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The Closest Thing to Hell in the USA

Farrell McGuire | May 14, 2026



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With insane asylums being such a common trope, it can be easy to assume their portrayals in fiction are exaggerated. They’re not. The stories about asylums you read and watch are unsettlingly close to their non-fiction counterparts – a few of which we’ll be exploring today.

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Written by Farrell McGuire

Comments

This post currently has 36 comments.

  1. @ashleymacabrequeendunlap881

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    As someone who was in facilities in the 90s I'm grateful for the progress but it was still so bad. I went in a normal teenager but by the time I was free I was broken. Now all these years later I'm still recovering. Staff did some unspeakable things to us and I witnessed things no one should ever witness.

  2. @Lorie336

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    When you mentioned Willowbrook my brain perked up because I had heard of this name. Although, I wasn't born until 1981 I do remember on some TV show where they talked about Geraldo Rivera uncovering the neglect and abuse of these children in 1972.

    Just horrible stuff they did to people. My grandmother stayed at one for a little bit because they didn't understand PTSD and this was during the time where she got the same prescription from two different doctors, not sure what drug it was, but she was addicted to pills and it made her loopy and as my mom said she was zoned out. This was during the 1950's so my grandpa had to hospitalize her, probably based on what her doctor said. I don't know how long she was in there, but my grandpa insisted on her leaving the minute they did shock therapy on her. He found her a new doctor and new treatment and she was better. There was no side effects as far as we know, but she never talked about her time in the asylum to us grandkids. We would never be ashamed or anything because as we got older we understood that doctors (and they stills don't) don't know everything on how our brains work.

  3. @lankthedank

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    That scam sponsorship is what’s been keeping me hesitant of subscribing to this channel. And it’s probably going to stay that way until you address it.

  4. @drdevorak4172

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    i've been wondering this since i started watching his videos, is "yuhz"/"youse" also canadian slang? i was only aware of it being a very new jersey thing and i keep getting jumpscared at the end lmao

  5. @BennyParahyaena

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    I’ve been to mental hospitals/behavioral facilities several times now and can confirm, budgets and rules get better, not staff. First one I went to had underprepared staff who would encourage the worst patients to attack them for their own amusement, so they could drag the overwhelmed children away and sedate them. Theyre also surprisingly rude and disgusted at every display of fear or irrational behavior for people who’d likely went to school for the job and been there many years. That’s with most people at every place I’ve been to. In one we were kept sitting at our desks for so long all day that by the time I got out I had to relearn how to walk straight, despite the gym time we were given.

  6. @666lianne666

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    Ever heard of meningitis? It's like "focal sepsis" in the way it can cause neurological symptoms that look like psychiatric symptoms. But untreated it kills you in a week or so.

  7. @MourningMagpiee

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    In the 1970’s, my grandmothers sister was tortured and forced to have shock therapy that fried her brain. She was never the same, and she passed early on. It was only closed in the 80’s. Now it’s used as a haunted house attraction. It’s so demeaning. There’s so many horror stories.
    EDIT: The water cure happened to her, oh my gosh. they called it "hydrotherapy"

  8. @Rats-bg2bx

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    Things are better but not by as much as you’d hope and it’s drastically different depending on socioeconomic factors, where the facility is and of course what you can afford/if you have insurance. There are places that are 15 mins from each other sometimes where one is exceptional and one is not far from how the ones in this video were 😢

  9. @sanityscraps

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    You are giving that butcher way too much credit. No one does Mengele shit with good intentions. Especially not to their own family. That is just evil. That man belongs in hell.

  10. @katherinebloch2721

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    All of this is why claims that mental illness is more common today due to some kind of threat or societal degradation should be challenged. Mentally ill and disabled people have always existed, it's just that we've only recently stopped trying to make them collectively disappear.

  11. @velvetfangs

    May 14, 2026 at 2:26 pm

    People tend to gloss over the amount of FGM that happened in these places, and the fact that it was medically legal to practice in sanitariums up into the 70s and still wasn’t made illegal until the 90s in America. I wish more people raised awareness about the actual level of debilitating cruelty women faced as well as the unimaginable damage of FGM that targeted female patients specifically in those places.

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