Griffin Memorial Hospital - Abandoned Building at the Institution in Norman Oklahoma

[@mosaicowlstudios]

I work at Griffin Memorial Hospital, in Administration. I walk around this campus daily. Some things you might be interested to know: There is a vast network of underground tunnels beneath the grounds. Nobody goes in there anymore, but we're afraid to complely seal it off because there are animals that live down there, and we never know if a homeless person has broken in and is staying out of the cold or the rain down there. Also, the old buildings are all still there because it costs a lot of $$$ just to reclassify the buildings for demolition. We are breaking ground next Spring for a new facility in OKC, at which point I believe the State plans to sell the grounds. When we're moved out in a few years, you should go back and film because you'll probably be able to get really good access without our Security there anymore.

[@floppyporpoise5260]

Your security team gave me and my friends many a good chase back in high school sad to see yall moving but hope the new space is great

[@chubstuf]

My father was committed here I believe around 1963 when he was 13 after slapping his mother for killing his dog. Before his death several years ago, he was reflecting back on his life and told me that an adult patient whose name he remembered was allowed to sexually assault him while surrounded by multiple staff members who cheered him on. It was awful, to know that on his deathbed, he chose to talk about his experiences there. He was shocked until he was unconscious to the point that he didn't wake up for several days and by the time he woke up, he had gangrene on the back of his butt cheeks and calves which had to be debrided and packed. Once, as a child, I saw him naked and asked him what happened to his bottom and he created an adventurous tale of how he used to be a bullfighter and one of the bulls horned him in the butt. As a grown woman, I can appreciate his attempt at acknowledging my observation and making it an exciting story rather than telling me the horror he suffered. Interestingly, I now work in psychiatry and strongly advocate for patients and their rights. Thank you both for bringing awareness to this tragedy.

[@TheWilliamHoganExperience]

I'm 58. This shows how far society has come since I was a child. Thank god they didn't recognize my autism in 1971, when I had my first run-in with allistic society. I was 6 years old, thust into a loud, bright, confusing world called "elementary school". A world of authorities who promised to help stop the bullies, and did nothing. So I lashed out. Because of course I did. You would too. So psychiatrists showed me ink blots (They all looked like bats and bears) and asked me to draw the path I'd take if I'd lost something in a little square box on a piece of paper (I'd start searching at the perimeter and spiral inward). You know - super easy stuff like that. These experts then pronounced I had high general intellegence. That was the problem! They missed the functional and attentional limits that went with it, and their suggestion of autism and ADHD. As you view this hospital, magine being imprisoned by these same ignorant, arrogant quack medicine brutes and subjected to their Pavlovian torture methods meant to normalize you. First, you were chained to the wall or bed. Later, drugs were invented that did the same thing - invisibly. Then came shock treatments. Those poor, poor autistic souls. Their only crime? Being different. ...and people wonder why I'm reluctant to see any more psychiatirsts or psychologist post-diagnosis lol =)

[@Catlily5]

This reminds me of my stay in the State Hospital in NM. They had an old boarded up building that was 3 stories, brick from the late 1800's. It was the first mental hospital in NM and was used until the 1970s. It didn't look too scary from the outside. This was in the early 1990s and some of the staff had worked in that building. They told us that there were chains in the basement where they used to chain people to the wall. These patients were extremely violent most of the time (before they had antipsychotic medications in the 1950s). It was right across the parking lot from our adolescent unit and was the building they used as the first adolescent unit in the 1970s. Before the 1970s they just put the teenagers in with the adults. I am so glad I didn't have to be with the adults as a teenager. A longer time ago they even put children in with the adults. I don't know when that was stopped. There were lots of newer abandoned buildings at the state hospital as well. They looked mostly like they were from the 1940s and 1950s and were for people with intellectual disabilities. They were moved to another city before I was hospitalized there. These buildings were still in good shape. They had a nuclear fallout shelter but we never got to go inside.

[@sheaforster]

Part of the complex is an active inpatient mental health facility, which means patients can see the old hospital from their building. I live less than a mile from here. It is heart breaking. At this point so dilapidated is poses a serious danger to homeless individuals who might seek shelter inside from the elements.

[@Garfyyy420]

Omg I was at crc the plas ur talking ab

[@fooo2241]

This made me wonder about the man this place was named after. I haven't found a great deal in my quick search, but this caught my eye - “The things that I have done that have pleased me most have been such things as the elimination of the bars from the buildings, the elimination of the cages that were used for seclusion…the treatment and rehabilitation of thousands of patients that were listed as incurable…” - Dr. Hayden Donahue, 1968

[@Catlily5]

I am glad I was born now and not back then since I have mental problems as well as autism.

[@mosaicowlstudios]

Dr. Donahue, as the very first thing he did when he arrived, also personally hand-chiseled OFF the words "criminally insane" from the hospital brick sign.

[@marjorieanderson8626]

Like Mosaic... I worked here as well. In the building with the Corinthian columns and the "cages". By the time I was there it was much "tamer" than the times you described. However, part of the building had been long abandoned before I worked there. Many of the rooms in that part were lined with acoustical tiles and you could see the indentations where people had been beating on them with their fists. We found some file cabinets with old written records describing some patient behavior and "treatment" from the 1960s. Scary and spooky stuff.

[@earlofmar7987]

Do you think the State kept records? Or do you think they were just left to rot? I've come across a mystery about my Dad's older sister, who had a baby and the guy skipped town. Looks like the State found a good home for the baby but she had to go to a Sanitarium and be sterilized. This would be back during Eugenics, in 1931. She was in Woodward but the State may have sent her here. Realizing she wasn't a moron, an idiot or an imbecile, they must of given her Nurses training and let her go on rounds. Just trying to piece together bits of info at this point. Would be a real find, to see her actual records.

[@Catlily5]

Good to see you guys!

[@NeurodivergentRebel]

Hello 👋

[@lorijean8919]

I worked at Griffin when they brought Roger Dale Stafford in for dental work. The building we were in was empty except for dental services. Officers put us all in rooms along the hall they were going to bring him. Watched him thru the door windows. VERY scary guy. Killed a family along I-35. And others. Executed him later.

[@Rachel-ls3ln]

Its still open today, I've been admitted to Griffin, and the redrock unit on the property. The also house the criminally insane at a building complex there. A bit is abandoned but most is still in operation and state run so not the most up kept nice place to be admitted to.

[@NeurodivergentRebel]

I have updated the title that it’s one abandoned building on the complex 👍

[@noahwoods352]

i’ve been inside all of the buildings that are now abandoned there’s one building with all the old furniture as well as all the old patients records and medical equipment the whole place has a very eerie vibe to it but i would highly recommend it to explore

[@temureviewer33]

Lol it's not abandoned yet you probably freaked some people out

[@Ivykitten91]

@@temureviewer33Some of those buildings are abandoned

[@danielrhodes7594]

That place as a lot of history. Most mental health hospitals do. Back in the day most mental health hospitals had a lot of farm land and people that were there for care actually worked on a farm as a way to help them get better.,

[@gurlybaseballfan]

I am from Oklahoma. Griffin Memorial is still in use as an inpatient facility. It’s a terrible place.

[@katw01]

Wonderful share Lyric and David, embracing truth✌️🧡😢

[@HhHh-wg3uh]

me and my friends went inside through a window in the back and the place is rlly big but oddly still has so many things left inside

[@evanpjohnson]

I skateboarded here about 10 years ago. I had no clue it was a mental place. My grandpa just shook his head. I saw ac units active hanging out of multiple windows and even a few people walking around. It was a weird feeling.

[@evanpjohnson]

We were very loud trying to land tricks. Probably there for over an hour and never saw a security guard. We only skated the middle small plaza where the plaque is located.

[@NeurodivergentRebel]

More information: More info: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXTXmWCbab9jq68

[@marciaterry2002]

I spent 31 days in the griffin memorial NADTC, the guys stayed in the building with the cages on the balconies, it was like a halfway house for those about to be released, the NADTC building held women on one side and men on the other, we walked across the lawn to eat meals togeather then went back to our building it had a small kitchen for snacks, we had a fenced in yard where we could smoke at specific times, we had meetings in the building, they were strict abour waking up making our beds and going to breakfast, we were allowed to socialize but not with just one person especially one of the opposite sex, or else we recieved a BIIF, a behavioral intervention form, some of us at their xhhoosing could go to AA meetings as a group I remember one guy there that had been in their over a year. He had been sitting with his girl when some guys came in and shot her in the head killing her, he was petrified to get out, his drug of choice was cocaine this was back in 2000.

[@Catlily5]

Most people weren't chained to the walls. Usually.only the extremely violent. But it would have been terrible anyways. I would have been in there in the olden days because I was in one in the 1990s. Thankfully I wasn't born back then.

[@oneesh84]

Spent the summer in Norman back in 2018… my co-worker and I went inside one night and walked the entire building. CREEPY… have some good pics… there was blood splattered on the walls… bullet casings… weird chairs and tables… I feel like I was cursed in some way because life after I left there went downhill 🤣

[@minibus9]

great video, and a super important one, the world must never go back to this and where this does happen it must be stopped, there have been terible treetment here in the UK even in recent years. I want to trace my family history partly so if i find any ancestors who where clearly autistic, which, i almost certainly will, i can use that to better raise awareness of this side of disability and mental health history

[@Crystal-el2qo]

So sad. . .

[@dakota2fallen1angle41]

Had to go here when I was younger it’s not a great place. They did not take care of their patients like they were supposed to. I got overdosed multiple times and almost died.

[@alliyahMakeupChannelAndBeauty]

Ppl continue to use it for movies still today but u was all most close but this look sad trough have a good day 😇😅

[@bonniehall578]

Brick buildings are usually salvageable.

[@777Happy-Go-Lucky]

😂 I know someone that works there and you are behind on the news about a new place being built to replace this 100 year old facility. Yes, it should have been moved a long time ago but this facility still helps people with mental illness. I’ve known people who check themselves into that hospital because they need help. Do some research and look up Griffin Memorial Hospital relocation.

[@alliyahMakeupChannelAndBeauty]

I saw this on a couple of movies just now committing I was out traveling my self for a funeral weekend for my other auntie but so sad I can it only me here by my self wit my mom an Dad now again I took off work today I think everyone did but so sad 😌😇

[@BuckedQuill]

Your no longer allowed to go in is because there's toxic mold

[@NeurodivergentRebel]

Oh no 😬

[@krugerfuchs]

Pre or Post era still the same

[@temureviewer33]

Somethin you ought to know and change your title its not abandoned i was a patient there not to long ago

[@NeurodivergentRebel]

This hall was abandoned when we were there… when was this, can I ask?

[@marjorieanderson8626]

Yes, Hope Hall (building with cages) has been abandoned for a while. But there are buildings from the 1980s and 1990s that are where everything is housed now. You didn't drive by them. @@NeurodivergentRebel

[@alliyahMakeupChannelAndBeauty]

Not tryin to be funny this shoot in a couple movies it not a original hospital it a attention center the original 1 in shoot in early 90’s it was in a different worlds the use for a college an it was u in hairspray an they be using for scary movies but some lifetime movies. But u try u was close have a good day lol ☺️😅

[@kennethcook8598]

Trump for prison 2024

[@Isaacwoods69666]

I live 10 mins away from there ima go check it out i didnt know the history of this place i've always passed the driving every day and just look at it now I'm gonna try to go inside and see what's left I wonder if they're security I will check it out with my drone

[@temureviewer33]

Somethin you ought to know and change your title its not abandoned i was a patient there not to long ago

[@NeurodivergentRebel]

Oh that’s interesting! The building was boarded up and abandoned when we were there. The security guard told us it was dangerous to even get near the outside of the building because of pieces falling off. When were you there?

[@kennethcook8598]

Trump for prison 2024,

[@kennethcook8598]

Trump for prison 2024,