Introduction
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen was first published in 1993 and is an autobiographical account of the author during her period in the psychiatric ward. The storyline follows Kaysen’s voluntary admission into the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, when she was eighteen years old. Kaysen reflects on her life as a patient after more than twenty years, trying to understand her official diagnosis, which was concealed from her before, and evaluate as an adult whether she was mentally ill and did she truly recover. The story reveals that she was manipulated into consenting to stay at the hospital as she spent nearly two years there instead of the promised few weeks. Susanna adjusts to life at the mental facility, meeting and befriending the fellow patients. The characters involved in the narrative are mostly the patients and staff of the mental facility, also including mentions of Susanna’s parents, her boyfriend, and others.
Main Characters’ Background
Susanna Kaysen
Susanna is the main character in the memoir, perceiving and describing her actions and the events around her uniquely. She explains how one day she woke up inspired to swallow fifty aspirin tablets (Kaysen, 1993). Susanna denies she wanted to die; she tried to kill a part of herself. After the suicide attempt, she feels relieved and happier, giving in to her intrusive thoughts and moving on. She also mentions her previous behavioral patterns of self-harm and compulsive urges. Her parents and psychiatrist think differently, and soon, she is manipulated into agreeing to stay at the McLean mental facility to treat bipolar personality disorder. She accepts herself to be weird and different, but she does not consider herself insane and gives rational answers to each action and behavioral pattern. After she is admitted, Susanna is informed that she has been diagnosed with personality disorder, and she reflects on the meaning of this illness throughout her stay at the mental facility. She eventually gets a marriage proposal from her boyfriend and leaves McLean.
Georgina Tuskin
Susanna and Georgina form a friendship during their stay at the mental facility. They were roommates and usually regarded as mentally healthier than the other patients. Georgina would talk about the day she knew she went crazy, and the darkness inside her head was too overwhelming for her, so she surrendered herself to McLean hospital. Georgina is outspoken, well-adjusted, and loves cooking and baking. She is diagnosed with schizophrenia, but the only mention of her mental disorder is demonstrated during an incident when she shows no emotional response to burning her hand.
Lisa Rowe
Lisa is a former drug addict and has a very complex character. She constantly runs away and gets caught in several days. She never seems to mind being back again. The only relative she communicates with is her brother, and her longing for a family is emphasized throughout the story. She noted that her parents did not visit her as she is a sociopath. Lisa is a leader among the patients, and everyone either respects or is scared of her. She is pride of her diagnosis and got jealous and angry when another patient, Lisa Cody, was diagnosed as a sociopath as well, turning from friendly to aggressive towards her. She ends up as a single mother and has her own place.
Polly Clark
Polly is described as docile, calm, and understanding to others. She set herself on fire when she was younger, and her body is severely scarred as a result. No one knows why she did it or dares to ask about it. Polly sometimes has outbursts of depression when she will cry and scream all night long until she is put on medication or wrapped in a cold sheet. Susanna is in awe at Polly’s courage to try to commit suicide in such a scary way, and everyone is highly respectful towards her for that. Polly is diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression.
Daisy
Daisy appears in and out of McLean, usually during wintertime. She is described as spoilt, rude, aggressive towards everyone, and stays alone most of the time. She is addicted to laxatives and loves eating chicken in her room. Her father visits her often and had promised to buy her a house for herself. Daisy would not throw away the chicken remains after she ate her meals, hoarding them in her room. The other patients discuss Daisy, suspecting her father has incestuous inclinations towards her and that she has obsessive-compulsive disorder. She eventually leaves the hospital and moves into her new house, where she commits suicide on her birthday.
Torrey
Torrey is addicted to amphetamines; she was put into the ward by her family, which lives in Mexico and visits her yearly, usually emotionally abusing and threatening her. She hates her home and does not want to return. When her parents decide to take her back home, she is scared and stressed. Everyone is respectful and sympathetic towards her, and each gives up their last money to help her avoid going to Mexico and start an independent life. The plan ends up backfiring as Torrey is too insecure and drugged to take the risk. Susanne and the rest of the patients are shaken and traumatized after discovering that Torrey did not manage to run away.
The Staff
The hospital staff and doctors also influenced Susanna and left an impact on her memory. Valerie is the head nurse of the ward during the daytime. She is in her thirties, quite strict but the patients respect and trust her. She is not afraid of anyone and treats patients fairly and simply. Mrs. McWeeney is the nightshift nurse and is the opposite of Valerie’s character, neither friendly nor understanding. Melvin is Susanna’s former psychiatrist, and they were quite close. She thought he understood and favored her, but soon she gets disappointed and stops sharing her deep thoughts and emotions with him.
Personal Thoughts
The memoir Girl, Interrupted has an insightful and unique narrative, offering the readers a first-person perspective from a mental facility. The author’s characters are not just insane; they are described in a friendly and relatable light. Susanna is right in observing that the line between sanity and insanity is thin and blurred. She states that mental illnesses and diagnoses are probably a miscommunication between patients and doctors. Susanna reveals that most of her attitudes towards life and behaviors have remained the same, she has just learned to demonstrate them wisely (Kaysen, 1993). She also notes that her diagnosis would be different if she were the opposite gender, as some behaviors are considered symptoms of a mental disorder only in women.
Some of the patients’ diagnoses seemed exaggerated, and their depressive states would be completely normal responses to such living conditions. Lisa and Torrey are drug addicts and do not seem to have any mental illnesses but ended up in the hospital under certain circumstances. Lisa eventually got released and became a loving mother and a functioning member of society. In Daisy’s case, on the other hand, it is evident that she needed further treatment and surveillance, and independent life was fatal for her. Overall, the diagnoses of the patients seem to be based loosely on the symptoms of such illnesses as a bipolar personality disorder, schizophrenia, or sociopathy. After reading the book, I had a clearer understanding of a psychiatric ward environment. The patients seem to live in another universe, they have crossed the intricate line between sanity and insanity. Kaysen shows that every person has the potential to be misdiagnosed and end up in a mental facility.
Conclusion
The book ends with Susanna’s final thoughts and reflections about her diagnosis, her current state of mind, and the mental health industry in general. At one point, she delves into insanity and depersonalization, emerging with a new understanding of her life, sanity, and values. She believes that she and many other patients were not seriously mentally challenged, and they were met with severe discrimination. Susanna proved that her aspiration to write was indeed successful for her as she became a writer and ended up living up to her expectations even without graduating from college. In the end, Kaysen mentions the painting she saw which had impacted her as an eighteen-year-old girl, the “Girl Interrupted at Her Music” by Vermeer. When she came across the painting after many years, her feelings and emotions had a different response. Just like in the peace of art, she felt her life at eighteen had also been interrupted and put on canvas, forever fixed and unattainable for her.
Reference
Kaysen, S. (1993). Girl, interrupted. Turtle Bay Books.