Do you like this revived series? Have any suggestions for future videos, let me know in the comments. This weeks outro video th-cam.com/video/1OT-2reBUBc/w-d-xo.html
The phrase "going around the bend" came from Bedlam. That was because Bedlam was reached by going along a curved road, so if you "went around the bend" it meant that you'd gone completely mad.
Going “doolally” came from India where if British soldiers went mad they were sent. It referred to Deolali camp where soldiers were accommodated on arrival and departure from India by ship.
I learned to drive in the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital back in the 80'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't recall there being a museum back then.
There's an asylum near me and a lot of people use it for driving practice. Lots of small roads, hills and multiple car parks for each different ward make it a good location.
Y'all are both making me smile here. Kinda nice that "learned to drive in a weird open area" is a common thing across the globe. Mine was my grandpa taking me to the local (mostly defunct) Racetrack, since it was basically just a huge open parking lot at the time. If we had something like this locally, we'd probably have practiced there, too. xD;
@@stuffedninja1337 I was lucky because the security guard was friends with my mate, so he turned a blind eye to the van constantly driving around the grounds. We used to be able to practice in all kinds of places, but over the years the opportunities become less and less - more security, number plate recognition cameras etc.
It’s too bad, in a way. I get that security needs to be a priority (everything from vandals to terrorists out here looking to screw up your landscaping), but restricting access to various environments is going to limit the capabilities of future drivers. Ofc, once they get past the “this is the brake, this is the throttle” stage, you can do what my grandpa did, and move the lesson to a small neighbourhood, if one’s available.
I learned to drive in the parking lot of a ski resort about a mile from my house, but over the summer when it was wide open and no one was there. They didn't employ any security back then once the season was over. The gate into the upper lots was locked, but the lower lots were ungated.
Hi John, I ran across an article in an old book that I thought might be worthy of a video. In 1880, a tornado flattened Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people in less than a minute. The survivors, even the uninjured, began to show signs of extreme apathy and were unwilling to describe the event. The term "shell shocked" was not coined until 1915 but the Marshfield cases were the first medical mention of the affliction that we now call PTSD.
“I actually enjoyed my stay at the various Bethlem Hospitals, especially the pubs and brothels, although drilling into my head was most uncomfortable.” --Lord Stanley Edmund Edmund, Mrs.
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. 'Qualified' nurses tend to spend most of their time in the nursing office doing paperwork. 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.
Excellent comment which throws into sharp relief the problems facing many disciplines in the NhS. Clinical time has been knackered by “money saving” elsewhere in admin so people paid to care and nurse end up administering the organisation. Senior management always have their own admin so they never see the corrosive effect that cuts have on the services below. Admin is and always will be the most important work in ANY institution or business or organisation. People trying to save money forget this at their peril as lack of decent comms admin etc often leads to disastrous care, with litigation, and public inquiries etc. thanks for the insight.
Sounds brutal but this wasn’t my experience at all in Canada. I was in for a month at UBC hospital for treatment of chronic depression that didn’t respond to medication. But it was voluntary. The alternative was drifting through life thinking about killing myself all the time so… Also modern ECT is safe and effective and is merely an induced seizure under anesthetic. The popular concept of what it is comes entirely from movies which aren’t accurate at all. Furthermore it was used in combination with medication, cognitive therapy and exercise programs. My entire day was filled with therapy related activities. My biggest beef was that I couldn’t bring my computer. (It was back in the days before smart phones)
ECT does actually have some medical use. They just use it in a very targeted way these days, pumping lecky through specific areas of the brain rather than all of it. As someone with schizophrenia I've long considered asking my doctor for it. Just a few treatments. But yeah it has to be with consent, and it can't be the old fashioned version of ECT which damn near blew people's heads open
You are summing up not only the problems of psychiatry, but also of modern medicine in general. A very worrying trend I see is that medical professionals are sent to the desks and patient work is being delegated to assistance jobs. First it was the doctors who were pretty much banned to the desk and the nurses who received more and more responsibilities. Now it's even the nurses who sit at the desk all day with nursing assistants doing the patient work, whereas I as a (soon to be) doctor sit at my desk writing up orders and notes and only seeing my patients (of which I have up to 40) for five minutes a day during rounds. This is already quite frustrating in normal care wards for internal medicine and I can only imagine how detrimental it must be in psychiatry, where every minute of the day counts for the better or the worse of the patient. That is, btw, why I'm into intensive care. We still do so many specialised procedures that I have much more frequent contact with my patients. I have fewer patients on my ward and I see them several times a day. First for rounds, then for a thorough exam each day and then all the time in between for procedures.
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'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. 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.
The 90s when working in a care home home was mostly watching over 90+ year olds whom could cook and clean for themselves, more beef dripping/lard and red meat than you'll ever see people eat today. Very independent, times have changed and have to deal with people in their 50s and 60s near death with poor mental health. They're fed "healthy" in todays standards but just deteriorate faster. There was a prison experiment back iin the which is hard to find where they kept two prisons on high carb and the other on saturated fats and meat, the ones on fat and meat had significantly less mental and physical issues while being significantly less likely to reoffend.
The Asylum moved to the heart of London. Current location: Houses of Parliament, St Margaret St, London SW1A 0AA. These days, you can watch the patients on TV and via Livestreams.
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! People need healthy interactions, some sort of healthy natural place to go to to just relax a half hour or hour or three. I have checked myself into a mental health facility, lasted about 9 days, and then was internally yelling "get me out". A stupid schedule that didn'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't disturb my room mate.) THEN they limited the coffee. I don't like coffee, but after about 3 hours of sleep, I needed the caffeine to survive the boring classes during the day. Some of the staff would look the other way while additional pots were made, some would not. The only thing I learned from all that was that I was the ONLY person in the building who had never used cocaine. Surprising, given I couldn't figure out how any of them could afford it. We were all poor, barely affording food and rent, so how did they afford the drugs??? I don't know, I probably don't want to know. Oh, and I also learned alcohol is actually the worst to detox from. They sent people who drank a lot to the hospital before they would treat them, because it is that bad to detox from. I don't know all the details, but I am sure you can find them.
Alcohol detox is called delirium tremens when it goes badly. They use to give people a benzodiasepine called librium to forbid this to happen. They sometimes give alprazolam (xanax) instead. They usually diminish the doses gradually. It happens when heavy drinkers stop suddenly. They can have fever, heart issues and hallucinations cramps and it's a very dangerous situation. *English isn't my language.
@@xminusone1 I did hear some of that when I was in the mental hospital, but I didn't pay much attention. I was there so I didn't take many knives to my wrists after I lost custody of my son. He is now 22 and still has his mom, so he's happy. I don't like to imagine how he would be if I had succeeded. Never ever try to kill yourself, the people you leave behind will blame themselves if they are innocent, and clap if they hurt you. You should outlive those who hurt you and clap instead. NOT kill them, that still gives them a win.
I have been both the mentally ill person and the employee at different points! (When I got better I went back to help) And yeah, I was always told alcohol and heroin were the worst to detox from. Saw a number of them and it seemed like it was true 😬 people really underestimate how prevalent alcoholism is and how it absolutely RUINS peoples lives. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for prohibition, just more knowledge and better treatment. Watching clients drink cleaning supplies to try to get the alcohol that was inside in small amounts was a lot.
What's your describing sounds like a dual diagnosis facility. I was in one for alcoholism. They treat mental health as well as the psychiatric issues. I agree there's a lot left for improvement. I guess my only thoughts are that they do the best they can with the variety of patients they get. Mental health care in the United States is severely lacking.
Glad you've decided to revive this series, even if you don't go outside London there'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.
Penn State had a class called 'The History of Madness and Mental Health' that taught a lot of this in the daily lectures. Loved the new perspective and insights. Definitely big on the legacy scale.
Hey Jon - look-up Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania here in the States. It's one of the most haunted places in North America. Crazy stuff happened there. Keep up the great work! Love your vids. 👍👍👍 "Those incarcerated in this prison were subjected to both physical and psychological torture. Some of the famous methods used here included the ‘Mad Chair’ where prisoners would be strapped tightly in and be left sitting completely motionless for days without food and water - often driving them to insanity. Other methods included clamping their tongue with the ‘Iron Gag’ which would cause severe pain and bleeding if they tried to speak, and throwing prisoners into ‘The Hole’ where they could be kept in a dark pit for weeks at a time."
In the "Deep South" of the U.S. they didn't need "the hole" in such terms... AT least not the same as Pennsylvania or on the Rock... Down here, they'd put you in the "Hot Box", which was a metal shed about 4 x 4 feet, in the open sun... no windows, and just enough ventilation to ordinarily support a human relatively indefinitely... In the 100 degree summer heat, however, when there's almost no breeze outside... well... you can imagine approximately what it's like in a little bitty metal oven on the inside... ;o)
It's interesting looking at the old maps and see where the names of places we go to & hear about on a regular basis come from. Moorfields, Spitalfields, were once fields.
Many years ago I went to a mental hospital along with some horses so that the patients could have a ride. Two attendants came out with a patient secured between them. He was in a straight jacket. As they passed he looked at me. I can still see those eyes after all these years. He was stark raving mad. One lap of the lawn and he was taken back inside. Everyone else was almost silent for a while. Then the horse I had had a pee and the spell was broken. That poor, poor man, there was no hope. There but for the grace of God - go any of us.
I been in and out psychatric Hospitals too.1. stay had me traumatized from the start as they set me off strong Meds I've been given before without any Substitute or Help. Also they used Beds with Restraints beside Meds. I managed that once. 15 Years ago now. Biggest Problem I see ever again is Boredome and Loneliness due to Understaffing and under/missqualification induced mishandling. Other ones where different in handling Crisis and even did want me to go down slow off Prescribed Meds on a Dose that was just cute in my Opinion and former Experience.. I still have Problems with certain Hospital settings because of my 1. full Stay, out of free will, didn't had the Chance making 'Friends', so didn't understand why I was 'punished' and for what. The Meds I took in Crisis where strongly addictive physically, restricted norm. for over 18 only, so they just not gave them indifferent to the Consequences. Couldn't make much Trouble anyway, unable to move much from the Cramps.
The history of UK county asylums and asylums in general is fascinating in general. Really interesting video! Also liked the Boards of Canada / Protect & Survive flavoured music at the end.
In Russian-speaking world, there is a second asylum with a cult status (not as great as Bethlem, but still more than noteworthy): Kaschenka/Kanatchikoff's Dacha. Officially named Peter Kaschenko Psychiatric Hospital, it's been around for quite less time than Bethlem, but shares its role as one of the first modern type mental institutions.
If you are doing videos on this topic I would highly recommend looking at Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where Titicut Follies was filmed. A documentary that directly led to much change in mental health institutes across the US. Also one of the most chilling documentaries I have ever seen.
I saw the plaque near the Imperial War Museum, but had no idea the building was part of Bethlem! Almost scary how fitting that is. Plus, you can't best a museum that has a V-1 and V-2 in the atrium...
THe Killing Floor 1 Bedlam map was heavily, heavily based on both the building and the 1946 movie, from memory it was based more off the actual building than the film, with a bit of fictionalizing and tweaking to suit KF's story, but walking around it even when all was quiet between waves, knowing the history of the real hospital, always was very, very creepy. Well done, Tripwire Interactive, well done. Given how London centric KF1 was, I don't doubt that's the actual building in the KF1 map as well now I think about it and see the pictures though. Anyone who owns the original Killing Floor and has the Bedlam map and a few spare ours able to check how accurate the map is?
i only know of bethlem from historical fiction, so this was really interesting!! i’m a psych grad student and the history of mental health treatment is both horrifying and fascinating to me. thanks for sharing this!
I live near the current location and used to walk through the Imperial War Museum going to work regularly. This has been an amazing watch for my own local knowledge!
I wonder how many of us climbed and crawled along the barrels of the guns outside The Imperial Museum . I did at aged 10 in the 70's and they had to call the Fire brigade
I'm so facinated with the study of the mind and the history of this subject. I really hope medicine evolves as well as technology that might help find a way to enhance our knowledge, see key factors, pathways, connections and how to appropriately treat them. I really hope we improve our treatment because currently we really don't have much options. SSRI meds and others similar are very hit and miss with if they even help a patient and they really mess with your chemistry as you're going through the process of trying to figure out what works for you. I'm just hoping more options get discovered because it really doesn't seem correct to blanket treat certain things with "meds to increase serotonin" that might not even be the correct manner to approach. We really need further studies and it will be interesting to see if we advance into a new chapter of "mental health treatment, medicine and testing/imaging"
We don't know why mental health medications work. Like, we have no idea why physical/bio-chemical process they undergo that makes them work at all. That's why it's all trial and error. For me, having schizophrenia, simply finding an anti-psychotic med that puts me to sleep guaranteed every night has practically made my symptoms disappear. I'm lucky. It took me a lot of trial and error with my doctor. All I can say to anyone who's also suffering is that if your meds suck and you hate the side effects, simply tell your doctor immediately. Ideally don't stop them cold turkey (although I had to do that once, with Aripiprozole, cos I practically had an allergic reaction to it and had to stop taking it immediately, it was a nightmare. But I told my doctor and support worker/nurse immediately and they understood and got me in for an emergency appointment). So yeah, just keep your doctor (i.e. your psychiatrist, since they decide on what psychiatric medication you use, not your General practitioner/family doctor, the latter only prescribes what the psychiatrist tells them to prescribe) There's no need to keep taking the same awful medication for 6 months until your next appointment with the shrink. Tell them immediately that you want to try a different one. I wish I'd done that. Because the original drug they put me on, olanzapine, put me to sleep, but made me very obese (olanzapine does that to everybody who takes it, it's unavoidable, it messes with your fat depositing hormone i.e. insulin). I am permanently disabled because of that. I use a walking stick and I'm only 33. I'm on a ton of pain meds. Olanzapine caused the herniated disc in my spine which makes me disabled. I wish wish wish wish I had said something before it got so bad. Any young mentally ill people reading this, please please tell your doctor if your experiencing any negative side effect, including rapid weight gain. Because that ruined my life. The drug I eventually found is Quetiapine, which puts me to sleep but without the weight gain. But the best drug is different for every person. Everyone's body chemistry works differently. So just keep asking your doctor to try a new med until you find one that suits you and you like the side effects (like the drowsiness quetiapine causes is technically a side effect, but it means for the first time in my adult life I can sleep every night, and lack of sleep is the biggest trigger for me to have an episode of psychosis). But yeah you're right, a lot more research is needed. But right now, we just don't know how these drugs work. We just know that they do. So it's all just a process of trial and error. What you can't do is solve an illness like schizophrenia with good vibes. Medication is pretty much necessary. It's the only way to stay you.
Fun fact: I used to teach drama at bedlam! Well at the imperial war museum in London which is in the building of old bedlam. We still had manacles and old fashion doors and locks xx
I like the sound of reviving the series. Look into the copper works in Swansea, Wales....I think it was called white rock? In not sure....crazy history though!!! And I can't imagine the damage done throughout the years...workers life expectancy was only 35 to 45 years old!
This was a great video, and I appreciate all the time you took to give so many details. Thank you for posting this, and please do some more videos like this.
Bethlam's final home is a sunny south-east corner of London...John's in a sunny south-east corner of London....... Is there something you're trying to tell us, John? Super looking forward to this series continuing!
unfortunately a big issue with their treatment is that for what they intended to achieve, and with what they believed was actually happening, their treatment "worked". a first primary goal was to get the lunatics, the posessed, and the dulled, (to say it in their words) off of the streets. so first among anything it was a prison for weird people. when it comes to the treatment itself, they worked with what they knew and had, and tried new things. if it worked it worked. they were often of course also troubled people. since they spend all day trying to understand and help those that have seen the worst of it all. but with what they had and knew, they did try their very best, and ultimately, that is how we arrived here, through their mistakes have we achieved a world where we can actually rely on a well researched and funded medical system.
That outtro is just the thing for GenXers who remember growing up convinced adults were going to kill them in a nuclear exchange! Whee, yes, I'm sure that was great for our mental health! XD This is fascinating and definitely difficult. I've been working my way through Dracula lately, of all things, and as a lot of it takes place in a mental hospital, it's interesitng to see some of the common factors between fiction and reality. I suppose Bram Stoker may well have stopped by this very hospital to research his book; he seems to have done his homework.
Good choice of topic going into Halloween, and perfect time to bring back Strange Places. The National Archives' map beverage mishap... Pythonesque foot... "The writing was on the wall"... another classic, with Patented Plainly Difficult comedic seasoning.
This was very insightful short doc on a place I didnt know about. As an American, I would love to know about other strange places in the UK, given it will take a while for me to afford to travel there.
I must not have been around when you initially did "strange places," but I really enjoyed its resurrection. Keep doing this! I enjoy just about everything you do. Cheers.
ECT is still regularly used by the NHS for long term depression and mental illness in elderly people. It is hard to find statistics but around two to twelve thousand sessions are still administered annually.
I’m surprised if it is that few. In Canada more than 15k treatments are administered annually, to all ages (other then children), and most psychiatric hospitals have an ECT program.
I first became interested in Bethlem after playing the Nintendo64 port of the DOS game Bedlam. This was the mid-to-late 90s, so Wikipedia was not a thing back then, but I was volunteering in the school library half an hour a week and had pretty much free access to research that way. I sort of took the Behtlem > Bedlam connection as gospel, but the sources I had available only took me as far back as the 1800s, so the connection Betlehem > Bethlem was never made. Thank you for re-igniting my fascination with the history of this place, and teaching me more about the things I missed out so long ago!
My mom had shock therapy here in the US during early fifties after I was born it did help. Somewhat like hitting reset on a computer. Better drugs now have a bit softer approach, but any intervention has risks involved.
ECT is still used, though under VERY heavy sedation to prevent physical and neurological damage. They also use a far weaker current and the seizures are much shorter (if everything is done properly anyways) which means memory loss, while still present, is less of a problem, as are the other neurology-related side effects. I'd say your mother was lucky to have had a positive outcome. Psychiatry was still plum full of quacks back then.
In Jr High, our English class was structured on a 15 day cycle. Day 5, 10 and 15 would be dedicated to etomology. One etomology I recall distinctly in 6th grade was Bedlam. While Mr. Trunk didn't go into massive detail, he did cover the general overall history of the hospital.
Years ago, I looked through some archives in Winchester, well, photocopies. There was a class of people called "sturdy beggars." They could not settle to work or support themselves. There seemed to be a narrow age range, and I still wonder if they went off into the countryside to avoid other people, or got scooped up and put in whatever institutions were around at the time. In our time, It hasn't helped that psychiatrists, MD & PhD, have been relegated to writing script.
I sometimes wonder if it might be time to go back to the old asylums. Not because they were a great idea, they weren't, but because what we have instead is not much, if at all, better. Maybe my area is a particularly bad area but the MH provision is so underfunded and abysmal it might as well not exist. If you're not at the mad-axe-man level of insanity you'll wait forever for an appointment with a shrink and when you do get an appointment it'll be with a locum psychiatrist who obviously couldn't care less. My last one couldn't understand me and I couldn't understand her as her English was worse than my French and my French is abysmal. I don't expect everybody should speak English with an RP accent but it would seem a rather important qualification for a psychiatrist in England to at least understand English. I gave up about three years ago when a moderate (by my standards) crisis resulted in me being referred to a 'mindfulness' course which seemed to be run by the cleaning staff. Patronising, insulting, infantilising, highly offensive and it added up to little more than "FOR GOD SAKE PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!". It was supposed to be a ten week course and lasted one and a half... That's when the last half dozen of us walked out when we were told to feel a raisin... No... Not a typo... We were supposed to think about what a raisin felt like. WTAF? Of course this 'course' was designed to do one thing and one thing only. Hit a target of being offered treatment within six weeks or whatever it was.
Unlike some poor folks in these comments I suffer with no mental health issues that I know of at least. What I DO suffer from is a wicked sense of humor & I see the video editor does as well. Spilling the tea on the map then watching it come out of the oven made me absolutely laugh out loud. That was great! Well done. Keep up the great work.
As someone who truly needed hospitalization at one point briefly, and had it, though the 'treatment' was not great at all, it was mostly fair, and free from being tortured. My god....!
I love the euphemism of "mental health treatment." Mental health doesn't require treatment; mental *illness* does! But the theory goes that it's stigmatizing to suggest that florid psychosis or suicidal depression is anything other than part of the glorious tapestry of human experience.
Thanks for covering this. I'm in the U. S. It's interesting to see how mental health treatment has evolved. I'm not quite understanding that last few minutes of film, though...
0:00: 🏥 Bethlem Hospital, with a history of over 700 years, represented madness and chaos, but also provided treatment for some. 3:54: ! The history of Bethlem Royal Hospital and its early patients. 7:56: 🏥 The video discusses the history of a hospital and its move to a new location. 11:24: 🏥 The 18th-century hospital, Bethlem, used cruel treatments and was in poor condition, leading to the decision to rebuild. 15:16: 🏥 The 19th-century asylum system in the UK focused on classifying patients and providing some level of comfort and treatment. Recap by Tammy AI
In regards to electroconvulsive therapy: That is actually still an effective and modern treatment, although not as seen in the movies. In modern times, the electric shock is given under anaesthesia and muscle relaxation such that it is painless for the patient and does not run the risk of uncontrolled convulsions with subsequent injuries. To this day, nobody really knows *how* it works, but somehow it *does* work, for example against otherwise therapy resistant psychosis or even depression. Not with everyone, but it's certainly worth the try. There is this story from my psychiatry rotation. They had a schizophrenic who got on pretty well with his life with some light medication. However, once every two to three years he'd still suffer a relapse and be admitted utterly nuts. He'd get his shock, was back to normal and a week later he was back home completely fine. This went on for quite a few years without problem. One day however, one of these idiotic anti-psychiatry "patient initiatives" (to call it that is an insult to the many helpful and well-researched patient initiatives) had convinced him to write up an advance care plan, basically a will but for doctors what to do when he can't decide. In that care plan he now explicitly denied consent to "such brutal treatments as electroconvulsive therapy". They never really got him stable enough to discharge again. That idiot and those fuckwits of said "patient initiative" signed his life sentence.
One of my very best friends who is also a G.P. suffers from bi-polar disorder, when he's having an episode he not only gets very manic he pretty much goes completely mad for the lack of a better term, ie thinking that the TV is talking directly to him and that he has just got off the phone to the President of the U.S. etc (and we are in Australia), he can feel an episode coming on and we his friends can see it too, when he feels it coming he takes leave from his work and checks himself into a mental health hospital where he gets E.C.T. it's the only thing that he's found that really helps him, he describes it as being like a reset or having his harddrive wiped with a fresh re-install of his operating system, he loses all short term memory from it when the treatment is complete he has no recollection of it and also no recollection of the week or two leading up to checking himself into the hospital.
@@ats-3693 Good to hear that he's found a way to deal with his mental disorder so effectively and that he's found some psychiatrists who have the balls to just do what needs to be done.
I'd recommend a video on a possible nuke dropped in the St Lawrence river in the 50s, and the increase in local cancer cases from the radiation. It was mentioned in a Farley Mowat book and I have been wondering about it since.
Not gonna lie, I kind of miss your original intro music😂 I always would end up singing along to it, and I loved how the images on the screen would shake along with the music
It's interesting learning about the origin of the word "bedlam" for me, personally, because that's what local (American) football games between the two teams are between Oklahoma University, and Oklahoma State University are called officially now, all because in some newspaper, the reaction of the crowd at the end of one of the early-ish games was referred to as bedlam. There's a fun split in Oklahoma's culture where families are either OU or OSU fans, and then there are families like mine who like both, but it's all in good fun. I'm thankful it's not like Scotland where you can get injured or killed over liking a team because of religious associations and such. Now THAT'S bedlam, and not in a lighthearted sense.
Supreme work! -As usual. I love your work on nuclear accidents and other toxic topics. And on the matter of your music, I'm impressed, and I like the "organic" sound. It reminds me of Boards of Canada, -whitch I hope you are aquinted with. Keep up the good work! Cheers!
John can you please look into eastern state mental health hospital/prison in Williamsburg va usa its the 1st mental health hospital and prison in the usa
in 2002 I visited the Imperial War Museum at the former Bethlehem Hospital site. I love that a museum of war is in a former mental health hospital - so appropriate as war is a form of insanity. There are very few inpatient custodial mental health hospitals in the USA with most closed in the 1960's and 1970's as costs to taxpayers, advancements in drugs and other treatments developed and disclosures of horrible treatment and lack of staffing. Many buildings and campuses for custodial mental health facilities also started to deteriorate due to lack of maintenance, too costly to rehabilitate and not needed. One such site is Greystone in Morris Plains, New Jersey, USA that has largely been demolished and a more modern facility replacing it. Parts of the large site are used for park and recreation facilities. Sadly almost all of our prisons, with minimal mental health care available, have become filled by those with mental health problems including from use of illegal drugs.
I love this revived series. You don't need a different section for it because it falls in line with all your stuff - stuff that intrigues us and disturbs us, and we can't get enough of it!
Do you like this revived series? Have any suggestions for future videos, let me know in the comments.
This weeks outro video th-cam.com/video/1OT-2reBUBc/w-d-xo.html
Yo , what is the thing that keeps popping up in the top right i ve seen it in other videos as well, the barcode like thingy
How about a look at the Maunsell forts? Especially at their post-WW2 use?
you know i'd love to see you do a series on the machines and history of the industrial revolution ;)
I love any PD content, tbh but yes, this is great!
I do food reviews while I’m high off zaza on my youtube channel cx
The phrase "going around the bend" came from Bedlam. That was because Bedlam was reached by going along a curved road, so if you "went around the bend" it meant that you'd gone completely mad.
The more you know 🌠
Thank you!
Interesting fact😃
Citations por favor.
Going “doolally” came from India where if British soldiers went mad they were sent. It referred to Deolali camp where soldiers were accommodated on arrival and departure from India by ship.
I learned to drive in the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital back in the 80'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't recall there being a museum back then.
There's an asylum near me and a lot of people use it for driving practice. Lots of small roads, hills and multiple car parks for each different ward make it a good location.
Y'all are both making me smile here. Kinda nice that "learned to drive in a weird open area" is a common thing across the globe. Mine was my grandpa taking me to the local (mostly defunct) Racetrack, since it was basically just a huge open parking lot at the time. If we had something like this locally, we'd probably have practiced there, too. xD;
@@stuffedninja1337 I was lucky because the security guard was friends with my mate, so he turned a blind eye to the van constantly driving around the grounds. We used to be able to practice in all kinds of places, but over the years the opportunities become less and less - more security, number plate recognition cameras etc.
It’s too bad, in a way. I get that security needs to be a priority (everything from vandals to terrorists out here looking to screw up your landscaping), but restricting access to various environments is going to limit the capabilities of future drivers. Ofc, once they get past the “this is the brake, this is the throttle” stage, you can do what my grandpa did, and move the lesson to a small neighbourhood, if one’s available.
I learned to drive in the parking lot of a ski resort about a mile from my house, but over the summer when it was wide open and no one was there. They didn't employ any security back then once the season was over. The gate into the upper lots was locked, but the lower lots were ungated.
Hi John, I ran across an article in an old book that I thought might be worthy of a video.
In 1880, a tornado flattened Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people in less than a minute. The survivors, even the uninjured, began to show signs of extreme apathy and were unwilling to describe the event. The term "shell shocked" was not coined until 1915 but the Marshfield cases were the first medical mention of the affliction that we now call PTSD.
Wow, would love to know more about that!
That sounds fascinating! I’m going to try to find out more about that! Thank you.
Ptsd also affects survivors of horrid childhood mistreatment.
As a resident of Springfield, I'm surprised this is the first I'm hearing of this!
@@SlapstickGenius23no one said it didn’t? Not arguing just confused why that was mentioned since no one said otherwise
“I actually enjoyed my stay at the various Bethlem Hospitals, especially the pubs and brothels, although drilling into my head was most uncomfortable.”
--Lord Stanley Edmund Edmund, Mrs.
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. 'Qualified' nurses tend to spend most of their time in the nursing office doing paperwork.
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.
Excellent comment which throws into sharp relief the problems facing many disciplines in the NhS. Clinical time has been knackered by “money saving” elsewhere in admin so people paid to care and nurse end up administering the organisation. Senior management always have their own admin so they never see the corrosive effect that cuts have on the services below. Admin is and always will be the most important work in ANY institution or business or organisation. People trying to save money forget this at their peril as lack of decent comms admin etc often leads to disastrous care, with litigation, and public inquiries etc.
thanks for the insight.
Sounds brutal but this wasn’t my experience at all in Canada. I was in for a month at UBC hospital for treatment of chronic depression that didn’t respond to medication. But it was voluntary. The alternative was drifting through life thinking about killing myself all the time so… Also modern ECT is safe and effective and is merely an induced seizure under anesthetic. The popular concept of what it is comes entirely from movies which aren’t accurate at all. Furthermore it was used in combination with medication, cognitive therapy and exercise programs. My entire day was filled with therapy related activities. My biggest beef was that I couldn’t bring my computer. (It was back in the days before smart phones)
ECT does actually have some medical use. They just use it in a very targeted way these days, pumping lecky through specific areas of the brain rather than all of it. As someone with schizophrenia I've long considered asking my doctor for it. Just a few treatments. But yeah it has to be with consent, and it can't be the old fashioned version of ECT which damn near blew people's heads open
still sounds kind of brutal to be honest, but very good insights, so thank you for commenting. Hope you are doing well.
You are summing up not only the problems of psychiatry, but also of modern medicine in general. A very worrying trend I see is that medical professionals are sent to the desks and patient work is being delegated to assistance jobs. First it was the doctors who were pretty much banned to the desk and the nurses who received more and more responsibilities. Now it's even the nurses who sit at the desk all day with nursing assistants doing the patient work, whereas I as a (soon to be) doctor sit at my desk writing up orders and notes and only seeing my patients (of which I have up to 40) for five minutes a day during rounds. This is already quite frustrating in normal care wards for internal medicine and I can only imagine how detrimental it must be in psychiatry, where every minute of the day counts for the better or the worse of the patient.
That is, btw, why I'm into intensive care. We still do so many specialised procedures that I have much more frequent contact with my patients. I have fewer patients on my ward and I see them several times a day. First for rounds, then for a thorough exam each day and then all the time in between for procedures.
As someone who's been in IT, the spilling of the coffee and the defeated "Shit." really hit home, and is indeed a very familiar feeling🤣
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'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.
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.
Respect. Be well, friend.
Sorry to hear the NHS screwed you over too, whilst it's great it has its downfalls and is slowly collapsing
The 90s when working in a care home home was mostly watching over 90+ year olds whom could cook and clean for themselves, more beef dripping/lard and red meat than you'll ever see people eat today. Very independent, times have changed and have to deal with people in their 50s and 60s near death with poor mental health. They're fed "healthy" in todays standards but just deteriorate faster. There was a prison experiment back iin the which is hard to find where they kept two prisons on high carb and the other on saturated fats and meat, the ones on fat and meat had significantly less mental and physical issues while being significantly less likely to reoffend.
@@29boilersunderthesea99 the NhS needs a much better replacement as well.
@@bmc9504 that’s both interesting and complicated.
The Asylum moved to the heart of London. Current location: Houses of Parliament, St Margaret St, London SW1A 0AA.
These days, you can watch the patients on TV and via Livestreams.
💯
And the Muslims trying to take over England
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! People need healthy interactions, some sort of healthy natural place to go to to just relax a half hour or hour or three. I have checked myself into a mental health facility, lasted about 9 days, and then was internally yelling "get me out". A stupid schedule that didn'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't disturb my room mate.) THEN they limited the coffee. I don't like coffee, but after about 3 hours of sleep, I needed the caffeine to survive the boring classes during the day. Some of the staff would look the other way while additional pots were made, some would not. The only thing I learned from all that was that I was the ONLY person in the building who had never used cocaine. Surprising, given I couldn't figure out how any of them could afford it. We were all poor, barely affording food and rent, so how did they afford the drugs??? I don't know, I probably don't want to know. Oh, and I also learned alcohol is actually the worst to detox from. They sent people who drank a lot to the hospital before they would treat them, because it is that bad to detox from. I don't know all the details, but I am sure you can find them.
Alcohol detox is called delirium tremens when it goes badly. They use to give people a benzodiasepine called librium to forbid this to happen. They sometimes give alprazolam (xanax) instead. They usually diminish the doses gradually. It happens when heavy drinkers stop suddenly. They can have fever, heart issues and hallucinations cramps and it's a very dangerous situation.
*English isn't my language.
@@xminusone1 I did hear some of that when I was in the mental hospital, but I didn't pay much attention. I was there so I didn't take many knives to my wrists after I lost custody of my son. He is now 22 and still has his mom, so he's happy. I don't like to imagine how he would be if I had succeeded. Never ever try to kill yourself, the people you leave behind will blame themselves if they are innocent, and clap if they hurt you. You should outlive those who hurt you and clap instead. NOT kill them, that still gives them a win.
I have been both the mentally ill person and the employee at different points! (When I got better I went back to help)
And yeah, I was always told alcohol and heroin were the worst to detox from. Saw a number of them and it seemed like it was true 😬 people really underestimate how prevalent alcoholism is and how it absolutely RUINS peoples lives. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for prohibition, just more knowledge and better treatment. Watching clients drink cleaning supplies to try to get the alcohol that was inside in small amounts was a lot.
@@OpalBLeigh I never got so bad that I drank cleaning fluid. Or wine vinegar.
What's your describing sounds like a dual diagnosis facility. I was in one for alcoholism. They treat mental health as well as the psychiatric issues. I agree there's a lot left for improvement. I guess my only thoughts are that they do the best they can with the variety of patients they get. Mental health care in the United States is severely lacking.
😆
You caught me with the "alms not arms" bit. You definitely knew what we'd hear.
:D
Glad you've decided to revive this series, even if you don't go outside London there'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.
Are you a Fortean Times reader per chance, Eve? That's where I was introduced to the necropolis line and it was a fascinating read.
@@annakeye I used to be, so quite possibly that's where I learned about it too, though I've got a vague feeling TV was involved
@@nerdygoth6905 Jago Hazard has made a video on that, which you might be interested in while waiting for PD to make his video.
Please never stop doing “Here on this map” bit! Just the perfect icing on the dope cake that is your video!
Penn State had a class called 'The History of Madness and Mental Health' that taught a lot of this in the daily lectures. Loved the new perspective and insights. Definitely big on the legacy scale.
Hey Jon - look-up Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania here in the States. It's one of the most haunted places in North America. Crazy stuff happened there. Keep up the great work! Love your vids. 👍👍👍
"Those incarcerated in this prison were subjected to both physical and psychological torture. Some of the famous methods used here included the ‘Mad Chair’ where prisoners would be strapped tightly in and be left sitting completely motionless for days without food and water - often driving them to insanity.
Other methods included clamping their tongue with the ‘Iron Gag’ which would cause severe pain and bleeding if they tried to speak, and throwing prisoners into ‘The Hole’ where they could be kept in a dark pit for weeks at a time."
Thanks for the suggestion
In the "Deep South" of the U.S. they didn't need "the hole" in such terms... AT least not the same as Pennsylvania or on the Rock... Down here, they'd put you in the "Hot Box", which was a metal shed about 4 x 4 feet, in the open sun... no windows, and just enough ventilation to ordinarily support a human relatively indefinitely... In the 100 degree summer heat, however, when there's almost no breeze outside... well... you can imagine approximately what it's like in a little bitty metal oven on the inside... ;o)
I've been to Eastern State for Halloween, it's super creepy 😳
It's interesting looking at the old maps and see where the names of places we go to & hear about on a regular basis come from. Moorfields, Spitalfields, were once fields.
I know what you mean, I love a bit of topography too!
Until you spill your drink on them that is.
Today I learned: Not being a Thespian, I'd never heard the term "tread the boards" before today. Thank you for being a teacher, John!
Many years ago I went to a mental hospital along with some horses so that the patients could have a ride. Two attendants came out with a patient secured between them. He was in a straight jacket. As they passed he looked at me. I can still see those eyes after all these years. He was stark raving mad. One lap of the lawn and he was taken back inside. Everyone else was almost silent for a while. Then the horse I had had a pee and the spell was broken. That poor, poor man, there was no hope. There but for the grace of God - go any of us.
thats cool of you.
That’s fascinating. Also awesome horses 🐴
I been in and out psychatric Hospitals too.1. stay had me traumatized from the start as they set me off strong Meds I've been given before without any Substitute or Help.
Also they used Beds with Restraints beside Meds. I managed that once. 15 Years ago now.
Biggest Problem I see ever again is Boredome and Loneliness due to Understaffing and under/missqualification induced mishandling.
Other ones where different in handling Crisis and even did want me to go down slow off Prescribed Meds on a Dose that was just cute in my Opinion and former Experience..
I still have Problems with certain Hospital settings because of my 1. full Stay, out of free will, didn't had the Chance making 'Friends', so didn't understand why I was 'punished' and for what.
The Meds I took in Crisis where strongly addictive physically, restricted norm. for over 18 only, so they just not gave them indifferent to the Consequences. Couldn't make much Trouble anyway, unable to move much from the Cramps.
Happy mental are we hahaha
The history of UK county asylums and asylums in general is fascinating in general. Really interesting video! Also liked the Boards of Canada / Protect & Survive flavoured music at the end.
Thank you!!
In Russian-speaking world, there is a second asylum with a cult status (not as great as Bethlem, but still more than noteworthy): Kaschenka/Kanatchikoff's Dacha. Officially named Peter Kaschenko Psychiatric Hospital, it's been around for quite less time than Bethlem, but shares its role as one of the first modern type mental institutions.
Wasn't the psychiatric hospital no 1 in Moscow?
@@xminusone1 Iirc it was originally outside the city's boundaries but then was absorbed as it grew.
The noises emanating from Bethlem described as....
What today would be called "Tweets".
:D
Oh John, not only are your videos really well researched, your animations are simply superb, I love the Monty Python foot.
If you are doing videos on this topic I would highly recommend looking at Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where Titicut Follies was filmed. A documentary that directly led to much change in mental health institutes across the US. Also one of the most chilling documentaries I have ever seen.
I saw the plaque near the Imperial War Museum, but had no idea the building was part of Bethlem! Almost scary how fitting that is.
Plus, you can't best a museum that has a V-1 and V-2 in the atrium...
THe Killing Floor 1 Bedlam map was heavily, heavily based on both the building and the 1946 movie, from memory it was based more off the actual building than the film, with a bit of fictionalizing and tweaking to suit KF's story, but walking around it even when all was quiet between waves, knowing the history of the real hospital, always was very, very creepy. Well done, Tripwire Interactive, well done.
Given how London centric KF1 was, I don't doubt that's the actual building in the KF1 map as well now I think about it and see the pictures though. Anyone who owns the original Killing Floor and has the Bedlam map and a few spare ours able to check how accurate the map is?
Now we just leave them on the streets of major urban cities.
Sadly true
4:10 - FYI, the city of Bethlehem, PA is largely pronounced as Bethlem by locals despite keeping the spelling of its namesake
That's cool.
And it is just as decrepit.
@@nicholasneyhart396 Just as decrepit, but they did build a casino, so... just as bad. They also named a nearby town Nazareth.
I really like this format. Dark Dives back in history. Kind of imagine what places like this were like in person.
Thank you!
i only know of bethlem from historical fiction, so this was really interesting!! i’m a psych grad student and the history of mental health treatment is both horrifying and fascinating to me. thanks for sharing this!
The most fascinating thing about this was to learn the origin of the term Bedlam.
I live near the current location and used to walk through the Imperial War Museum going to work regularly. This has been an amazing watch for my own local knowledge!
I wonder how many of us climbed and crawled along the barrels of the guns outside The Imperial Museum . I did at aged 10 in the 70's and they had to call the Fire brigade
😂😂I can safely say I never did that!
That reminds me of the dark roots of the phrase "run amok"...
I say bedlam alot and honestly didnt know its roots...
God bless all yall!
I'm so facinated with the study of the mind and the history of this subject. I really hope medicine evolves as well as technology that might help find a way to enhance our knowledge, see key factors, pathways, connections and how to appropriately treat them. I really hope we improve our treatment because currently we really don't have much options. SSRI meds and others similar are very hit and miss with if they even help a patient and they really mess with your chemistry as you're going through the process of trying to figure out what works for you. I'm just hoping more options get discovered because it really doesn't seem correct to blanket treat certain things with "meds to increase serotonin" that might not even be the correct manner to approach. We really need further studies and it will be interesting to see if we advance into a new chapter of "mental health treatment, medicine and testing/imaging"
We don't know why mental health medications work. Like, we have no idea why physical/bio-chemical process they undergo that makes them work at all. That's why it's all trial and error. For me, having schizophrenia, simply finding an anti-psychotic med that puts me to sleep guaranteed every night has practically made my symptoms disappear. I'm lucky. It took me a lot of trial and error with my doctor.
All I can say to anyone who's also suffering is that if your meds suck and you hate the side effects, simply tell your doctor immediately. Ideally don't stop them cold turkey (although I had to do that once, with Aripiprozole, cos I practically had an allergic reaction to it and had to stop taking it immediately, it was a nightmare. But I told my doctor and support worker/nurse immediately and they understood and got me in for an emergency appointment). So yeah, just keep your doctor (i.e. your psychiatrist, since they decide on what psychiatric medication you use, not your General practitioner/family doctor, the latter only prescribes what the psychiatrist tells them to prescribe)
There's no need to keep taking the same awful medication for 6 months until your next appointment with the shrink. Tell them immediately that you want to try a different one. I wish I'd done that. Because the original drug they put me on, olanzapine, put me to sleep, but made me very obese (olanzapine does that to everybody who takes it, it's unavoidable, it messes with your fat depositing hormone i.e. insulin). I am permanently disabled because of that. I use a walking stick and I'm only 33. I'm on a ton of pain meds.
Olanzapine caused the herniated disc in my spine which makes me disabled. I wish wish wish wish I had said something before it got so bad. Any young mentally ill people reading this, please please tell your doctor if your experiencing any negative side effect, including rapid weight gain. Because that ruined my life.
The drug I eventually found is Quetiapine, which puts me to sleep but without the weight gain. But the best drug is different for every person. Everyone's body chemistry works differently. So just keep asking your doctor to try a new med until you find one that suits you and you like the side effects (like the drowsiness quetiapine causes is technically a side effect, but it means for the first time in my adult life I can sleep every night, and lack of sleep is the biggest trigger for me to have an episode of psychosis).
But yeah you're right, a lot more research is needed. But right now, we just don't know how these drugs work. We just know that they do. So it's all just a process of trial and error.
What you can't do is solve an illness like schizophrenia with good vibes. Medication is pretty much necessary. It's the only way to stay you.
Fun fact: I used to teach drama at bedlam! Well at the imperial war museum in London which is in the building of old bedlam. We still had manacles and old fashion doors and locks xx
Thank you for reviving this series. I started becoming so sick of the radiation accident and disaster videos
Nowt wrong with a good old fashion radiation incident.
so you have... radiation sickness
better get that checked out by two guys stepping on eachother's feet
The way John said a "Southern Corner of the U.K." both times ...
John,
I've only just started, and I love this documentary / series.
Thanks for your continued hard work on all your videos.
Love from Canada 🇨🇦
Yeah, when Scrooge said "I'll retire to Bedlam." I assumed he was just using a fancy word for bed.
I like the sound of reviving the series. Look into the copper works in Swansea, Wales....I think it was called white rock? In not sure....crazy history though!!!
And I can't imagine the damage done throughout the years...workers life expectancy was only 35 to 45 years old!
blimey !! thanks for the suggestion
@@PlainlyDifficult definitely!!! Love both the channels...especially this one with some coffee and a smoke 👍💯☕️🌬
This was a great video, and I appreciate all the time you took to give so many details. Thank you for posting this, and please do some more videos like this.
I am living for the cuts to John with his stupid maps. I absolutely adore it, thank you.
Bethlam's final home is a sunny south-east corner of London...John's in a sunny south-east corner of London.......
Is there something you're trying to tell us, John?
Super looking forward to this series continuing!
I feel uneasy just looking at that enterance.
Never a patient, but some bad family memories attached.
Thanks for telling the story of the place.
You know Bedlam's old staff should be considered more insane than its inmates. Repeating something and expecting a different result insane.
unfortunately a big issue with their treatment is that for what they intended to achieve, and with what they believed was actually happening, their treatment "worked". a first primary goal was to get the lunatics, the posessed, and the dulled, (to say it in their words) off of the streets. so first among anything it was a prison for weird people. when it comes to the treatment itself, they worked with what they knew and had, and tried new things. if it worked it worked. they were often of course also troubled people. since they spend all day trying to understand and help those that have seen the worst of it all. but with what they had and knew, they did try their very best, and ultimately, that is how we arrived here, through their mistakes have we achieved a world where we can actually rely on a well researched and funded medical system.
John, you're so freaking good at this it's crazy. Keep it up my man!
My pictures to Bethlehem was when John Stossel snuck in and took pictures
Love these throwbacks to older plainly difficult series your doing John. Thank you
Insane asylum are always scary and thank you for this amazing video 😊
Glad you enjoyed!
@@PlainlyDifficult 😊
That outtro is just the thing for GenXers who remember growing up convinced adults were going to kill them in a nuclear exchange! Whee, yes, I'm sure that was great for our mental health! XD
This is fascinating and definitely difficult. I've been working my way through Dracula lately, of all things, and as a lot of it takes place in a mental hospital, it's interesitng to see some of the common factors between fiction and reality. I suppose Bram Stoker may well have stopped by this very hospital to research his book; he seems to have done his homework.
I was looking through the comments for some reference to the outtro because I'm completely befuddled by it.
Great Vid...I worked at Bethlem for about 2 years until 2019...Very 'Interesting' place even nowadays
Good choice of topic going into Halloween, and perfect time to bring back Strange Places.
The National Archives' map beverage mishap... Pythonesque foot... "The writing was on the wall"... another classic, with Patented Plainly Difficult comedic seasoning.
This was very insightful short doc on a place I didnt know about. As an American, I would love to know about other strange places in the UK, given it will take a while for me to afford to travel there.
Nothing says Saturday like a lightly-dystopian PSA.
thank you
Thank YOU, sir. ^^
I must not have been around when you initially did "strange places," but I really enjoyed its resurrection. Keep doing this! I enjoy just about everything you do. Cheers.
Great video, very informative & interesting! I was brought up around the Elephant & Castle! To this day we still call it Bedlam Park!
Fantastic series, John. Thank you
ECT is still regularly used by the NHS for long term depression and mental illness in elderly people. It is hard to find statistics but around two to twelve thousand sessions are still administered annually.
I’m surprised if it is that few. In Canada more than 15k treatments are administered annually, to all ages (other then children), and most psychiatric hospitals have an ECT program.
How barbaric
I first became interested in Bethlem after playing the Nintendo64 port of the DOS game Bedlam.
This was the mid-to-late 90s, so Wikipedia was not a thing back then, but I was volunteering in the school library half an hour a week and had pretty much free access to research that way.
I sort of took the Behtlem > Bedlam connection as gospel, but the sources I had available only took me as far back as the 1800s, so the connection Betlehem > Bethlem was never made.
Thank you for re-igniting my fascination with the history of this place, and teaching me more about the things I missed out so long ago!
Excellent documentaries on all your channels. Look forward to seeing what you share here. Thank you.
My mom had shock therapy here in the US during early fifties after I was born it did help. Somewhat like hitting reset on a computer. Better drugs now have a bit softer approach, but any intervention has risks involved.
ECT is still used, though under VERY heavy sedation to prevent physical and neurological damage. They also use a far weaker current and the seizures are much shorter (if everything is done properly anyways) which means memory loss, while still present, is less of a problem, as are the other neurology-related side effects. I'd say your mother was lucky to have had a positive outcome. Psychiatry was still plum full of quacks back then.
I saw a recent doc on how a woman who was stuck in a dissociative state received ECT and it brought her out of it.
ECT is still done quite a bit. Remember it vividly training in anaesthetics a couple of years ago.
In Jr High, our English class was structured on a 15 day cycle. Day 5, 10 and 15 would be dedicated to etomology. One etomology I recall distinctly in 6th grade was Bedlam. While Mr. Trunk didn't go into massive detail, he did cover the general overall history of the hospital.
Years ago, I looked through some archives in Winchester, well, photocopies. There was a class of people called "sturdy beggars." They could not settle to work or support themselves. There seemed to be a narrow age range, and I still wonder if they went off into the countryside to avoid other people, or got scooped up and put in whatever institutions were around at the time.
In our time, It hasn't helped that psychiatrists, MD & PhD, have been relegated to writing script.
A fascinating journey through time and dementia. Thank you.
I sometimes wonder if it might be time to go back to the old asylums. Not because they were a great idea, they weren't, but because what we have instead is not much, if at all, better. Maybe my area is a particularly bad area but the MH provision is so underfunded and abysmal it might as well not exist. If you're not at the mad-axe-man level of insanity you'll wait forever for an appointment with a shrink and when you do get an appointment it'll be with a locum psychiatrist who obviously couldn't care less. My last one couldn't understand me and I couldn't understand her as her English was worse than my French and my French is abysmal. I don't expect everybody should speak English with an RP accent but it would seem a rather important qualification for a psychiatrist in England to at least understand English.
I gave up about three years ago when a moderate (by my standards) crisis resulted in me being referred to a 'mindfulness' course which seemed to be run by the cleaning staff. Patronising, insulting, infantilising, highly offensive and it added up to little more than "FOR GOD SAKE PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!". It was supposed to be a ten week course and lasted one and a half... That's when the last half dozen of us walked out when we were told to feel a raisin... No... Not a typo... We were supposed to think about what a raisin felt like. WTAF?
Of course this 'course' was designed to do one thing and one thing only. Hit a target of being offered treatment within six weeks or whatever it was.
Wtf does "feeling a raisin" have to do with the price of butter?
Nhs r a joke
Ur better off spking to a chemist n helping urself
Wish u all the best
Always great to see on location footage filmed by You
Thanks 👍
Good Morning John! From a cloudy, chilly west coast of Vancouver BC
Sunny but chilly northern part of New Jersey!
Hello there!
Normally I would, but having spent a small amount of time in somewhere similar I just can't. I look forward to your next video, as always.
Unlike some poor folks in these comments I suffer with no mental health issues that I know of at least. What I DO suffer from is a wicked sense of humor & I see the video editor does as well. Spilling the tea on the map then watching it come out of the oven made me absolutely laugh out loud. That was great! Well done. Keep up the great work.
As someone who truly needed hospitalization at one point briefly, and had it, though the 'treatment' was not great at all, it was mostly fair, and free from being tortured. My god....!
I love the euphemism of "mental health treatment." Mental health doesn't require treatment; mental *illness* does! But the theory goes that it's stigmatizing to suggest that florid psychosis or suicidal depression is anything other than part of the glorious tapestry of human experience.
I used to live a few streets away from the Imperial War Museum. I knew immediately that you were gonna mention it haha
The imperial war museum is in an old insane asylum…symbolism!
Never thought of it like that!
Thanks for making these . I flip a playlist on when I get to work and listen all day !
Many thanks John for all information in this video
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for covering this. I'm in the U. S. It's interesting to see how mental health treatment has evolved.
I'm not quite understanding that last few minutes of film, though...
Omg, I *love* learning the etymology of words we use, and I had no idea that "bedlam" came from this place! Blew my mind with that one! 🤯
Wow, I missed this yesterday. I always get notifications. Thank you John, made a nice Sunday treat
Thank you
I love the sprinkled in jokes, they’re funny without being in poor taste-considering the subject matter
0:00: 🏥 Bethlem Hospital, with a history of over 700 years, represented madness and chaos, but also provided treatment for some.
3:54: ! The history of Bethlem Royal Hospital and its early patients.
7:56: 🏥 The video discusses the history of a hospital and its move to a new location.
11:24: 🏥 The 18th-century hospital, Bethlem, used cruel treatments and was in poor condition, leading to the decision to rebuild.
15:16: 🏥 The 19th-century asylum system in the UK focused on classifying patients and providing some level of comfort and treatment.
Recap by Tammy AI
In regards to electroconvulsive therapy: That is actually still an effective and modern treatment, although not as seen in the movies. In modern times, the electric shock is given under anaesthesia and muscle relaxation such that it is painless for the patient and does not run the risk of uncontrolled convulsions with subsequent injuries. To this day, nobody really knows *how* it works, but somehow it *does* work, for example against otherwise therapy resistant psychosis or even depression. Not with everyone, but it's certainly worth the try.
There is this story from my psychiatry rotation. They had a schizophrenic who got on pretty well with his life with some light medication. However, once every two to three years he'd still suffer a relapse and be admitted utterly nuts. He'd get his shock, was back to normal and a week later he was back home completely fine. This went on for quite a few years without problem.
One day however, one of these idiotic anti-psychiatry "patient initiatives" (to call it that is an insult to the many helpful and well-researched patient initiatives) had convinced him to write up an advance care plan, basically a will but for doctors what to do when he can't decide. In that care plan he now explicitly denied consent to "such brutal treatments as electroconvulsive therapy". They never really got him stable enough to discharge again. That idiot and those fuckwits of said "patient initiative" signed his life sentence.
One of my very best friends who is also a G.P. suffers from bi-polar disorder, when he's having an episode he not only gets very manic he pretty much goes completely mad for the lack of a better term, ie thinking that the TV is talking directly to him and that he has just got off the phone to the President of the U.S. etc (and we are in Australia), he can feel an episode coming on and we his friends can see it too, when he feels it coming he takes leave from his work and checks himself into a mental health hospital where he gets E.C.T. it's the only thing that he's found that really helps him, he describes it as being like a reset or having his harddrive wiped with a fresh re-install of his operating system, he loses all short term memory from it when the treatment is complete he has no recollection of it and also no recollection of the week or two leading up to checking himself into the hospital.
@@ats-3693 Good to hear that he's found a way to deal with his mental disorder so effectively and that he's found some psychiatrists who have the balls to just do what needs to be done.
I'd recommend a video on a possible nuke dropped in the St Lawrence river in the 50s, and the increase in local cancer cases from the radiation. It was mentioned in a Farley Mowat book and I have been wondering about it since.
Thank you for the suggestion
Great video as ever, keep up the good work!
Thank you
I live in Shirley and have been told so many horrifying stories about this place, always drive past it
Not gonna lie, I kind of miss your original intro music😂 I always would end up singing along to it, and I loved how the images on the screen would shake along with the music
Next time! On my regular disaster shows the intro is the same!
@@PlainlyDifficult yayyy! Love the direction you’re going with your music by the way, hope to see it credited on other big creators videos some day:)
It's interesting learning about the origin of the word "bedlam" for me, personally, because that's what local (American) football games between the two teams are between Oklahoma University, and Oklahoma State University are called officially now, all because in some newspaper, the reaction of the crowd at the end of one of the early-ish games was referred to as bedlam. There's a fun split in Oklahoma's culture where families are either OU or OSU fans, and then there are families like mine who like both, but it's all in good fun. I'm thankful it's not like Scotland where you can get injured or killed over liking a team because of religious associations and such. Now THAT'S bedlam, and not in a lighthearted sense.
Supreme work! -As usual. I love your work on nuclear accidents and other toxic topics. And on the matter of your music, I'm impressed, and I like the "organic" sound. It reminds me of Boards of Canada, -whitch I hope you are aquinted with. Keep up the good work! Cheers!
"Like putting lipstick on a pig!" Now that's an image I'll never forget!
Hopefully a pretty image!
John can you please look into eastern state mental health hospital/prison in Williamsburg va usa its the 1st mental health hospital and prison in the usa
thanks for the suggestion
Great vid, Thanks for that Monty Python reference
You bet!
Imagine taking your sweetheart on a romantic trip to Bedlam to watch the insane headbutt the walls. 🤣🤣🤣
What a date
It'd be better than watching EastEnders...
in 2002 I visited the Imperial War Museum at the former Bethlehem Hospital site. I love that a museum of war is in a former mental health hospital - so appropriate as war is a form of insanity.
There are very few inpatient custodial mental health hospitals in the USA with most closed in the 1960's and 1970's as costs to taxpayers, advancements in drugs and other treatments developed and disclosures of horrible treatment and lack of staffing. Many buildings and campuses for custodial mental health facilities also started to deteriorate due to lack of maintenance, too costly to rehabilitate and not needed. One such site is Greystone in Morris Plains, New Jersey, USA that has largely been demolished and a more modern facility replacing it. Parts of the large site are used for park and recreation facilities. Sadly almost all of our prisons, with minimal mental health care available, have become filled by those with mental health problems including from use of illegal drugs.
Lol the gag with the spilled coffee and drying the map on the oven. I see ya 😂
That intro music SLAPS
Its one of my own songs!
I love this revived series. You don't need a different section for it because it falls in line with all your stuff - stuff that intrigues us and disturbs us, and we can't get enough of it!
When that cup of coffee fell over 😂😂☠️
It's really sad to see how people were treated. Like they didn't have feelings or knew what was happening to them
The Bell failed me and I missed this vid! An excellent pick to revive the series, and 13/10 on the map into lmao
Well done, John. Well done.