alarm to get to go outside for a smoke. 11 alive we would scream. The old chitty chitty bang bang fire truck would show up back firing and wobbly we were having cigarettes on the front lawn. We don’t need no water let the M#$%^)(*&^ F~! @#$%^RRRRR Burn! then on my knees begging to go home to my mother they let me out. Sent by freddy3rd Jul 02, 2008 09:19AM I had had a allot of drugs administered before I went before the judge and had a grand mall seizure right in front of him. They gave me stellazine and prolixin in a needle. And a shot of cogentin in court in the isle while I flipped around like a fish. He scolded the doctor and said, "Look what you have done to this poor boy!" I had to go back in three weeks later for a month. I was in there 8 times and a ward of the state my family had disowned me, and moved into a retirement home in Asbury Park. Going into to fold bandages at the local hospital for 6 cents and hour and playing tennis against the doctors on Fridays. If I would loose they lowered my med if I win they would raise it. They had shaved my head in the hospital and filled all my teeth. My third visit started with a week of Isolation, and had frequent visits to the ITU or quiet rooms I stayed for 6 months with a work leave to drive a tractor on a farm in the sun on thorazine 900 mgs a day. After reaching an all time low with a 103 fever I was taken off the job, and started college.