Thorazine Seasons
If you found this page, it might have been by googling “Willow Creek Adolescent Center.” I’ve done that over the years, always disappointed that there’s so little out there about it. Thousands of Texan teens disappeared into places like Willow Creek back in the late 80s and early 90s. Very little has been written about their experiences. I think it’s partly due to the stigma of hospitalization.
I’m still in touch with a few (former) kids I knew there. The memories of that time are still very vivid to me and I think many of us. It’s my hope that Thorazine Seasons might be a poignant read for those who had similar experiences back then.
I’ve written one other book in my role as head writer of Despair, Inc. It’s a parody of Choose Your Own Adventures we called a Lose Your Own Adventure™. In it, you play a kid detective in Dallas back in 1963, trying to crack the case of Who Killed John F. Kennedy? It’s not exactly The Great American Novel, but the Amazon & Goodreads reviews were pretty good.
As with that book, this new one will include a lot of illustrations. I want the read to be a cinematic experience. For forgotten places like the “Noisy Room”, “The Pit” and Seclusion to be brought back to life. I’m reconstructing those environments in 3d and AI, using blueprints, photos, and my own memory. It’ll take me a while but the early results are promising.
the book will be photo illustrated. this is an early test image only.
In 2003, I was able to procure a few hundred pages of my patient records from the experience 16 years prior. It’s a bittersweet read in places, but sometimes pretty hilarious.
This is a random entry from week two of my Progress Notes, where I worried openly about accidentally lengthening my stay. LOL.
This was my old room.
Fifteen years ago, I visited the old Willow Creek campus. At the time, it was being used as a church with a small school operating out of the Boys Unit. The Pastor there was kind enough to let me walk around and take some pictures and videos. My old room was in the middle of being converted to a locker room. Here’s a quick glimpse of that.
These are early visualization tests.
I’m working with Sketch-Up, Firefly, Midjourney, and Photoshop.
I found old blueprints for the hospital online many years back . That has made room reconstruction much more precise than if I had to rely solely on my memory and what few photos I’ve dug up. The details aren’t exactly right — the beds, for example, didn’t have headboards. But it’s in the ballpark and I’ll refine over time. The room depicted below is the same one recorded in the video above.
