Girl, Interrupted : Living in a Parallel Universe

In English 009, we are reading the memoir Girl, Interrupted.  It's about a young woman who is forced by her parents to enter a mental hospital. Her name is Susanna.  She's having difficulties coping with friends, family, and school.  Inside, she faces an entire new set of challenges, but she learns more about herself than she could ever imagine.  Below I try to share her description of "insanity":

Insanity is living in a parallel universe.

Insanity is the battle between the rational and unconscious. Insanity is not doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That’s a cliché. Insane people really don’t know what to expect. Their world is a nightmare. 

In the memoir Girl, Interrupted Susanna is a depressed and tortured young woman who is thrust against her will into a home for the mentally ill. But she is both very intelligent and compassionate. In fact,  she spends much her time inside helping other patients and recording her reflections in a personal journal.

That’s her rational side. But there are other times when she drifts out of the present moment and we see her suffer uncontrollably. In one frightening scene, she fears she has lost all the bones and bites open the flesh in her hand for relief. In the blink of an eye, Susanna drifts back and forth between reality and a parallel universe.

Her normal life was like a prison to her. Her life in an institution offers her a sense of freedom. She’s trapped either way. That’s an insane way to live.

This Is What I Believe: Insanity is in the eye of the beholder. Often, people who dare to be different are labeled crazy by society. Occasionally I see the poet Charles Bukowski’s famous quote on a bumper sticker: "Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." Susanna couldn’t handle her life on the outside. In her mental institution she developed love and friendship that was always missing in her life. To me, “Mad Poets” like Susanna and Bukowski play an important role in our world. They are the ones with the courage to take on the fakers and liars while the rest of us hide in fear.