This weekend I got to explore the decrepit remains of an asylum that was shut down nearly 30 years ago for the mistreatment of patients; one of the most deadly institutions in the United States, it has been called. 200 acres of asylum ruins, over 20 buildings with various trailers, school buses, and living quarters as well. I spent three hours there and only explored eight of the buildings. The size of the first building is 68,000 square feet. It is an incredibly overwhelming amount of stuff to see.
I walked the halls of the administration office, where the staircases and hallways are still littered with files of patients. I walked through the doorways where family members entered with their loves ones, hopeful to admit them to a better life. I stood in rooms where patients were overcrowded, and abused. Where they were left unattended for hours at a time. I saw bathtubs where people have drowned, I saw dozens upon dozens of hospital beds where people were chained to and forgotten about. I saw names scratched into the walls above the beds, and found shoes, and clothes, and pictures that belonged to patients. Suitcases still spilling out clothing, filing cabinets still holding paperwork detailing short term goals of patients who hoped for a better future. I walked around a campus that was built with such good intentions which eventually became a place of absolute horror. Underneath the graffiti, and the dirt, and the trash people left behind - I saw the reality of what it was once. I could feel the pain of the place, even decades later. Tragedy leaves a heavy feeling in the air, and it never really goes away.
To so many people, visiting an abandoned place is just a cool trip to look at old buildings and graffiti. To me, it’s so much more than that. It’s not only finding out the history, but feeling it. It’s standing in a building, tucked away in the woods to be forgotten - just like the people who once lived there. It's trying to imagine the unfathomable things that thousands of people endured in the very place my feet now touch. It’s standing in rooms that are not only littered with glass, debris, and old belongings - but also littered with memories and decades of pain, abuse, and suffering. It’s sitting inside of the chapel, in the very pews that once held people who prayed for salvation, to a god whose only answer was death. It's standing in a field that holds the bodies hundreds of people whose were loaded into pickup trucks and buried in unmarked graves.
It was such an incredibly raw, emotional experience, at least for me. I know a lot of people won't understand why I'm waxing poetic about some old buildings. It's far more than just finding a cool place to look at, it's feeling the connection to it, and it's remembering a place that the rest of the world has seemed to forgotten. The world has moved on, yet time has remained still at Forest Haven.
The pictures, as well as my words can't do Forest Haven justice. If you're interested in reading more about the history of it, this blog post is an amazing piece detailing all about it.