The Horrific Story of Bethlem Insane Asylum | Short Plainly Difficult Documentary

Comments · 584

• PL

  @PlainlyDifficult · 3 years ago · pinned

  Do you like this revived series? Have any suggestions for future videos, let me know in the comments. <br><br>This weeks outro video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OT-2reBUBc">https://youtu.be/1OT-2reBUBc</a>

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• ZA

  @zappababe8577 · 3 years ago

  The phrase &quot;going around the bend&quot; came from Bedlam. That was because Bedlam was reached by going along a curved road, so if you &quot;went around the bend&quot; it meant that you&apos;d gone completely mad.

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• TN

  @tncorgi92 · 3 years ago (edited)

  Hi John, I ran across an article in an old book that I thought might be worthy of a video.<br>In 1880, a tornado flattened Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people in less than a minute. The survivors, even the uninjured, &nbsp;began to show signs of extreme apathy and were unwilling to describe the event. The term &quot;shell shocked&quot; was not coined until 1915 but the Marshfield cases were the first medical mention of the affliction that we now call PTSD.

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• 10

  @100SteveB · 3 years ago

  I learned to drive in the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital back in the 80&apos;s. My mate was a groundsman there, and he used to let me drive his van around the hospitals roads. One of the roads was on an incline, so i could practice hill starts. After a few weeks of messing around on the roads of the hospital - totally unsupervised, I took my test at the West Wickham driving test centre and passed first time! Not something you could get away with these days I bet. Not been back there since then, but from what i see in your video it looks pretty much the same as I remember it. Though I don&apos;t recall there being a museum back then.

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• TH

  @thePrussian · 3 years ago

  “I actually enjoyed my stay at the various Bethlem Hospitals, especially the pubs and brothels, although drilling into my head was most uncomfortable.” <br>—-Lord Stanley Edmund Edmund, Mrs.

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• SN

  @snarkymoosesshack8793 · 3 years ago

  As someone who&apos;s been in IT, the spilling of the coffee and the defeated &quot;Shit.&quot; really hit home, and is indeed a very familiar feeling🤣

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• JE

  @jeffwalker7185 · 3 years ago (edited)

  I have been admitted to psychiatric hospitals on several occasions, sometimes detained under section two of the Mental Health Act. Whilst modern units are a world away from Bedlham, they still have quite far to go. There is litlte or no theraputic intervention beyone medication - they do however still use ECT. You rarely get to see a psychiatrist or therapist and, by and large, the main staffing presence on the ward is provided by Health Care Assistants, who have limited nursing training. They are brilliant and caring. &apos;Qualified&apos; nurses tend to spend most of their time in the nursing office doing paperwork. <br> <br>When my mental health crisis starts to recede, the biggest experience I have on the ward is utter boredom. There is nothing to do other than watch TV or walk up and down the ward. The hospital I was in had very restricted visiting hours and there was nowhere private to have a visitor. When I have been in hospital under a section, I was not allowed to leave the ward unless I was given Section 17 leave. Problem was, to take my Section 17 leave and get off the ward for a short while, I needed to be with a member of staff. Generally, no one was free to escort me off the ward, so my leave was worthless.

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• MA

  @Matityahu755 · 3 years ago

  I was a healthcare professional up until quite recently. One hospital I worked in was Mayday Hospital in Croydon. I lost count on the number of patients I transferred over to the Royal Bethlem Hospital in the 90&apos;s. Not enough was known or even talked about mental health unlike today. I often wondered what became of those patients who were having a psychosis and a mental health crisis. I too have been affected by a mental health crisis, largely impart to Covid19. My 32 years as a nurse have come to an end, and there are things I have seen recently, that can not be unseen. <br><br>Take care of your own mental health. If no one has told you recently, you are enough, and that you are loved just the way you are.

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• SH

  @shadodragonette · 3 years ago

  Given my sad state of mental health, I want to state EMPHATICALLY that being locked in a small room for all or most or even part of a day does NOT help! &nbsp;People need healthy interactions, some sort of healthy natural place to go to to just relax a half hour or hour or three. &nbsp;I have checked myself into a mental health facility, lasted about 9 days, and then was internally yelling &quot;get me out&quot;. &nbsp;A stupid schedule that didn&apos;t take in that some people have different sleep schedules (I am a night person, and being made to go to bed at 10pm just meant I tried to be quiet for 3 or more hours so I didn&apos;t disturb my room mate.) &nbsp;THEN they limited the coffee. &nbsp;I don&apos;t like coffee, but after about 3 hours of sleep, I needed the caffeine to survive the boring classes during the day. &nbsp;Some of the staff would look the other way while additional pots were made, some would not. &nbsp;The only thing I learned from all that was that I was the ONLY person in the building who had never used cocaine. &nbsp;Surprising, given I couldn&apos;t figure out how any of them could afford it. &nbsp;We were all poor, barely affording food and rent, so how did they afford the drugs??? &nbsp;I don&apos;t know, I probably don&apos;t want to know. &nbsp;Oh, and I also learned alcohol is actually the worst to detox from. &nbsp;They sent people who drank a lot to the hospital before they would treat them, because it is that bad to detox from. &nbsp;I don&apos;t know all the details, but I am sure you can find them.

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• CO

  @CommanderEliza · 7 months ago

  The Museum of the Mind is amazing, and the statues Melancholy and Raving Madness are my specialist subject. Imagine how many people gazed up at them at the Moorgate site, knowing they&apos;d never see the outside world again.

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• AN

  @andywagnac5255 · 3 years ago

  Please never stop doing “Here on this map” bit! Just the perfect icing on the dope cake that is your video!

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• NE

  @nerdygoth6905 · 3 years ago

  Glad you&apos;ve decided to revive this series, even if you don&apos;t go outside London there&apos;s enough to keep you going for a while! Not one place but perhaps the necropolis railway? The bit with the yellow star was chilling. And endlessly amused that whilst looking at the development of mental health treatment you still managed to find an engineering disaster.

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