Girl, Interrupted: A Memoir Paperback – April 19, 1994

Movie and book are slightly different but still a good read especially for a high school project!

Girl, Interrupted written by Susanna Kaysen is about the authors life as a young, ambitious girl in the 1960's who gets admitted into the women's ward of a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts. Observantly, Kaysen tells the story of her two-year-long stay at the hospital through multiple vague vignettes. She describes another patient named Lisa, who is a proud sociopath, and how her unpredictable personality was a prime source of entertainment for the other women in the ward. Another one of her 'friends' at the hospital is her room mate, who also suffers from depression, named Georgina. Georgina is an ultimately relaxed character and, on the surface, seems pretty normal, but her instability emerges later in the story. For most of the book, Kaysen refuses to accept the fact that she is in the ward because the psychiatrist that admitted her only saw her for 20 minutes and diagnosed her with Borderline Personality Disorder. In one vignette, she recollects her suicide attempt, in which she took 50 baby aspirin and passed out at a grocery store, saying, "… it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate …" (37). This showcases her unhappiness with only parts of herself and her underlying instability, which seems to be a very important theme throughout the novel. One important event is when Kaysen is released into the world and is forced to participate in life. She struggles with finding a job because of her past and reluctantly accepts an old friend's marriage proposal.Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it very insightful. It showcased the struggles of womanhood in the late 1960's, her endless turmoil with her mental state, and her attempts to define the line between sanity and insanity. Throughout the book, her and the other women in the ward frequently watch television and are very engaged in the many civil rights movements going on in that time period. Even after Kaysen leaves the hospital, she struggles with finding a job because of her intolerance with the unfair roles of women in the workplace. Having left the hospital and created a life for herself, she decides to research the disease the doctors claimed she had. She understands some of the parts of the diagnosis; cutting herself and impulsive activities, but she comes to the realization that it is a generalization, which further brings up the problem with the blurry line between sanity and insanity. Her efforts to determine sanity are very relevant, even in modern society, because mental illness is a very real thing and the course of treatment is crucial to a person's development. I would definitely recommend this book to others because of its dark humor and reflective plot.

IntroductionGirl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, is a riveting memoir about mental illness which will have you questioning your own mental state. Kaysen was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is an American author with several books under her belt spanning from fiction to memoirs. Kaysen has written a total of five books with Girl, Interrupted being the best selling and rightfully so. Kaysen bares all and portrays how her life was interrupted by her self-commitment to a psychiatric hospital at age 19. Kaysen commits herself after a short visit with a psychologist she had not seen in the past unaware of her rights to do otherwise. The story is told in a manner in which time is not linear and characters are revealed as they pertain to Kaysen’s agenda, which exposes various mental illnesses and minimally focuses on her own. Kaysen’s frank description of insanity and life at McLean Hospital will leave you identifying with the narrator and the people she encounters during her 18 month stay.Summary of contentSusanna Kaysen is late. This is a common occurrence for her as she makes her way from one train to another in order to make her appointment with her psychiatrist. Kaysen did not know this appointment would cost her 18 months of her life and much of her freedom. It is the spring of 1967 and Kaysen is being admitted to McLean Hospital because she has a history of suicide and the psychiatrist she just met classified her as profoundly depressed. Kaysen agrees seeing as the doctor who referred her stated her stay would be “just for a couple weeks.” She arrived at age 18 and left at age 19, with a month until her 20th birthday.During her stay at McLean, Kaysen encounters patients and keepers. The keepers are the nurses and doctors and the patients include some of the people she builds relationships with. Kaysen recalls the keepers and how “they didn’t like that. Touching us.” The patients, on the other hand, teach her more about different types of mental illnesses and give her insight on those illnesses. Kaysen introduces Polly, a fellow patient who despite lighting herself on fire with the scars to prove it was a kind and compassionate person. Lisa, another patient, is constantly planning her next escape and always voicing her lack of respect for authority. Georgina, Kaysen’s roommate, is preoccupied with her irrational boyfriend Wade who lives in a fantasy where his father belongs to the CIA. Then there is Daisy. Daisy is an irritable rich girl who frequents the hospital for the end of year holidays and occasionally her birthday. Daisy only cares about two things: chicken and laxatives which fascinates the others.The memoir does not follow time as it passes, rather it jumps around similar to states of mental illness or episodes of acting out as the keepers would call it. Kaysen reviews the etiology of mental illness and how the definition of sanity or insanity can be due to “society’s low tolerance for deviant behavior.” Mental illness opens you up to a parallel universe in which, “the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down; a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest; and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction.” Kaysen tells how time is different and works fluidly not linear. Kaysen tells how when you are mentally ill, the voice in our head has a miscommunication between ‘interpreters’. The interpreters fail to deliver the right message or one of them fails to support the message aligned with reality leading to what society would label as insanity.Kaysen attempted suicide and was overly flirtatious with older men, she was told she had a “character disorder”. It was not until much later that in her records she discovered she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Kaysen agreed with most of the diagnosis but stated it was not profound and though she knew it was not meant to be she had her uncertainties about it. She did not see herself fitting into the educational or social systems in place and “life demanded skills [she] didn’t have”. She dissects her diagnosis and noticed it stated it was more commonly diagnosed in women, alluding to the fact that the doctors were the ones judging. She notes gender bias for several labels given to women that would not typically be assigned to boys. By the end of the memoir Kaysen is considered recovered though she still continues to question her sanity in her day to day life.Analysis and evaluation of the bookKaysen recounts her experiences with others though her personal experience is rather lacking, there is omission throughout the story. We are not introduced to her parents or given much background on them or what they thought of her extended stay at McLean. There are mentions to her mother on the day of her suicide attempt and how her father is too busy to visit but other than that, nothing. We see her parents full names and her father;s occupation as a Director at Princeton on the admission forms but their existence in this memoir is rather nonexistent.Again, readers are left with the question of who Jim Watson is and how Kaysen was familiar with him. Watson was clearly somebody that had affection towards Kaysen seeing as he offered to break her out though she ultimately declined. I understand that the point of the chapter was to address a state of acceptance with where she was and her need for rehabilitation yet I still yearned for context. What was real to Kaysen at this point in time was “the vinyl chairs, the security screens, the buzzing of the nursing-station door: those things were clear.” Everything else was fuzzy and that is understandable as she had adapted to her environment and seemingly enjoyed the other patients company. This is one of the few explicit mentions about how she felt during her time at McLean.I think Kaysen’s journey of trying to understand her situation is one many people experience throughout their own life. The sense of detachment from her is critical as it forces the reader to make conclusions on their own. Specifically, the chapter about how much time she spent with her doctor prior to being locked away makes us question what is real and who is telling the truth. The doctor claimed it was a total of three hours but when presented with Kaysen’s evidence we are inclined to think otherwise. I thought this was intentional that because she has been labeled mentally ill, do we even trust her? Is she credible? I note a lot of parallels as Kaysen presents her struggles in a gender-biased society and now though she is recovered will there ever be a time in which people do not question the validity of her statements. And how will we and how do we treat and value input from those who have once been labeled as mentally ill?ConclusionI think this was a great book, which was easy to follow and makes the reader draw their own conclusions. To fear something is to not know it. The lack of physical contact from the keepers and the lack of agency the patients experienced is concerning; specifically for the women in society during the 1960s and even now. What we think we know and we actually know about mental illness is a generalization, Kaysen exemplifies that in her memoir.

It's an interesting and important story, and an intriguing look into the world of mental illness and treatment in its early stages. It shows how far we have come and the advancements that have allowed us to better understand these complex disorders. I was surprised at what a fast read this was - I think it took all of 3 or 4 hours to read (if that).There are a few things that I felt could have made this better. Humanizing the characters more, making them more relatable, and delving deeper into understanding who they were and why they found themselves in a mental hospital would have had a far greater impact. What events led to this? Who were they underneath all of this? Mental illness may seem very foreign and hard to relate to for those who have never experienced it or been close to someone who has, but the majority of people who suffer from it aren't "freaks" - they are your friends, co-workers, family, mentors... they are just like everyone else and not the outcasts that stereotypes have made them out to be.This book had the potential to be epic, but unfortunately I think this book did a poor job of portraying characters to whom we could all relate and instead created eccentric, extreme, and unstable drama queens. The book also failed to accurately demonstrate the good that psychiatry has done, instilling and reinforcing the notion that treatment was/is just pointless quackery, almost as if it were a punishment. This book had been built up so much, especially because of the critically-acclaimed movie, but it left me a little disappointed.