A Broken Place

Bundles of slowly wilting flowers - an expression of grief, of community, of honoring the person lost – lay propped up against the dark wood sign reading Napa State Hospital. A row of newly blooming magnolia trees – a seemingly desperate effort to create a pleasant environment, one that contrasts sharply with the stark reality of the place, a place appearing as though it were in a different world –stands in the center divide of the road. The oddly placed twenty mph sign admonishes us to slow down, and forces us to gaze at either side of the endless street, at the dilapidated buildings that line it. The towering eucalyptus trees scattered throughout the grounds are hunched over, seeming to bear the palpable despair of the place. An oddity, one that adds rare humor to this place, is the occasional cluster of turkey vultures, whose stares seem to mirror that of some of the patients, as they roam the shaded grounds. Some of the buildings are empty, some just seem empty, and some, like the one labeled “Nurses Home,” - where spinster nurses once lived on the grounds – hark back to an earlier time. Nearing the end of this road, on the left side, stands the white building labeled, “Psychology Offices” where my father’s former office was located. As I child, I used to visit him there and I was able to participate in the illusion that he was safe from the danger and despair lurking behind the fence, a safe distance from his office. Rounding the curb, this illusion is shattered, when we come to face the barbed wire fence.

Founded in 1874, Napa State Hospital provides treatment for the severely mentally ill: Patients who suffer from delusions and hallucinations symptomatic of psychotic disorders. The patient population has changed dramatically over the last twenty years. In the 1980’s, most of the patients were not dangerous. The patient population is now comprised of mostly individuals who have committed serious crimes - even killing a family member - but one they committed because they had a mental disorder. Over the last twenty years, the hospital has tried to adapt to its changing population, struggling with the question of whether it is primarily a hospital or a prison. In 1999, Napa State Hospital established a “secure treatment area” which separates the criminal population behind a fence. The “fence” stands twenty-feet tall, has motion detectors to prevent escape, and encloses what looks to be a small town: Indistinguishable roads lined with small, identical buildings, tree-laden streets with benches tucked underneath, grass-filled front lawns with weeds sprouting, - these are aspects of an average suburban village, yet this one is enclosed inside a endless metal fence. Police cars wind slowly and repeatedly through the streets. Despite these efforts, a staff member was murdered by a patient in a courtyard behind the fence last October.

A monotonous beeping sound near the gate dominates one’s thoughts. The vast metal enclosure lined at the top with silver coils of pointed barbed wire comes into view, police in dark green suits stand guard. Next comes the clanging of metal upon metal and the quiet shuffling of the feet of family members approaching the visitor center – a no-man’s land between the outside world and the world behind the fence; their gait is filled with despair as they exit. The chapel tucked behind the movable gate hints at the possibly of spiritual escape when there is no possibility of a physical one. Next, an even louder, more familiar sound of car engines signals the arrival of a line of Napa Sate Hospital police, preparing to patrol the hospital grounds. These elements make it difficult for one to differentiate the hospital from a prison, a place for healing from a place for incarcerating. The juxtaposition of the chapel and the gate created an ideal picture; I lifted my phone but was quickly stopped by a uniformed man who strode quickly and purposefully out from behind the enclosure, sternly questioning me as to why I was there and why I was taking photos, and watching with scrutiny as I deleted each one of them.

Behind the fence, a glimpse of a patient being escorted from the visitor center, distinguishable by the khaki colors of his attire, colors employees are not allowed to wear. The patient greets my father, then looks back at us, twice, perhaps some paranoia flashed across his face. At a short distance from the gate stands “Our Café," a store where patients can “purchase” snacks one might see sold at a baseball game, not with money but with “points” earned for good behavior. In the distance the faint sound of an alarm indicating, as my father explains, a staff member signaling for help, perhaps because a patient is threatening to harm another.

The dilapidated, broken buildings, some over one hundred years old and still bearing the original signs - “carpentry," “kitchen," “laundry”– mirror the brokenness inside. The patients are broken people, and their illness pervades the place, affecting all who work there and even the trees which attempt to grow there. The inhabitants’ illness escapes through the metal gates and spreads through the hospital. The employees of this “town," staff numbering over two thousand, are burdened with the sadness and despair which characterize the lives of the patients and the facility itself. A visitor to the hospital enters a world of decay and, to a sad degree, hopelessness. Courage, resilience and faint optimism – these are necessary to go to work there every day and cope with the insidious atmosphere. An early patient of my father’s, a middle-aged woman suffering from schizophrenia, once described the hospital this way: “This place is like the starship Enterprise flying through space; the difference is that we don’t know where we’re going and we never get anywhere and we never get off.”

--Davita