In Honor of Mental Health Awareness month, we took a trip to Central State Hospital a few weeks ago. It was once the largest mental health hospital in the world. It’s first patient was accepted in December 1842. In the 1960s, it housed more than 12,000 mentally ill patients. There were more than 25,000 patients buried in unmarked graves throughout the hospital grounds. Praise God that mental health care has evolved to where it is today. This place was very eerie and spoke for those who had been there.

I have travelled through madness to find myself.

These markers represent only some of those who died while staying at Central State Hospital for mental health issues. Praise God our medicine has advanced so much in the last 150 years.⁣

This balloon was stuck in the fence. Definitely not something you would want to see if you were there at Central State.

A thousand secrets are hidden in just sitting still.⁣

If these walls could talk, it would be deafening.

The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.

If only your eyes saw souls instead of bodies, just like a window to the soul…how very different our ideas of beauty would be.

No great mind ever existed without a touch of madness.

Remember you don’t have to struggle in silence! There are plenty of resources in our day and age to help you.

Please reach out for help. You are important and loved no matter how bad you feel!!

XOXO

-S