A Visit to Dix Hill

On Saturday May 4th,  I walked in the annual NAMI Walk on the campus of Dorothea Dix Hospital. NAMI is a grassroots advocacy organization founded by family members of persons with schizophrenia in the 1970s. These family members came together to advocate for better care of their relatives, and for mental health professionals to stop blaming families for causing schizophrenia. Today, NAMI is the one of the largest mental health advocacy groups in the US, with national and state offices, and local groups that vary in the intensity of their grassroots work. Their focus is much broader than schizophrenia these days.

I walked with a team from the UNC School of Social Work, and ran into lots of friends, as I've been in the mental health field in NC for the past twenty years, and a long-time advocate. I saw kindred spirits from NAMI Wake, Gerry and Ann Akland, and Louise Jordan, and my friends from NAMI Orange, Lisa Hamill, and Barbara and Gove Elder. Barbara and Gove are also active with Faith Connections, and are working with faith communities to be more inclusive of persons with mental illness. I walked with former clients, and with Club Nova members.

The Dorothea Dix Hospital, originally called Dix Hill, was created through the advocacy work of one woman: Dorothea Dix. Starting in the 1840s, she crusaded across the US for moral treatment of the insane, creating reports on how they were inhumanely housed in prisons and poorhouses, and was successful in getting state legislatures to make land grants to create state hospitals. In the early days, the state hospitals in NC were full communities -- with working farms growing food to feed the patients, and patients working in the facilities on the grounds.

 The history of Dorothea Dix Hospital

At the end of her life, Dorothea Dix was dissatisfied with her progress toward improving the care of the mentally ill. There was a significant historical event that may have gotten in the way: the Civil War. During those years, she shifted her care to nursing the wounded.

The Dix campus is currently in the news -- it's a beautiful piece of land with rolling hills, expanses of green, and lovely trees. The hospital closed last year as part of the state plan to shift care from the state hospitals to local communities. The empty forensic unit building looks grim with its fences topped by barbed wire, but the cottages with stone fronts are lovely. And many state workers in the NC Department of Health and Human Services still work in buildings on the grounds.

What will become of Dix Hill? The city of Raleigh, and a group of prominent citizens called the Dix Visionaries, foresee a city park along the lines of NYC's Central Park. In her last days in office, Gov. Perdue signed a contract with the City of Raleigh to lease the land for a park. But, the Republican legislature is challenging the deal.

Dix Legacy Park

Whatever the outcome for the land, the vision that Dorothea Dix had for humane care of the mentally ill seems to have been thrown to the wayside in NC. The headline in the Raleigh News and Observer this morning is about the increasing number of the mentally ill in jails. They land there for minor offenses, don't get proper treatment, and get worse, not better.

In No Man's Land: The Mentally Ill

Before we left the grounds, David and I knew that a visit to Dix Hill wouldn't be complete without a stop at the Dix Cemetery.

Starting in 1859, patients who died were buried on a lovely hillside.

If they had no family, they got a plaque like this:

There were long rows of these small plaques. Some were visible, some were not. Were they buried beneath the grass, or had they been removed? We saw dates that spanned a hundred years.

If there was someone who loved you, you might have a monument like this -- we saw two honoring mothers.

And if you were part of a social group, they may have remembered you the way the Woodsmen of America did.

Dave and I enjoyed our day -- we had fun with friends, raised money for a good cause, and we visited ghosts who constantly remind me of why I do what I do.

Ms. Dix, we still have a long way to go. Whatever happens with this beautiful land in Raleigh, I hope we won't forget your vision of humane care for persons with mental illness, and that your spirit will stay around to sustain us.