The Mental Patient Halloween Costume: fun in the psycho ward

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Fun World Costumes Men's Maximum Restraint Costume
by Fun World
$17.46 - $26.24
Some sizes/colors are Prime eligible
2.7 out of 5 stars 16
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Product Features
... This mental patient costume includes a straight jacket with back ties ...
Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry:See all 4 items

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Rubie's Costume Psycho Ward Inmate Costume
by Rubie's
$17.78 - $31.99
Some sizes/colors are Prime eligible
2.9 out of 5 stars 7
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... every costume occasion Whether it's for halloween, a themed ...
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Men's Mental Patient Costume by Dreamgirl
by Spook Shop
$20.99 - $39.99
1.8 out of 5 stars 5
FREE Shipping
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Costume colors are blue and black
Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry:See all 4 items

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Don Post Studios Hannibal Lecter Mask
by Don Post Studios
$26.33new(6 offers)
1 out of 5 stars 2
Manufacturer recommended age: 10 Years and up
Product Features
Just add a straight jacket for an easy costume
Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry:See all 4 items

Adult White State Mental Patient Gown Costume
by Costume Stop
Currently unavailable
1 out of 5 stars 1
Product Features
Description: Shed All The Doubt Surrounding Your Mental Clarity
Industrial & Scientific:See all 2 items

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Adult Green State Mental Patient Gown Costume
by Costume Stop
Currently unavailable
1 out of 5 stars 1
Product Features
Description: Shed All The Doubt Surrounding Your Mental Clarity
Industrial & Scientific:See all 2 items


Blogger's Report. It seems to me that I was just about in the same place as this a year ago. This time I sincerely hoped that Amazon was no longer offering mental patient Halloween costumes, but here they are in all their horrendous glory. Horrendous because they're mocking and making fun of a suffering sector of humanity, and I don't believe any other minority group in that category would receive this kind of contemptuous treatment. Nor would it be tolerated.

But it's still OK! It's still OK because it isn't real. These aren't real people, obviously, or if they are, they are society's throw-aways and thus fair game for this kind of dehumanizing treatment. People really do think this sort of thing is funny and that there is nothing at all wrong with it: it's all good clean lighthearted fun.

Thus Fun World Costumes can offer a Men's Maximum Restraint costume with accessorizing clothing, shoes and jewelry. We have Rubie's Costume Psycho Ward Inmate Costume - and as I write this I have a certain sinking feeling that's hard to describe. The Hannibal Lecter mask, I guess considered OK because it represents a movie character, is for Age 10 Years and Up, for some reason, and there's a p. s.: "Just add a straight jacket for an easy costume." The Adult White State Mental Patient Gown Costume is tagged "shed all the doubt surrounding your mental clarity", but the green version is, unfortunately, currently unavailable.

It seems to me that right now,  mental health issues are where gay issues were in 1970. Not even peeping out of the closet yet, because most of society seems to feel that mental illness, at least mental illness requiring hospitalization, is a topic for contemptuous hilarity. They cannot even begin to imagine the shame that surrounds this subject, the sense that one is useless, worthless, even feared.

 There was a time when cancer was only whispered about, and people who had it were always described as "cancer victims". Now they're survivors, heroes, warriors, that sort of thing. But the "mental patient" is still seen as a broken-down wreck who is fair game for mockery because he or she doesn't really qualify as human.

It would be no good saying my beautiful brother Arthur died from the homelessness brought about by schizophrenia, because he didn't count either, supposedly. He counted to me, and saved me from dying from a toxic childhood. But he drifted loose, there was no help for him, and now, some 35 years later, I am sad to say that things have hardly changed at all.

When someone like Robin Williams dies of despair, we start jumping up and down and furiously telling people they should "reach out for help". I am here to tell you that in the vast majority of cases, there isn't any. What passes for help is contempt, or at very least disdain, being treated like a nuisance or a handicapped child.

I don't get into this "telling my story" stuff much except through fiction. It's boring and it puts people off. People don't care, frankly, how I fought my way back to health, so I won't tell them. The feeling is that I never should have been that way to begin with. Maybe true, but that's how it went down.

Do I sound bitter? About this, yes, I am. Not about everything. What has worked in my life has worked, and is precious to me. It has been what I needed, but seldom what I wanted. Meantime I keep seeing shit like this, and it dismays and infuriates me that it's still acceptable, or at least tolerated. There are no penalties, and year after year, there it is again.  If you object, there is a sort of bafflement, or an accusation that you have no sense of humor or are just plain oversensitive.

May I just wind up by saying that it's not helpful to refer to psychiatric facilities as "psycho wards". That's something out of a Stephen King movie. It's not helpful to dress up in an orange gown pretending to be someone who is probably in unimagineable pain and may have been completely abandoned (though I cannot imagine why). I honestly wonder if things are going to change in my lifetime: I think not, and ten years from now we'll have ever-more-mocking, insensitive portrayals of "psychos" from state hospitals, not really serious of course, oh no, all in good fun, except, hmmm, maybe you'd better not show these things to people whose loved ones have committed suicide.

I'm just sayin'.

POST-POST THOUGHTS. I had this thought about a new sort of Halloween get-up: the Cancer Victim Costume, complete with shaved head, pale makeup for gauntness, IV pole, bucket for nausea (and maybe some hilarious fake barf), scars from ineffective surgery, and then, finally, a tombstone with the victim's name on it. Would that go down well, do you think? Well, why don't you find it funny? I think it might go well with the signs that appear every year on my neighbor's front lawn: THIS WAY TO THE LUNATIC ASYLUM and DANGER! ESCAPED MENTAL PATIENT!

Gotta watch out for those crazies . . . you know?

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Ohio New Death Penalty Machine: let's rip their heads off!

But how do I explain this to the kids?

The most extreme of the Yes, Yes, Yes ads. And she's only smelling it.

Tickle Me 1977 TV commercial: Test Tickle!

 This ad came out in the 1970s, when women were just discovering the joy of self-sex through AA batteries. Then came Tickle Me with the Big Wide Ball. 

 Keeps you wet all day. Make yourself happy.

MUGATU!

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Dream horse

 
I was a horsy little girl, meaning I was obsessed with anything Horse, and even owned a horse/pony for a couple of years, until he was just too expensive to keep. This means I'm condemned to forever-longing, because it's not practical for me to ride unless I am willing to drive to Langley (1 1/2 hours round-trip) and pay fifty bucks an hour to go on an unfamiliar trail with an iffy horse. They also took one look at me and told me I needed at least an hour of refresher lessons before they would let me even get on. And forget about Caitlin, who took to horses just as easily and naturally as my daughter did: she would need at least 8 weeks. Ching.

So. No more horses, except the horses of the mind that have probably kept me from going completely crazy in my life (with a few exceptions).

For years I loved Arabians, as most little girls seem to, but now I see them as too exaggeratedly pretty, the forehead so broad and the muzzle so teeny it seems almost silly. The "jibbah" or dished shape of the head has become nearly ridiculous.  Perhaps this is public demand causing breeders to go for a My Little Pony look.

But there is no doubt that tipping a little Arab sauce into the mix can fire up equine genes, and it amazes me to see the Arabiform (my word) sculpted head and fine muzzle even in chunkier breeds.

All right, I'm working up to something here. I began to see pictures of this breed on Facebook not long ago, and was startled, not so much by the conformation as the coat. I felt I was looking at something like a Tennessee Walker with a very long, flexible neck, sleek body and impossibly high head carriage, but the forequarters were rippling with muscle like those of a Quarter Horse or even a Morgan. And then there was that supernaturally-glowing, metallic coat, as if the horse had been airbrushed with some sort of  platinum-based spray paint.

Not that I didn't love it.

This was a horse in silver and gold, a very ancient breed called an Akhal Teke. I had never heard of it before, but I was intrigued by the fact that  the legendary Byerly Turk, one of the three foundation sires of the Thoroughbred breed, may have been an Akhal.

I was always told the Arabian was "it", the fountainhead, the source of all horsedom, particularly the racehorse, but maybe "they" were wrong. These guys look more like the ancient representations of horses in stone friezes. No one would need to hold this horse's head up.

The Akhal-Teke (/ˌækəlˈtɛk/ or /ˌækəlˈtɛki/; from Turkmen Ahalteke, [ahalˈteke]) is a horse breed from Turkmenistan, where they are a national emblem.^[1] They have a reputation for speed and endurance, intelligence, and a distinctive metallic sheen. The shiny coat of palominos and buckskins led to their nickname "Golden Horses".^[2] These horses are adapted to severe climatic conditions and are thought to be one of the oldest existing horse breeds.^[3] There are currently about 6,600 Akhal-Tekes in the world, mostly in Turkmenistan and Russia, although they are also found throughout Europe and North America.^[4]

These horses know they're beautiful, sort of like cats do, and who can blame them? I'm interested in the fact that they were crossbred with Thoroughbreds a long way back, perhaps to improve their speed and sleekness, as those frieze horses are more powerful and chunky. But they still hold their heads up high.

Silver and gold can't buy you a home 

When this life has ended 

And your time is gone 

But you can live in a world where 

You'll never grow old 

And things can't be bought there with silver and gold

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"Better than having no goals at all"?

As you can probably tell by now, I have a little-little bit of a problem with Facebook. Generally speaking, what makes me gag is the narcissistic posturing of authors who are glad to play down their recent bestseller/literary award so long as you know all about it. And then there's the "PLEASE, people, don't even attempt to friend me because I have very few spaces left in my 5000 limit! I just don't believe people have an excuse to think they can approach me at a time like this, when *I* will hand-pick my last few friend requests from my most loyal supporters." Ad nauseam.

But this took the (let-them-eat) cake. This is an actual Facebook post, with actual responses that I don't think are meant to be ironic (though there is always hope). The people posting the comments are sniggering over the fact that a 29-year-old woman hasn't even finished high school and considers it her educational goal. You can just feel the disdain, even contempt for someone that age who is so ignorant that she doesn't have a high school diploma. Not only that, but going back to high school is painted as something unworthy, if not shameful, something she should have done at the proper time (as they no doubt did). I had something to say about this, although I do not believe there will be any more comments, except perhaps to take me on for being "negative".

I've left names on this time. All this has already been on FB, so why not? I'm still trying to stop gagging over their ignorant superiority and "at least. . . " condescention. That sardonic ". . . again. . . " was the killer. What if someone said that at someone's second wedding?

Peerless Kent: Last night, I had a coffee date with a 29 year old girl at Starbucks. At one point, my date shares with me that she has the itch to go back to school. I was curious, was the goal to complete her bachelor's or master's? Turns out, she was talking about finishing high school.

Ella Winters *Stunned crowd* Well at least she wants to do that wink emoticon

Maria-Luiza Popescu Better having that than no goals at all. smile emoticon

Laurie Schmidt Lee PA At least she wants to try...again.....

Margaret Gunning  Imagine the obstacles in the way that must have
kept her from finishing high school to this point. I really am surprised
how negative the response has been here. Is this sort of a "let them eat
cake" thing? She may have been forced to work to support herself (and
others?). She may have had personal or health problems. The fact she
wants to go back now is incredibly courageous, especially if others are going
to disparage her goal. This is just my two cents, not trying to start a fight
and people can believe what they want. But there's a meme going around
that people post, but don't really practice: be gentle with others, because
everyone is fighting a battle that we know nothing about. I don't think "oh
well, at least. . . " reflects that view, but seems to say, "is that all she wants
to do?", as if a Masters. or post-graduate work is more worthy and will lead
to a better job. I have it on first-hand authority that it often leads straight to
the unemployment line.

Post-Blog Boggle: I was too incensed to cut and paste this reply from Peerless Kent (whose name gives you an idea of his mindset), but the gist of it was, "Hey, Margaret, I'm with you all the way on this, but she was a party girl living on a trust fund and really didn't seem to be very serious about this. But she seemed like a nice person, so I'll do whatever I can to help her." 

In focusing on only one example, and judgementally/disparagingly at that, he completely missed my point about educational goals, as did his Greek chorus of lackeys. Hey, this girl is a loser and perhaps a hooker, sucking the system dry, so why should we take her goals seriously? But hey, "at least" she's doing something. . . finally. . . 

BLOCK PEERLESS KENT.

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The United Church: the NDP at prayer

Since going on Facebook, I keep finding old Chatham pictures/names of people, places and things, and it just jolts me because I have not thought of these since I left there in 1969. I found a very good pic of Evangel Tabernacle, which was across from us on Victoria Ave. Seeing it again gave me a weird mixture of wonder and heebie-jeebies. I used to hang off the bar at the front door and pretend I was riding a horse (?). An upside-down horse, I guess. I must have been very young. 

When I was growing up, we just knew without being told that Evangel Tabernacle was somehow unmentionable. For all we knew, "negroes" went to it (though I never did find out). The Catholics who went to Blessed Sacrament in their short-pleated-skirt uniforms were similarly unmentionable. For years and years, I didn't even know what a Catholic was, but we all knew enough to stay away from them.

I grew up in the United Church, and until Russell Horsburgh blew it all apart for us in the mid-'60s, we weren't much more exciting than the Methodists and Presbyterians who had melded together in the 1920s to form us. Though Horsburgh poisoned the well pretty quickly, the waters were muddied by the fact that he wanted to welcome black families into the congregation. This caused great consternation from the get-go. It was seen as one more stroke against him - that, and the fact he was homosexual (which was obvious, because he was in his 30s and not married). 

This takes nothing away from the more repellent and abusive aspects of his ministry, which eventually imploded because there was just too much evidence against him. But the people asked to testify in court were kids who had been under his power, and no doubt the good reverend had spoken with them and asked them to please shut up. Though he was eventually convicted and served a few months in jail, the whole thing was overturned when somebody carelessly set a match to his files. And back then, the thought that a minister would do something like that was simply unthinkable: he was a man of God, for Christ's sake!  He threatened to make a triumphal, I-told-you-so return to Park Street United, but I doubt if he followed up on it. It was just an idle threat, yet another way to lick the blood and feathers off his lips after his victory.

There was a horrible echo of the Horsburgh affair towards the end of my more recent attendance in the United Church.  In a very short space of time, our new minister had turned our formerly-reasonably-functional church into a war zone. The congregation splintered into viciously adversarial factions, and as far as I am concerned it never recovered. He was ousted in less than a year by the larger church, but he left scorched earth in his wake. I now wonder why I put myself through all that. Every trauma I ever experienced as a child at Park Street United returned to haunt me and make me sick. But trauma survivors suffer from an awful sort of extreme loyalty that is difficult to break away from. It's hard to understand unless you're one of them.

I didn't storm out of the place, but became gradually disaffected over a period of several years as "worship" became more and more an empty, even boring experience. I knew enough not to speak of it, or I would be asked to solve the problem and make it more interesting. Having survived the storm, no one wanted to rock the boat, and I think unhappy people were just keeping their mouths shut. 

All this aside, it is repellent to me what has happened to the United Church in recent years. It is now not much more than a group of left-wing atheists. It has been called “the NDP at prayer”, but it’s worse than that now, it’s “we-think” of the lowest order, dispensing with any kind of theological emphasis. I wonder what they do at services now. I suppose they have the same old ladies doing bake sales, but eventually they will all die off. I remember a friend of mine saying “we have some young women in the UCW now”, but they were all in their 40s and 50s. 

It’s that fustiness, and the hymns, my God, why do people bother going? It’s all hypocritical, as if anyone cares about Jesus or God any more. Even the more recent moderators say you don’t have to believe in God, but back when I was trying for re-entry in 1991, they wouldn’t even let me in without a refresher course. I had to be re-confirmed before I could be a member again because (they said) too many years had gone by since I had attended. 

My parents were incensed with this (I had to phone them to get my baptismal and confirmation records, which they - incredibly - had saved), because they had been told that if I was baptised as an infant in the United Church, I would be a member for life. But the church now required those documents, or I would not be allowed back in. I was re-confirmed after taking an eight-week course, writing a personal creed and passing a fairly rigorous interview by the minister, but - wait, there's more - I also had to go through a kind of formal re-entry during a service, with three "real" members laying their hands on me. 

Why was it important to be a member, and not just an "adherent" who was allowed to attend without formal membership? Well, you had to be a member to be able to vote at the annual meeting, that yearly four hours of dire financial prognostications. You'd leave three inches shorter than when you came in. But at every annual meeting, the membership rule seemed to be waived and anyone who had attended could vote. This was due mainly to low turnout.

This seems extreme now, and with the church hemorrhaging numbers every year (though, not so strangely, some claim that it's not true and they're doing just fine if you adjust for NDP membership), they would probably let just about anyone in by now. Certainly, you no longer have to believe in God any more because the moderator clearly doesn't.

At last count they were down to 400,000 – less now, probably, and will die off naturally because no one wants to wear orange to the service every week. If people do join, they are expected to take on a ready-made, left-wing political agenda, though of course this will be strenuously denied. How can you think that? Of course you can believe anything you want! How can you accuse us of that kind of oppression? What's wrong with you, anyway? If you're not happy here, you can always go worship at that fundamentalist church down the street. You know, that brick building on Victoria Avenue that says JESUS SAVES on the front. 

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Skeletons in the Rectory: the Horsburgh Affair

I don't know why I started digging for this today. It was like excavating through a thousand layers of decaying horseshit. I've written about this before - the scandal in Park Street United Church in Chatham, Ontario, in the mid-'60. This episode, which found its way in fictionalized form into my second novel Mallory, involved  the  Rev. Russell Horsburgh, a charismatic but fanatical minister charged with "improprieties" with a young people's group. After being found guilty and doing some time in jail, he latched on to a good lawyer and had the conviction overturned.

I was ten years old when all this happened, so I wasn't in the young people's group, but I remember Horsburgh and the fear and hatred he inspired in his congregation. My parents in particular found him repellent. I remember standing outside the church after choir practice and hearing drunken teenagers yelling for "the Rev", which was his nickname with the kids. These kids weren't tipsy, they were holding each other up, vomiting-in-the-bushes drunk. One kid called another kid "Boozy Bozo". Do I have a memory for this sort of tiny detail? Trust me, I do.

I was good at overhearing things in those days, mainly because nobody would tell me anything. I remember my Dad's best friend calling him a "psychopath", and my mother saying, "well, you know what they found upstairs in that apartment. Empty whiskey bottles. . .and worse." I didn't understand the reference then, but I am assuming, from my slightly more sophisticated perspective today, that she meant condoms, no doubt used.

I believe those kids, and I believe what they tried to say in court, but it's obvious to me that they were bullied, intimidated and made to feel foolish. They were also shamed. No doubt there was a taint of immorality, of "looseness", particularly among the girls, and lack of moral propriety. After all, a minister couldn't encourage kids to do things like that. It just didn't happen. It was a no-contest as far as power was concerned. These kids didn't remember things because they were told not to remember. But I saw them, I was there in the midst of it all. I heard the murmurings, and I know all this stuff really did go on.

I found another article in the Ottawa Citizen from several years later, recounting Horsburgh's triumphant return to Chatham for a dinner in his honour. His loyal supporters (these people always have them) sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, and referred to the "utter garbage" spewed at the trial, all of it meant to maliciously drag his innocent name through the mud. I remember the last names of some of the people mentioned in the article - names I have not heard in a very long time. They were people my parents profoundly disliked.

I was able to lift this fragment off a newspaper morgue site, but the only way to obtain the other one - noisome as it is - is to transcribe it off the computer screen by hand. I can't even do a capture. Trust me when I say that at his victory party, Horsburgh was drooled over for FOUR hours, while he smiled to himself, realizing that he'd gotten away with the whole thing.


Teens Testify Rector OK'd Use of Apartment for Sex (September 22, 1964)

CHATHAM, Ont., Sept. 21 (UPD)  A witness said today it was common knowledge among the young people at Park Street United church that the apartment above the minister s office was regularly used by teenagers for sexual intercourse.

The testimony came from a 16-year-old youth in the government's case against the Rev. Russell D. Horsburgh, 45, rector of the church.

The rector is charged with eight counts of contributing to juvenile delinquency by encouraging and supplying accommodation for teenagers to indulge in sex parties.

Earlier in the day, the boy's 14-year-old girl friend broke down during cross-examination by Cy Perkins, defense counseL

The youngsters testified that in mid-March they went to the minister s office and the cleric told them there was nothing wrong with sex if it was done correctly.

"Everybody's doing it," they quoted him.

In giving her direct evidence, the girl told the prosecution that the minister read a booklet about sex to them, and that the youth said he would like to try it. She said she was frightened, and the Rev. Mr. Horsburgh told her there was nothing to be frightened about.

The girl said that she and the youth went upstairs into the apartment directly above the minister s office and had intercourse.

Doesn't Remember Text

In cross-examining the girl, Perkins asked if she remembered what the minister read to them. She said no, only that it had something to do with sex. Perkins produced a United Church booklet which contains what the church believes to be the Christian attitude toward sex and marriage. Perkins asked:

Is this the booklet he read from?"

"I don't know, I don't remember," she replied, and broke into weeping and had to be taken from the courtroom for 20 minutes. When she re- turned her mother was at her side, and remained there dur- ing the rest of her testimony.

The girl was on the stand for 2 hours, and took up the entire morning session and part of the afternoon.

Her boy friend testified this afternoon, saying that "everyone knew what the upstairs room was used for," and that "the reverend got a kick out of it."

Tells Dance Incident

The youth also told of an occasion at a church dance when he said he had seen two people leave the dance and go to the apartment. He said that he informed the Rev. Mr. Horsburgh, and that he and the minister "snuck up the stairs" to the apartment, turned on the lights and found a boy and girl indulging in intercourse.

He said they watched for "l0 seconds, until the man told us to turn out the lights." He said the minister turned out the lights and left.

The Rev. Mr. Horsburgh sat beside his attorney with a pad of paper, taking notes on the testimony, and at times looking with a slight smile at the witnesses.

CODA. I will transcribe the end of the Ottawa Citizen piece, because it makes me want to scream. In an "eat crow" gesture, Horsburgh claims he will return to Park Street United, making the jaw-dropping statement that he fully expects "reconciliation" with the congregation (meaning, forgiving and forgetting the whole thing). His reasoning is, he got off, therefore he must be innocent, and the church owes him this reconciliation because they now have to admit they were wrong. They owe it to him because they're supposed to be good Christians, after all, so how can they let this wrongful accusation continue to hang over his head? The truth has triumphed at last, so to feel any other way than welcoming is uncharitable and even mean-spirited. For God's sake, they should get over their pettiness so he can return to Park Street United in triumph!

"I have to attempt a reconciliation with the congregation at the church," he said. "At this stage reconciliation is more than overdue. It would be a shame if the congregation at Park Street couldn't find it in their hearts to achieve reconciliation with me. It would seem in keeping with the principles of Christian brotherhood."

Dig down one more layer in the Horsburgh horseshit, and you will see a self-protective agenda: if he "reconciles" with these people, and may God forgive them if they aren't willing to do it, he's less likely to suffer from any more accusations of wrongdoing. The boat could yet spring another leak as deeper abuses emerge. In these cases, even today, we generally only see the tip of the iceberg. Just twist it around like all abusive thugs do, turn the onus on the people to be good forgiving Christians, and they will likely keep their mouths shut forever.

POST-BLOG THOUGHTS. When I saw these three photos of Horsburgh, they nearly made me jump out of my skin. The first time I tried to find anything on him on the net - ANYTHING - I came up empty. Then years later, a postage-stamp-sized, grainy black-and-white picture. No articles. It took a hell of a long time to turn up anything from this sealed tomb of corruption. Finally I dug up a very detailed two-part article in the Chatham Daily News, and while it was overly sympathetic to Horsburgh (mentioning that he was about to welcome black families into the church and was shouted down), it did fill in a lot of details that made the mosaic of my memories more coherent.

Now we have these crystalline things, and where on earth did they come from? This man was completely forgotten. To see his face again was very disturbing, for he looks exactly the way I remember him. I take it he never "reconciled" with Park Street; that gullible they were not. By then we had long ago moved on, and attended a Baptist church for two years, one of the most hair-raising experiences of my life.

But that's for another day.

I will recount one bizarre piece of memory. Every week my family had something newly scandalous to grapple with, thinking they were out of my earshot, but my earshot was big as a satellite dish. One week the church bulletin looked very strange indeed. One whole page was covered with typewritten x's. I mean, the whole thing. My 20-year-old brother Walt, who thought the whole thing was just one big hoot (he never attended Park Street) held the bulletin up to the window and saw that there was text under the x's:

 “You ungrateful people should be ashamed of yourselves. . . . I am sorry I ever freed you from the tyrants and the papists. You ungrateful beasts, you are not worthy of the treasure of the gospel. If you don’t improve, I will stop preaching rather than cast pearls before swine.”

It was signed:

Martin Luther
Russell Horsburgh

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