The Dark Story Of The Asylum Compared To Concentration Camps: Byberry State Hospital

Comments · 405

• TH

  @thraciangrapes · 6 months ago

  And of course today the entire area and the city is filled with psychopaths who are far more dangerous than an abandoned mental patient.

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• HE

  @Hezakiah4-t9q · 6 months ago

  I remember when they were tearing it down. It had closed 16 years before that. When it closed, they just turned mental patients out on the street.

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• MA

  @margaretperpente3910 · 6 months ago

  My grandfather was a Merchant Marine since he was 14 years old, because back in those days, kids worked instead of going to school, and I can only imagine how tough life really was. With that said, my great grandmother was my grandfather's everything, and when she passed, my grandfather went off the deep end. Mental illness runs deep in my family tree. When my grandfather went off the deep end, he was already a father of 4 children and married, and became extremely abusive. My grandfather would run wires from the tv and up all along the ceiling while the tv screen would be 'snow'. He would take apart anything that was electronical and there was no longer a house phone because he said "the coats were listening". He would sit in front of the tv, drink black coffee, smoke brown cigarettes, and talk to the 'snow' on the tv screen. He would buy a new Cadillac every year and attach wires from the hood of the car to the engine. He took all the doors from the hinges, including the bathroom door, and he would have his chair at the table facing the bathroom. He didn't trust no one. Those are just a few examples of what he would do. So my grandmother finally got fed up with him, because mental illness was still a mystery to people, and she had my grandfather committed to Byberry. For decades he would be in and out of Byberry, receiving shock therapy, amongst other experimental therapies. I remember as a child, driving past Byberry, I'd see patients walking around outside with the orderlies in all white watching after them. As I got older, I went into Byberry with friends, and scary things happened. I've been in the maximum security building and the feeling of something on my back or standing close to me was HEAVY! You could feel the physical torture as well as the mental torture still thick in the air. There was so much left behind, paperwork, equipment, clothing, and misery. Right now on the property stands some type of warehousing unit, but the spirits will always be there!

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• JA

  @janeteisenberg4097 · 6 months ago

  I remember  visiting Byberry in the early 1970s during an open house to the public. I couldn't believe it was opened to the public. I remember patients lined up in chairs against the walls, just sitting with nothing to do.  They even had a ward for blind patients.  There are no words to describe it. When I was a student nurse, some students went there for their psych rotation.  I was glad I didn't.  I later worked at the Woodhaven Center, where we had patients who had been at Byberry and Pennhurst.  They all had terrible stories in their charts about what happened to them there.

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• DI

  @divermike8943 · 6 months ago (edited)

  I used to commute from the suburbs to Reading Terminal in Downtown Philadelphia and then take the Market Street line. Every day, I saw the same homeless people, often sitting in the terminal or on the steps to the subway or on the street. Then I saw a local newscaster do a story about these people. It was long ago, but I believe it was Larry Kane who did the story. I was watching and saying, "Hey, I know that man. I see him every day. That guy, too." The newscaster took one of the men to Byberry Hospital, and the staff were saying, "Thank you. He got away from us. We were looking for him." The next day or so, the newscaster found the man back on the street, sitting in the same spot. He couldn't communicate with anyone. He brought the man back again and confronted the staff. They admitted that they had no funds from the state to continue caring for these people and were just taking them downtown and releasing them. Most couldn't even talk or do anything but sit and suffer.

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• JE

  @jeni2114 · 6 months ago

  I remember I was 17 a group of us went here . It was abandoned. There were cages and chains in the basements. We stayed for a bit but left afraid we would get arrested for trespassing . It was so disturbing.

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• DO

  @doingstufforatleasttrying4843 · 6 months ago

  I never will forget walking through the building around 1992. It was full of graffiti and trash. We didn’t have cameras on our phones back then but, I will never forget the horror we saw that was written on the walls in the basement. The buildings were ready to fall down. There were no steps or stairs. Our only flashlight went out and we took off. The family that lived behind the building were supposedly inbreds and one try chasing us. We were in our 18s I think. I do remember driving. I miss those days. 4 of my friends are no longer with us. Life is crazy.. I just can’t imagine how they got away with the abuse for so long. <br>Thanks for sharing the story.

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• SE

  @sergbazylskiy2067 · 6 months ago

  Taking a tour through here at night in the nineties was considered a thrill.

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• JC

  @jcolucci1982 · 6 months ago

  My mother and Father met at Byberry.....I promise i am normal

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• BI

  @BillSlag-p7p · 6 months ago

  Remember it well. Growing up the mental hospitals in PA, Byberry, Norristown , official name actually was “State Lunatic Hospital at Norristown. Penhurst,were always talked about and scarey story’s told by and to us kids. <br>The graft and corruption that went on was unbelievable. Bad places. Poor souls.

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• EL

  @ElleCee62978 · 6 months ago

  As a Philadelphian, Byberry always terrified me. &nbsp;I knew people who had explored there in the late 90s. &nbsp;The one girl was never okay afterwards.

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• MR

  @MrJommins · 6 months ago

  The souls of those people haunt the grounds. You can feel the disturbances as you drive by.

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