You and Me, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen is an author. She is the author of Girl, Interrupted. While I think the film is outstanding I would encourage admireres to read the book as well.

In graduate school I wrote a paper on Borderline Personality Disorder. The paper focused not just on the illness itself but the sexist stigma against women with the disorder. It often seems that BPD is more so attributed to women and I wanted to explore why.

When I wrote the paper I had no prior experience in working with Borderline patients. I only knew that there was an unresting stigma against patients with this personality disorder. I had heard from many that some professionals dislike working with such individuals as therapy sessions can be quite taxing.

Currently in my profession as a psychiatric social worker, I now work with individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder. Through my education I now know that those with BPD are often mistakingly diagnosed with Major Depression.

I bring this up as it seems Depression can accompany so many illnesses.

I think that even to those who do not have a clinical illness there are aspects of mental illnesss that are relatable.

Sometimes when I am working with patients I think about how society often views mental illness. In the movies or other works of fiction, mental illness is either glamorized or overdramatized. It is glamorized as if it is an artistic gain or attribute or it is exaggerated to viewed as a horror circus freak show.

When I was in high school I remembered so many around me glamorized a dark and dreary attitude and appearanace to be something more than natural teengage angst but rather a fashion or trend.

When I worked in youth shelters and group homes I saw the exact same thing. It was "cool" to be sad. While part of me understood it to be an extention of needing and desiring understanding an acceptance I also saw it as a misunderstanding of true darkness.

Is it so "cool" when you are in college? Is it so cool afterwards? Is it cool at 25, 35, 45 and so on?

I posted a quote from Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation just recently and I think it bears repeating..

"Madness is too glamorous a term to convey what happens to most people who are losing their minds. That word is too exciting, too literary, too interesting in its connotations, to convey the boredom, the slowness, the dreariness, the dampness of depression…depression is pure dullness, tedium straight up. Depression is, especially these days, an overused term to be sure, but never one associated with anything wild, anything about dancing all night with a lampshade on your head and then going home and killing yourself…The word madness allows its users to celebrate the pain of its sufferers, to forget that underneath all the acting-out and quests for fabulousness and fine poetry, there is a person in huge amounts of dull, ugly agony...Remember that when you’re at the point at which you’re doing something as desperate and violent as sticking your head in an oven, it is only because the life that preceded this act felt even worse. Think about living in depression from moment to moment, and know it is not worth any of the great art that comes as its by-product."
------Elizabeth Wurtzel from her book Prozac Nation


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My wish is for individuals to understand that those who experience mental illness are not that different. Mental Illness should not bring up the image of monsterous people. Nor should those without mental illness conjur up the image of pure sanity.

"People ask, how did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up there as well. I can't answer the real question. All I can tell them is, it's easy."
---------Susanna Kaysen author of Girl, Interrupted


Girl Interrupted - Ambivalence

"And it's easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them. Worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but they are not in it."
---------Susanna Kaysen author of Girl, Interrupted

In my mind many the quotes presented in this blog are not all that far fetched. Whether one is speaking of mental illness or day to day emotions and routine, I think these profound words are relatable.

"Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is visible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from. Sometimes the world you came from looks huge and menacing, quivering like a vast pile of jelly; at other times it is miniaturized and alluring, a-spin and shining in its orbit. Either way it can't be discounted. Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco."
---------Susanna Kaysen author of Girl, Interrupted