User:SamanthaGuirado1234/Girl, Interrupted

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Girl, Interrupted is a best-selling 1993 memoir by American author Susanna Kaysen, relaying her experiences as a young woman in an American psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The memoir chronicles her lived experience and how she developed the disorder through particular life circumstances rather than an innate, predetermined biological difference in brain chemistry. The intersection between female adolescence and mental illness creates newfound discourse on how social challenges amongst teen girls may prompt unhinged behavior. Susanna Kaysen opens up a conversation on how mental illness is generally perceived in society as a biological deficiency in brain chemicals, but could it be a natural response to societal pressure as a young teen? Is the commodification of mental health portraying a negative stereotype of mental health struggles that could be otherwise better addressed? The memoir's title is a reference to the Vermeer painting Girl Interrupted at Her Music. Kaysen drew a parallel between the Vermeer painting and her own life by equating music interrupting the girl with the struggles of female adolescence interrupting healthy development. Both serving as an impediment to personal evolution, Kaysen draws on the painting as a source of inspiration for critical analysis of the female teenage experience.

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Plot

Fellow patients Polly, Cynthia, Lisa Rowe, Lisa Cody, Georgina and Daisy contribute to Susanna's experiences at McLean as she describes their personal issues and how they come to cope with the time they must spend in the hospital. Through including personalized descriptions of supporting characters the reader generates an idea of how severe each of their circumstances are which in turn draws a dichotomy between Susanna and the other admittees. Susanna also introduces the reader to particular staff members, including Valerie, Dr. Wick and Mrs. McWeeney. The staff members play a vital role in her awakening of whether or not the doctors have genuine intentions to successfully treat their patients due to the lack of health progression amongst her peers. Susanna and the other girls are eventually informed that the recently released Daisy died by suicide on her birthday. Daisy's death deeply saddens the girls, and they hold a prolonged moment of silence in her memory.

After leaving McLean, Susanna mentions that she kept in touch with Georgina and eventually saw Lisa, now a single mother who was about to board the subway with her toddler son and seemed, although quirky, to be sane. Susanna's static mental health state and uncertainty about being "cured" when she is officially released from the institution offers an often-overlooked aspect of mental illness. Individuals who exhibit emotions not commonly expressed are ostracized when in reality as humans we are all capable of being on the spectrum of insanity if strictly analyzed by a professional. Being "crazy" was her natural response to life's stressors at an especially vulnerable time dedicated to healing our inner child.

Structure

Girl, Interrupted does not follow a linear storyline, but instead the author provides anecdotes of events and personal reflections on her journey to being admitted. Kaysen works on encapsulating her experience by providing descriptive, concise illustrations of her time at the hospital as well as her own interpretation of the social classification of "insanity". She begins by talking about the concept of a parallel universe and how easy it is to slip into one, comparing insanity to an alternate world. Kaysen equates insanity in this instance with a mere alternate conception of reality; someone with mental illness possesses a different perception of the world as compared to an individual classified as neurotypical. She discusses how some people fall into insanity gradually and others just snap. Her main goal with the memoir is to overtly express how inculcated variations of mental illness are present in our daily lives and our social circles. Conceptions of mental illness portrayed in media and other published works have otherwise villainized individuals variating from the social norm especially when it comes to addressing the taboo of mental health advocacy. Kaysen also details the doctor's visit before first going to the hospital and the taxi ride there at the beginning of the book before launching into the chronicles of her time at the hospital.