Sorry It's been a while since I last updated the page but that hasn't stopped many of you from reaching out to me via emails.
The response has been more than I could've ever imagined.
I have gotten emails from patients who went there in the 60's, 70's and 80's.
I would like to start out by saying, this site is not sugarcoated at the least.
It tells it like it was, ...from my perspective anyway.
This story is gonna sound crazy!
Like Alice's Restaurant crazy, if you know the song.
Sorry I don't have the 27, 8x10, color glossy photographs, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, to be used as evidence against them, .....but BOY, do I wish I did!!!
High Point was a strange, even sometimes evil, place ...in a strange time period.
We were just ending the 70's and starting the 80's, but it wasn't quite the "Me" generation yet.
Drug rehabs weren't really as common as they are now, it was like the dawn of drug rehabs (insert the Angel Choir here).
Mental Hospitals were just realizing there was a whole new market/$$$ of suburban kids, who were on "drugs", ...with rich parents, or at least parents that covered their family members with the best available insurance plans of the time.
Most of the rehab places nowadays are either a drug rehab or a mental institution.
Not High Point.
While I went there. We were all slung in together, the mentals along with the norms.
So if some mental nut went off, us normal people would be right there in the/their way, usually deflecting a chair or something, until they were subdued by an orderly or nurse.
This place was no Lynn Haven, Rolling Hills, or any of those rehabs in Malibu, or Hawaii, that you've seen on TV.
Not by a long shot!
Well having armed you with a little history on the different types of rehabs.
Next I'll say......
WAS THAT THE MOST FUCKED UP, TWISTED, BACK-ASS-WARD, WORLD YOU EVER CAME ACROSS OR WHAT!!!??
High Point Hospital was a mental/drug rehab institution located on upper King Street in Port Chester, New York.
I was a patient there from October 1980 to August of 83.
Well let's see, as of this original writing, March 8, 2004, I have heard that the place burnt down somewhere around 1995.
I don't know, or really care, if they rebuilt it or not. Having looked on Google Earth, they did not rebuild it.
The ONLY thing left that even marks that it was there is a street called High Point Circle.
That place was one of the worst experiences I have ever endured in my life!!
And brother, I've been to 2 years of military boarding school, so I know what I'm talking about ...LOL.
Let's see ...some thing's .....yeesssss ......are a little cloudy, but I'll try my best to get it right.
I came to High Point in October of 1980, maybe not even a month or so after I got home from summer camp.
My parents thought I was out of control cause I smoked a little weed every now and then, so they had me arrested.
Wasn't the first time for me, in my hometown I had a reputation for being a bad boy. I had ran into the law plenty of times before, without my parents help.
I guess I should explain a little about my folks since they're the primary reason I was in that hell hole.
1st off I was adopted, pretty much from the time of birth. The people who I will call Mom & Dad in this story are the ones who adopted me.
At the time High Point happened I lived with my dad who had divorced my mom and now was with a young, kind of still new wife {my Stepmother}, who never thought she would have 2 kids to raise.
To this day, I still don't know how my dad was gonna pull that one off ...perhaps my brother or I would simply disappear one day??
I lived in a rich neighborhood that wasn't designed with kids in mind. Something along the lines of the movie "Over the Edge" with a very young "Matt Dillon".
Watch that one and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, neighborhood wise.
Anyway, my dad drives me from my court hearing, of which I had the grand choice of 5 years in prison ....orrrr drug rehab till they say I am well and can leave.
Like that was a hard choice???
Hmmm ...Let's see, which one to choose? There's ....A: getting fucked up the ass and being someone's bitch/frag for 5 years or B: going to a drug rehab?
It's tempting ..... but I think I'm gonna go with B, Bob.
I gotta swear it seemed like I only talked with Dr. Del (the head shrink at HP) for about 5 to 10 minutes, but in that short period of time he came to the grand conclusion that I was psychotic and was a drug addict and admitted me, "and my dads & his insurance companies, money" right away.
Yeah, that's right I said it, his ...MONEY.
As you will eventually learn through lessons in life, most things in life are motivated by money.
Also, I found out, that the hospital had been charging my dad double for a good amount of the time that I was there, and giving the excess to my Mom down in Texas because she couldn't pay her taxes.
My mom, in Texas, had developed a little relationship with my Doctor (Spencer), since I had called her a few times from her office. Seems she somehow talked my Doctor into helping her out.
Can you believe that shit!
Everyone is benefiting from ol' Bryan being locked up!
My Dad and Stepmom are traveling the world and really enjoying their time alone, and my mom in Texas is milking my rehab account to pay her taxes.
Ain't life grand!
My dad had plenty of money, although I never really saw any of it. I'm not saying that he had alot of money to be conceited. I just felt it played a large role in me getting into High Point.
....And brother once you got in, it was hard as HELL to get out!
Cruelest thing about this place for me?
Directly outside the front gates were my old stomping grounds.
My last girlfriend, before summer camp that year, lived 2 blocks down on the street across from the hospital.
My house was no more than a 10 minute drive away.
I used to ride my bike passed the huge iron gates on numerous ocassions.
I used to wonder who lived behind them?
The front gates were huge with some ornate coat of arms on them.
Little did I know the gates were watching me, patiently waiting, to one day swallow me whole!
Lil' paranoid there Bry? Nope, it just seemed that way in retrospect ...lol.
They get you pretty sedated when you first get there.
I felt like I slept for about 2 days.
After that I began to learn from others how things around there worked.
Well, ...they were right, ....it is a mental/drug rehab, ....too bad they don't bother separating the two.
When on the "locked" 1st floor, you weren't allowed to keep your personal hygiene stuff.
You could check it out from a closet every morning during "cosmetic" time.
They had a "quiet room"(unpadded) to put you in if you became uncooperative.
They also had strait jackets. Lucky for me I never got to try any of those 2 items out.
The system was easy to figure out, although it took me a good 2 years to get it perfected.
What it basically boiled down to was; If you came in using drugs, ...they wanted you to leave a preppie.
In their minds a preppie person didn't use drugs.
Not sure if that worked for everyone, but it worked for me.
Yep, I know it sounds hard to believe, Bryan a preppie?
Even in the strangest environments one has to learn to adapt.
After living with my dad for so many years I learned how to adapt to most any arena.
Military schools, religious camps, boarding schools etc... My eniviroments were always changing.
By the time I graduated, I had been to 7 different schools.
I knew the minute I went in the hospital that I was still going to smoke pot when I got out, it was kind of like a vow I had made to myself.
That being said; My Thoughts On Marijuana:
I don't think there's anything wrong with smoking pot. It's no worse than alcohol or being an alcoholic. In my opinion being an alcoholic is worse. I mean, what's the biggest fight you would ever see two people having when they're high on weed, maybe something like: "Hey, dude give me back my Oreos!". It just doesn't happen.
You see drunks getting in fights all the time. Not to mention all the DWI's.
Here's another senario: You're at a concert and you only have 2 choices of rides to get home, a drunk or a pothead? Who are you going to ask for that ride? ......I thought so.
I work to get my stuff, I don't steal or beg for the money and weed is all I do. I don't do any cocaine, crack, meth, pills, or anything else ..period. (Well now I don't work for it because I grow it. I guess that's still work.)
I don't believe that " ...gateway drug" bullshit either.
It's a gateway drug if ...IF, you want it to be. Anything can be a gateway to anything.
Me? I'm perfectly happy with the gaunga. I've tried other drugs ...Cocaine, LSD, speed (Black Mollys, Robins Eggs), and Valium. I always came back to my weed.
Never, EVER, have I used a needle or done any of the newer drugs such as Meth or Crack.
I rarely even drink any kind of alcohol these days either. Maybe 1 beer, or drink, with a nice dinner out.
Lucky for me I now live in a state where marijuana is some what on the legal side.
I have a state license to grow and smoke.
Kind of makes all the High Point therapy look like bullshit nowadays, with all the states that have reformed their marijuana laws.
Folks, listen ...you simply cannot OD on marijuana ...okay, if you smoked like 25 pounds in one sitting, maybe ...but you'd die from carbon monoxide poison before you died from the actual weed.
The hospital was housed in what used to be, the Strauss's home (Isidora & Ida to be exact). They were co-owners of Macy's department store or something along those lines.
If you saw the newer movie "Titanic", they were the older couple hugging each other in bed as water rushed into their cabin.
Yep they died on the Titanic, so ...I had that going for me ...LOL.
Anyway, it was a huge mansion; we're talking HUUGE! 8 large bedrooms on the second floor alone. The place was 4 stories counting the basement. It had about 15 acres of land it sat on with pool and tennis courts with attached buildings and stables that were incorporated into another 3 -4 story building that at one time housed the staff of this huge mansion and the stables. About half the property was in the landing airspace for the Westchester County airport.
Kind of reminded me of the Vanderbilt place.
Sounds like a country club, huh? ...swimming pools, stables, tennis courts, ....so what am I bitchin' about?
Well, I only saw those places a total of 2 or 3 times the entire time I was there.
The pool was, when I was there, a disgusting, stinking, black swamp that weeds were growing out of. The tennis courts were nothing more than cracked asphalt with weeds poking up through the cracks, and the stables had no horses and were dilapidated and falling down. It was all they could do just to keep the main building running.
The only way to explain the layout is to walk you through it, so here goes...
As you came in the front door, immediately to your right was the receptionist/switchboard person. Up a small flight of very nice stairs and we're facing, what I could only call "the fancy seating area".
The only time we ever got to sit in this area was visiting days and Christmas.
If you went left from here you would go down a long hall (about 20 yards) with Dr. Gralnicks (Sr.) office on your right about halfway down. There were three doors at the end, one on each wall. To the left was the bathroom, straight was the business office, right was into what was, at one time, a ballroom. At least 1,500 sq.ft.
We used it for talent nights, square dancing nights, slideshows, meetings, slideshows, and watching TV on Friday and Saturday nights. It was also the way outside, if you were privileged enough. Coming into that room on the left wall was the entrance to still another room. This was the arts & crafts room.
You know, I'll never be able to forget all those damn mounted fish hanging all over the room ...lol.
Monday thru Friday you would come here for an hour or two and work on any arts & crafts stuff that you wanted to. My choice was doing car models. They would show you a selection from a catalog and you'd pick them out and they'd buy them for ya.
Yep, the same ones you see in the stores.
Back out in the center of the ballroom on your far right near the end of the room was the large door that led to outside. Once outside you were up on a raised hill patio area, with picnic tables and chairs, overlooking about 8 of the 10 acres.
Actually it was a lot bigger, they just kept the grass mowed on about 8, and those were your boundaries. One giant large square. To the right of the patio area just below the slope was the volleyball area.
Now back inside, back to the beginning. You're facing the "fancy seating area" again.
This time you go right, down another, but shorter hallway. Immediately on your left is the dinning hall, where we would eat most of our meals, again if you were privileged. I think there were like 8 tables in there, 4 people at each table.
If you spun directly around you would see one of the many doctors offices, we used to call him Dr. Wally. He was of Pakistanian descent and I always found him to be very sneaky.
Now keep going down the hallway, now your off carpet and on linoleum. To your right is a small alcove with 2 vending machines coffee/hot chocolate and candy. to the left is the entrance to the kitchen. Just off the alcove, next to the vending machines was a doorway to the employees eating area, which also doubled as one of the visiting area should anybody come visit you on the weekends.
Straight thru that area was a doorway that led to Dr. Dels office and a general meeting room, and a few more doctors offices. Back in the alcove area and there's some stairs in the back right corner of the room. This particular stairway was enclosed in a wire cage structure that required a key to enter.
In all my years that I was there, nobody ....I mean, NOBODY, other than patients, nurses and doctors and the occasional handyman or school tutor, were ever allowed to go up those stairs ...EVER!
And brother, they had good reasons for not letting anyone else up those stairs. Because it was nothing like the floor below. Below was nice carpets, fancy furniture, wood walls (not paneling), custom built crown moldings and custom carved wall panels.
Upstairs it was; pissed on carpet, along with the smell, plaster-mellow neutral colored walls, industrial furniture which I figure they got cause it was supposedly too damn heavy to throw.
Anyway, going up part of that stairway brought you to a locked heavy steel door, covered with wire/glass to prevent breakage. There was a doorbell that you rang so someone could let you in, if you weren't already with someone who had a key.
Go through that door and you're in the middle of a hallway. To your right is 3 bedrooms, housing anywhere from 1 to 3 patients each.
My first room was the one at the end on the left. I shared it with 2 other people.
Go to your left and the hallway widens a bit, another bedroom on the left. By the way, we're on the guys end of the building. On the right is the dumbwaiter, still used to send meals up for the un-privileged (more on this later).
Keep walking' and the nurses station is on the left, up 4 stairs to the next landing, on your right is a hallway, down this hallway, on the left is the sliding door closet that houses all your cosmetics. Straight ahead is the "quiet room". The hallway hangs a right into another bedroom.
Back at the top of the 4 stairs, and to your left was the cigarette closet.
Continue down the hallway on your left is a heavy glass wall; shatter resistant for your (more like their) protection. Believe me, it is too. I once saw a guy pick up one of those heavy ass chairs, and throw it at the glass full force. No breakage at all. It was more or less just a barrier to keep you from using the stairs that would lead you straight down to the fancy seating area and the front door .....and freedom ...for a lucky few.
On your right is the pay phone room, a small closet with a pay phone in it. Keep going, glass is still on the left. We used to look out it and you could see down to the receptionist/switchboard, and yell down warnings to RUN to any new patients we saw coming in.
On your right is still another bedroom area which marks the beginning of the girls area. Keep going and you come to an alcove (about 10'x10') on the right. Tables, chairs, TV, ashtrays etc. At the end of the hall, you go straight into another bedroom or to the right into yet another bedroom.
By the way, if you were a smoker, you couldn't carry your own lighter or matches (for obvious reasons) and the orderlies were only allowed to light you up once every hour.
Back out to the stairway and keep going up.
Now you're on the 3rd floor landing. You have to go right or left.
To the right are the girls rooms. If I remember correctly there were 2 private rooms and one dorm style room on that side.
To the left was a long hallway. First up, going down that hallway, was a small nurse's satation on the left. Maybe a 8 x 8 room at the most. On the right was a small 12 x 10 common room. This is where we played cards, hung out, smoked cigs, etc... There was also a pay phone closet in there.
Continue down the hall and on the left was another private patient room. This was a continue of the girls section. Keep going and another girls room on the left.
Now we're at a small stairway which is used to divide the girls section from the boys.
Up that stairway (maybe 4 - 5 steps) and you could make a right down a small hallway to a private room. This was my room the first time I was in group 3. Rooms continued all the way down the hall. At the end of the hall was a bathroom, with one dorm style room to the left and the right. Many rooms had their own bathrooms, but some rooms shared a common bathroom.The room on the left was where I stayed the second time I was in group 3.
There was also a door right next to the bathroom, this was the fire escape and was wired with an alarm.
Well there you have the layout of the place. I'm hoping to at least get some floorplan type drawings on here soon. I'm also going to contact the Port Chester Historical Society and see if they have any photos of the mansion from around the time it was first built. The building of the house must have been big news for the area back then. Certainly, somebody took some pictures.
Now I'm going to explain what the privileges are.
It basically broke down like this:
Group 1: No privileges, you stay on the locked floor 24/7, what we called the 1st floor. You ate and did everything else on that floor ...NO LEAVING! (Except for sessions with your doctor, and even then only with an orderly escort.)
Group 2: Group 1 priviledges + You got to leave the floor for arts and crafts and to get outside for about 2 hours each day. Other than that you ate and did everything else on the 1st floor. You could go off the floor but only with a escort and generally only to your Dr. sessions.
Group 2 Dining Room: Group 1 priviledges + Group 2 priviledges + You got to eat downstairs in the main dining room and stay up watching TV in the ballroom with group 3 people. Someone reminded me that this group was also called 7 to 9er's, due to the fact they could only stay and watch TV from 7pm to 9pm, with group 3 being able to stay up later.
Group 3: Now this is where things got better. You moved up to the 3rd floor, or 2nd floor if you were a 1st floor person. No escorts. You got to stay up late and watch TV down in the ballroom as a group. You could be on hospital committees, ie; newspaper, entertainment, and other committees. You could smoke whenever you wanted. You still had to ask for a light, but it was better than the one an hour rule downstairs.
Usually you got group 3 if you were close to getting out or just by being a kiss-ass model patient. The whole time I was there I only saw 2 people ever go from group 1 directly to group 3, and one of them was me. The other was a guy who was in group 3 for about an hour ...after he triggered the escape alarm. Back to group 1, they didn't care that it was an accident, and not an attempt to escape.
Also, instead of having the whole staff watch you, you only had one staff member watching.
Group 4: Now this wasn't an official group, I was the only one I ever knew that was in it. I would go off property to go summer school, back at my old High School no less. The Doctors/staff ok'd it all. I would leave out in the morning by taxi, go to school (get high) and come back around 2 in the afternoon.
That was great, ....till I got caught. More on that later.
I know this place was crooked. ....and you may well ask "how does Bryan know this?"
Simple, I talked with more than one person who worked there, Doctors included, ...after I was there.
They told me flat out that I should have never been there. One Doctor even told me this while we were hittin' on a joint (at the time, post HP ...I used to get weed for him). Even the all powerful Dr. Del Castillio told me this, when he picked me up hitch-hiking one day, post HP.
I have seen perfectly normal people come in there and leave as veggies. Case in point ...my roomate when I first got there. He spoke normally, walked normally, but within the 1st year I was there he was reduced to a veggie. He could hardly even talk, much less walk.
He would stand in the hallway ...all day long and just sway from side to side, standing in one place. He got so bad they had to have someone with him 24/7. I think they gave him electroshock therapy and it fucked him up, or something.
The priviledges were more than that. For some of us it was all we had. When the Dr's couldn't get you to act the way they wanted they would take them away. More or less like leverage. I've seem plenty of people cry because they lost certain priviledges ...including myself.
They seem so piddley when written down here, but they meant a lot to us patients.
Another area I forgot to mention is the basement. The basement was about the coolest place in the hospital.
They had a pool table, ping pong, a stereo room, and weights, down there.
The basements lay out.:
Once down the stairs you were in a tight small hallway. Turn right and the pool/ping-pong/weights room was on your left. On your right was a small doorway that T'd off to 2 other Dr's offices. Straight ahead was a door that led outside.
Back at the stairs, turn left, walk straight, and on your right was the laundry room, next on the left was the stereo room. This room was about 15 x 15 and had a crankin' stereo system in it. I brought my entire record collection there to share with everyone. Before I did that, they didn't have much to listen too. This one guy used to play Mountains Mississippi Queen every ...and I mean EVERY day that I was there.
That, in itself, was enough to drive anyone crazy ...lol.
Now we'll go even deeper into the basement. Not a lot of patients got to see this area. Only if you had your school tutoring done down here or the ocassional haircut. It was beyond the stereo room and through a door. Then you would be in a somewhat unbuilt area of the mansion. You would walk down this dark hallway with office desks lining on the left side, the tutoring area. At the end of the hall was a glassed in room that had like an antique dentist office set up down there. They must have used it at one time in the hospitals history. They had it all in there; the chair, drilling apparatus ...everything, just no dentist. If one had a dental problem they would send you down to a dentist in the town of Port Chester.
The hall hung a right after that into another alcove area.This area was like a library. They had some old books there and tons of old National Geographics and Readers Digest magazines. I really liked all the Readers Digests. I think I read them all while I was there.
Now fun and games is over. Time for your meds!
This part I really hated! They put you on medications from day 1.
Lets see if I can remember my meds from back then? I was, at one point on Elavil, and another time Triavil.
What the Fuck!!!?? These are anti-depressants!
I was anything but depressed ...before I got there.
Ask most of my friends from back then if I seemed depressed ...they would laugh in your face.
I was the most happy, free-spirited, person you would ever meet. The only reason I would be depressed is because I was there now, being held against my will.
Along with the meds I was on, and I'm sure I was on more but those are the only two I can remember, there was the usual dosages of Thorazine and Haldol for plenty of others.
Catch 22 Alert: Not sure what medication you're taking, just ask. The nurses couldn't, and wouldn't, tell you what it is. They would always say "you need to ask your doctor", which is bullshit, they could tell you, they're the ones who took it out of the bottle right?
Don't want to take your meds? That's okay. They'll just give you an injection, ...and guess what? That injection is not your regular medication. It's probably Thorazine, to calm your ass down so you'll take your normal meds.
Don't want the injection? Too fuckin' bad! They'll throw your ass in the quiet room with about 3 to 4 orderlies to hold your ass down while they give you that injection. Scream all you want, nobody will hear you ...next time just take your regular meds.
...."Being held against my will". That's a pretty strong statement, but it's true.
See I was involuntary until I turned 18, then I became voluntary. Meaning I could leave if I wanted to. But hold on there, they weren't about to release me if I didn't have anywhere to go, which in their mind I didn't. So I pretty much had to stay. To this day I don't know if that was legal for them to do that. Something tells me it wasn't.
I found out lots of the patients there were voluntary, some weren't, but a lot were. To this day I still can't understand why anybody would want to be there if they didn't have to be???
