Summary:
Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen is an autobiographical novel by a troubled teen that has attempted suicide, and admits herself into a hospital where she is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. While in the hospital, Susanna meets a self-interested, unpredictable, sociopath, Lisa Rowe, who in the end unintentionally teaches Kaysen how important it is to be responsible and grateful for life.
Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen is an autobiographical novel by a troubled teen that has attempted suicide, and admits herself into a hospital where she is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. While in the hospital, Susanna meets a self-interested, unpredictable, sociopath, Lisa Rowe, who in the end unintentionally teaches Kaysen how important it is to be responsible and grateful for life. Drugs are a big issue inside and outside the hospital ward. While under the care of the facility, patients trade each other's medications and abuse them one way or another. To help each girl get better they are taught and shown the line between sanity and insanity.
Susanna explains her past as a surprise to her; flashbacks to someone else's past, as if she doesn't remember much about herself. The first step to getting better is understanding her diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder: "How am I supposed to recover when I don't even understand my own disease?" She receives a lot of help from everyone at the hospital, the patients, the doctors, the nurses, and the staff. Nurse Valerie gave her a helpful opinion about who she really is so she can help her minor problems. "You know, I take a lot of crazy shit from a lot of crazy people but you... you are NOT crazy." Susanna confusingly responds with: "Then what's wrong with me huh? What the fuck is going on inside my head? Tell me Dr. Val. What's your diagnonsense?" The usage of the word diagnonsense reflects on the way patients feel about their diagnosis. Knowingly Val gives her, her diagnonsense: "You are a lazy self-indulgent little girl, who is driving herself crazy." There's nothing really wrong with Susanna, Val seems to think. All it is, is Susanna being so spoiled that anything she does, she drives herself insane about it.
It is never really clear if Susanna herself really ever thought she was crazy or if she ever really "recovered", either way, Dr. Wick, Susanna's psychiatrist, thinks he ought to save her from the abandonment of family cultural values, the youth of that time who shared her unconventional appearance, music, anti-war protests, and drug culture. The unconventional everything came from the 70's hippie era. Unfortunately the drug culture didn't stop at the ward. Patients would exchange medications amongst each other to satisfy each other's "habits." Instead of consuming their necessary medicines in order to help themselves advance in their psychological recovery, they took each other's medicines to satisfy their own wantings. It's a fact that drugs make people feel alive. These patients or people who consume drugs "wrongfully" are people who can feel numb at times; Susanna felt numb, she felt dead. So to take drugs made her feel excited and more human. " I know what it is to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit it in but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside, to try to kill the thing on the inside." Drugs, she thought could kill the thing on the inside that made her feel so horrible, but it was really only killing her.
One day while escaping the world with Lisa, Susanna discovers that sometimes to be sane can be a choice to some people; everyone is insane, but the insanity is to be kept to yourself, and if expressed, you are considered to be crazy. Something's are just not meant to be said. (Susanna):"You don't want me Tony." (Tony):"Yes I do, Baby.."..(Susanna)"no you don't. I'm ...a crazy girl" (Tony) "You're crazy so we can't have one night of bliss?" (Susanna) "I am a crazy girl seriously" (Tony) "You've been to a hospital?" (Susanna) "yes" (Tony)"So you see purple people? My friend he saw purple people. And so the state came and took him away. He didn't like that. Some time went by and, and he told em' he didn't see purple people no more." (Susanna) "He got better." (Tony) "Nah, he still sees 'em." This also goes back to the word "diagnonsense." Now a days, it is not uncommon for people to have a psychologist; a shrink, to listen to our problems. What was then considered to be crazy, now is considered to be more common amongst us because people express themselves more freely, either to a shrink or to anyone else.
The line between normal and crazy is a blurry one even in today's world. I believe sane and insane can be defined as common or uncommon behavior. Support and help is still given without having to be hospitalized. In the end of the novel, Kaysen "recovers" from her diagnosis although she never really understood it or even knows if she really is "recovered." She feels the same way about leaving the hospital as when she came in the hospital. "Was I ever crazy? Maybe or maybe life is..."
This is the complete article, containing 808 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
