Finding Lillian

May 5, 2024 1:26 PM

Finding Lillian: The lost patients of Washington’s abandoned mental hospital [25m, Seattle Times] "He uncovered 200 headstones. She was searching for remnants about her great-grandmother’s life. This documentary follows two people's consuming quest to unearth the truth about Northern State Hospital and revive the stories of its forgotten patients." Companion longread article, The Lost Patients Of Washington's Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital [Seattle Times]
posted by hippybear (3 comments total)

There’s a series of podcast episodes related to this (first episode via overcast which is my podcast app). Thanks for linking to this. I hadn’t looked for any related text or visual stories yet. The entire series is incredibly good (but hard as you would imagine).
posted by R343L at 4:25 PM on May 5 [1 favorite]

No, sorry, I cannot. I know that most mental institutes are chock full of sad stories of broken , minds and lives. We still live in the dark ages of mental health and not only do people still fall through the cracks in the system, sometimes the cracks are forced wide open and people are shoved through. I've known too many sad stories to want to read another. I hate that when we can't help someone the answer seems to be to quiet them by any means necessary or make things worse. OK, I'm going to go be sad elsewhere.
posted by evilDoug at 2:47 PM on May 7

This is fascinating. I watch a lot of Who Do You Think You Are (the UK version) and there are a lot of people whose family members were in mental institutions and forgotten. As here, many died of syphilis because it can cause brain damage which could have you institutionalized. I wonder if Lillian was ill before she was sent to Northern State or if her husband just sent her there to get rid of her. That happened sometimes too.

Until I watched that Who Do You Think You Are I didn't know that you could be born with syphilis if your mother had it and were infected during childbirth.

The Seattle Times has an entire website of material related to Northern State. Just incredible. Thank you for this.
posted by ceejaytee at 12:42 PM on May 8