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The Asylum "offensive to the mentally ill"

TheMan said:
People like that stroppy madame make things WORSE, because they make a cause with credibility sound whiny, and takes away focus from the real everyday issues that people suffer.
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Personally, as someone with family members with serious mental health issues, and myself also having mental health issues, I find the way people respond to things far more offensive or damaging than a scare maze or a film. When even teachers cannot understand the struggles I have, that is more damaging than seeing someone killing people in a fictional horror film.

The simple fact of the matter is that there are more serious issues concerning mental health than films or theme parks. How about raising awareness so that people with disorders come forward to get help, or training therapists/psychiatrists to be more useful when it comes to dealing with these disorders. Rather than picking on a theme park, because its just one 'stroppy madame' trying to get attention, not genuinely trying to help people.
 
Tarin Maria said:
How about raising awareness so that people with disorders come forward to get help, or training therapists/psychiatrists to be more useful when it comes to dealing with these disorders. Rather than picking on a theme park, because its just one 'stroppy madame' trying to get attention, not genuinely trying to help people.
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Yes absolutely right! This kind of outburst IMO actually damages a cause, because it draws attention away in a media hype fashion from the real every day issues that so many people face from varying degrees!

This does not encourage people to come forward, doesn't actually achieve anything, if anything makes the challenging mental health complexities seem trivial and "PC" which in today's climate immediately will get peoples backs up.

Guess what folks, this year I found out all my trials resulted in me having severe anxiety, I am about to go into a more intense therapy to deal with it, and had a fantastic professional not helped me with it, I would neither have felt a) Comfortable admitting it, or b) Even believed it lol, or c) Realised just HOW MUCH it affects you in day to day life!

The second I started discussing this with people I get mixed reactions. Some understand, some don't, it seems to be largely based on what is convenient for them to believe. There are huge misunderstandings in regards to the plethora of ways our mind can screw up on us. For a trainee MH professional to be gobbing off like this, well frankly they are well wide of the mark!

Well intentioned? Perhaps, however I am not so sure. Even cursory research/understanding would show this is a futile exercise. Remember, we are not just talking Mr GP with an opinion, we are supposedly talking about someone training to be a professional in this field.

Oh, so I have "mental health" problems, that pushed me to the brink of a breakdown earlier this year... I enjoy The Sanctuary and The Asylum they are my two favourite attractions! I do actually come out the other side of The Sanctuary feeling better haha!!

Smile.Always
 
I don't hate people with mental health problems, because that would be very hypocritical, but I do hate the fact that the people 'defending' people with MH issues tend to end up being more cruel.

One twitter account is using '"scary mental patient" horror maze' instead of calling it The Asylum, which is far more offensive. I find that damaging, it makes me feel different from everyone else, as if I am 'mental' and not normal.

I'll tweet all day if I have to.
 
Tarin Maria said:
One twitter account is using '"scary mental patient" horror maze' instead of calling it The Asylum, which is far more offensive.
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How does someone think that is LESS offensive than The Asylum LOL??

Sometimes, people need to put the keyboard down, step away from their opinions, and get a grip.
 
I'm probably not the first to say this, but earlier in the year, I was unfortunate enough to see the inside of an NHS mental hospital. They're frightening places. Did I think this because Thorpe Park told me to? No, if truth be told 'Sh!t, when does the bloke in the orange suit with the chainsaw turn up?' wasn't exactly top of my concerns list!

Was I thinking more on the lines of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Perhaps.
And was social conditioning as much to blame for my anxiety as the numerous locking doors and burly security guards? Again, possibly.

I suppose my points is that whatever faulty wiring there might be in my mind, I'm still capable of diferentiating fact from fiction, and indeed 'The Asylum' from 'an asylum' (do we even still use that term officially in the UK?), and it may be a good idea for Katie Politicalcorrectnessgonelogicallyimpaired to make that same distinction, because this is all a little bit silly.

Are those with mental health issues a vulnerable group who need better recognition, help and support from society? Absolutely.
Is Thorpe Park a sensible place to start promoting awareness of the struggles they face on a daily basis? Absolutely not. But this is all on a different topic entirely.

I've given up reading the Twitter debate, because it makes me angry (and because there's a risk of it turning into another that makes theme park enthusiasts look like obnoxious bigots), but I'll be interested to see how Thorpe responds to this, or even if the maze in question has a place on the 2014 Fright Nights agenda. It'd be sad to see Thorpe forced to give in to the protests and allow 'the lunatics to take over the aslyum' so to speak, but nevertheless, I think they've got a point - hidden somewhere behind all their inane shock and outrage. But as others have said, they're going about it in entirely the wrong way.
 
Everyone knows it's not the inmates you have to worry about, it's the staff who abuse the inmates. What is scary about the idea of an asylum is being sent there and left to rot, with the threat of horrible "treatments" like electroshock and lobotomy hanging over you.

This is why both The Asylum and The Sanctuary are complete fails for me. They have both got the wrong end of the stick. I'm not scared by someone in pajamas playing with a doll, I pitty them! Get a doctor chasing us with a lobotomy spike, and I might actually run.
 
WillG said:
Katie Politicalcorrectnessgonelogicallyimpaired
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WillG said:
I've given up reading the Twitter debate, because it makes me angry (and because there's a risk of it turning into another that makes theme park enthusiasts look like obnoxious bigots), but I'll be interested to see how Thorpe responds to this, or even if the maze in question has a place on the 2014 Fright Nights agenda. It'd be sad to see Thorpe forced to give in to the protests and allow 'the lunatics to take over the aslyum' so to speak, but nevertheless, I think they've got a point - hidden somewhere behind all their inane shock and outrage. But as others have said, they're going about it in entirely the wrong way.
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Haha, what a beautiful name you've given her.

What makes me angry is the fact that they refuse to acknowledge the people who disagree completely, I must have tweeted five or six times and not once have I had a reply. Its not as if they have bothered to say 'excuse me Mr Thorpe, your maze The Asylum may be a trigger for some individuals with mental health issues, would you consider changing it slightly as to protect those who do suffer?'. Which is much like needing to post trigger warnings online when you talk about self harm or eating disorders.
Then one hater has the audacity to say they are standing up for people with mental health disorders, then be a hypocrite and call the maze the '"scary mental patient" horror maze'.
 
*Gets a lobotomy spike, sticks on white coat. does the smiler smile*

"Oh Diogo, Treatment time"

:D :D
 
Re: The Asylum "offensive to the mentally ill"

Surely this is nothing more than a PR stunt?
 
The people who make these complaints are the same people who once tried to get my local council to ban "foreign food" takeaways from my high street. The same people who complain about anything. They are pathetic.
 
*PC gone mad klaxon*

And to think we were doing so well at dismissing this story in a mature way for nearly two whole pages...
 
I think there is a legitimate reasonable discussion to be had about the subject of boundaries in Scare Mazes. I can certainly see why there are serious concerns about equating mental illness to murderers.

Is depicting someone with mental illness as dangerous, and lovingly cradling a doll or wielding a chainsaw, really that different from depicting Jews as having big noses and being greedy, or depicting black people as being primitive and having exaggerated facial features?

But as others have said, there have been scary mentally ill characters throughout culture that don't warrant such criticisms. I think where the offence tends to come is when there is a suggestion that all of the mentally ill are unstable and dangerous, whereas films such as Pyscho focus on an individual character that happens to have these qualities. Therefore it does not have the generalised implications of something like the Asylum.

Either way, it's not as black and white as most seem to be suggesting.
 
I don't think The Asylum says all people with severe mental health problems are deranged, psychotic murderers. It's clear it's just those inmates.

The word 'asylum' to me has always suggested the most extreme and dangerous cases, not 'everyday' cases.
 
We might as well ban everything, thats the safest option, ban everything. Ban the internet as we have to protect the kids, ban music because it contains naughty words, ban horror mazes because it will offend a minority of people who have never been, ban all foods because all of them are bad for you and will make you fat and give you cancer, ban any liquids even tap water because its bad for you, ban breathing because of all the pollutants in the air, yep, thats right, we might as well just ban being born and ban living. There, that should keep the soddin PC brigade happy.
 
As ridiculous as this complaint is, I really, really wish people would learn what 'political correctness' is, and realise that one person/a few people being offended by something they don't appear to fully understand is not 'PC gone mad'. It's one person/a few people being offended by something they don't appear to fully understand.
 
Oh no, haven't you heard? They aren't OFFENDED, its supposedly DAMAGING...
Yeah, damaging to teenage girls who have a panic attack at the end. There are bigger issues to do with MH than a maze at Thorpe. End of.
 
The issue is, it is not representative of mental health issues, nor is it trying. If there was a schizophrenic in one scene, a bi-polar person in another and a dementia-suffering 85-year-old in another then there could be cause the complaint.

These people should go and check the thing out and then pass comments. The worst thing is that the people doing the criticising, particularly the petition starter, are not capable of reasoned debate or discussion.
 
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