Eloise Asylum was a psychiatric hospital in Westland, Michigan that operated from 1839 to 1982. While it was in operation, countless individuals were subjected to inhumane therapies for months, and sometimes years, on end. 

Eloise Asylum is now a historical landmark and, in 2018, it was sold for $1 to developers. This year, Eloise Asylum reopened, kicking things off with a scary haunted asylum attraction for Halloween. 

These Halloween haunted asylums exacerbate all too common stigmas: having a mental illness means you are crazy and mentally ill people are scary.

As someone who struggles with severe mental illness that landed me in the psych ward 5 times this year, I am disgusted that haunted asylums are still a thing. Had I been born before deinstitutionalization began, I would have ended up in those kinds of facilities and endured horrific treatments. It invokes a kind of fear and shame that I can't really explain and the very thought brings me to tears. 

Haunted asylums are nothing new but the impact they have on stigmas surrounding mental health has not lessened. Haunted asylums portray mentally ill people as monsters, vilifying us. They also influence public opinion about long term psychiatric care, something that is very much needed for many people but is not funded well. 

We have to take mental health seriously and part of that is retiring these haunted asylums and stopping the exploitation of mental illness for costumes and entertainment. These Halloween tropes stigmatize getting help at psychiatric facilities and present an exaggerated and wildly inaccurate perception of what being mentally ill looks like without providing any context. They are part of the problem. Eloise Asylum is especially terrible because it's historical location grants it an air of legitimacy and, more dangerously, authenticity. 

The original Eloise Asylum was a prime example of the consequences that come with misunderstanding and vilifying mental illness. Having a Halloween haunted asylum at the Eloise complex trivializes the experiences of the people who were tortured there and the very existence of their Halloween attraction damages how mentally ill people are perceived.  It is hurtful, insulting, and counterproductive to furthering mental health care. 

Please sign this petition to encourage Westland's City Council to restrict the Eloise Asylum from exploiting mental illness in the future and from hosting Halloween haunted asylums in the future so as to preserve the dignity of former patients of the asylum and the dignity of the people today who struggle with mental illness. We are not monsters and we deserve to not be perceived as such. #stopthestigma