Suicidal Tendencies Lyrics

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

i'm 47... spent ten years working in the mental health industry and saw it from the inside out... have spent 40+ years with my own mental health deteriorating... this song speaks to the heart of what's wrong with mental health care today, with the enculturation that results in pre-defined insanity, the blame game, and the real horror of institutionalization and being imprisoned "for your own good." I've been asked to wield the club and I have refused and lost my job. I have met and worked with great therapists but the health care system itself is a monster treadmill that punishes self-respect and individuality and everything it pretends to support. Too often i see staff members whose personal agendas and counter-transference translates into abusing people imprisoned in their systems. It's a catch-22 because if you really do need help it's so hard to really get it. And people end up self-destructing rather than letting someone else destroy them as soulful individuals. I love this song.

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

I just re-discovered this song after about 22 years (and for that matter the entire Repo Man soundtrack). I loved this song when I was in my late teens and early 20s. I've always loved the energy he brings to the song. I wonder if the artist was truly that angry or if he could just turn it on for a stage performance.

For me its a song about parents inability to connect with their children and how that disconnect can really harm people over time. Now that I'm middle aged and a dad I think its also about how Americans put such a huge emphasis on individuality that individuals can weaken the family unit. Children (even 15 - 18 y.o. children) can be too far from their family when they need help. Then the family tries a drastic measure (institution) to solve the "problem" (disconnected people).

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

Well, just giving my personal review on what the song means to me.
I've been institutionalized twice in my life, first time was for drug rehab (I checked myself in), second time was at a psyche ward (tricked into going by a caring friend, but I needed to be there, even though I really didn't want to go. Also was completely sober for a few months at the time).
I do relate to the song, but I disagree a bit with Mike on some level. I guess you could say I'm more "structured" today, rather than the old "I hate everything and everyone and you're all wrong except for me" punk rocker anymore.
Now don't get me wrong, I still love punk rock and still listen to all the stuff I used to listen to, you can call me a sell-out or a system's victim or what have you, but now I have a job, make car payments, pay taxes, etc., and I don't complain much about it, that's just part of life.
Back to the song, I've felt the same way as Mike a hundred times in my past, and this song will always remind me of where I was, and we all need to be reminded of where we came from every once in a while.
People naturally need some sort of institute, we crave it. Think of it this way, like-minded people come together in some way, whether it's at church or a punk rock show, or even a psyche ward. So I don't really have any beef with any institution.
I could over-analyze the lyrics and try to tell you what it means, but I just figured writing what it means to me would be a better option.

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

I'm 42 now and just yesterday while listening to my Black Flag Pandora station this song popped up. I almost had to stop mowing and start thrashing in my back yard hahahha. This song along with the Violent Femmes 'Blister in the Sun pretty much embodied all teen angst in the 1980's which was a transition from turbulence of the 60's into the political corruption and alienation of the 70's. Most of us who listened to this stuff back then were very politically aware and could easily identify with the disconnect that ultimately is known as generation X.

And yeah I knew a few kids who were swept right away by there parents and sent off to an institution. It was fucked up.

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

If you're here actually looking for a review for this song, try to avoid the idiots that think this has no meaning. I mostly give props to PMc, MAN, Adam, clavdivs, Bregget, matt, and Betty...
Other than them, just about every other "reviewer" is just as institutionalized as Mike Muir felt when he wrote this song.

Idiots.

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

growing up in the 80s I got into punk and used to love this song b/c it represented the feelings of developing independence as a teen yet being trapped in a world run by mom and dad....

somewhere along the line I forgot about this song (so much for a song damaging one's life); now thanks to steve jobs I can listen to it on my personal device while working out.

yes I smoked dope and drank as a teen; but now I'm an almost 40-year old adult with a good job and a great family. its only a freaking song; identify with it--great, life gets better as you get older and mature. don't identify with it--great, keep listening to bubble gum pop and let the media tell you what to think

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

Im sure there is a meaning, its right there all you have to do is think, just look at these lyrics, some people jus cant see past the sounds and actually understand a song

So we decided that it would be in your best interest if we put you somewhere where you could get the help that you need.” And I go “wait, what are you talking about, WE decided? MY best interests? How do you know what MY best interest is? How can you say what MY best interest is? What are you trying to say? I'M crazy? When I went to YOUR schools, I went to YOUR churches, I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities? So how can you say I'M crazy?”

So you're gonna be institutionalized.
You'll come out brainwashed with bloodshot eyes.
You won't have anything to say.
They'll brainwash you until you see their way.

I'm not crazy - IN AN INSTITUTION!!!
You're the one that's crazy - IN AN INSTITUTION!!!
You're driving me crazy - IN AN INSTITUTION!!!

They stuck me in an institution,
Said it was the only solution
To give me the needed professional help to protect me from the enemy, myself

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

IM DEPRESSED LOOKING FOR HELP AND HERE THIS BAND TAKES UP THE GAY USELESS LISTINGS!!! WHAT A FUCKING CROCK!!!! I CANT WAIT UNTILL THEY GET SUED FOR BLOCKING THE HELP TO OTHERS LIKE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NO GOOD COCK FUCKIN SUCKARS

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

@Reviewer: Anonymous | 4/26/11

Your review sucks. For everyone who agrees with it, there are plenty of dumbasses that don't understand different forms of expression... I think your heart's gonna explode when I fucking stab you multiple times...

    ------ About the song Institutionalized performed by Suicidal Tendencies

In the 1980s there were a lot of kids that were "institutionalized" for petty things like talking back, listening to punk rock, drawing pentagrams, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and the like. Some parents believed, or were led to believe, that these were indications of Satan-worship or incipient criminality.
I knew some of these kids. I grew up in a town where one of the major employers was an institution that saw this sort of traffic.
Some of these kids were forcibly kidnaped from their own homes, denied contact with their relatives (including parents), forced to wear uniforms and sometimes locked in cells or physically abused. Almost all the ones I've spoken with were verbally abused by God-addled therapists who blamed them for putative damage to their parents for being "godless" or "satan's tools".
If you google "Back in Control Centers" you might find some interesting stories that relate to this. BICC was just one of the many organizations responsible for this sort of institutionalized child abuse.

That's what it is: institutionalized abuse of children. What are you going to do about it?