Girl Interrupted
I thought Girl, Interrupted was a good book. It described Susanna Kaysen's life and the life of other girls around her during the time that she was in a mental hospital. Kaysen had tried to commit suicide in the past and often thought of it. She had also slept with her professor and may have also been depressed. She said that in order to commit suicide, you have to imagine yourself dead in order to do it. She also said that motive is paramount, which means for attention. She took fifty aspirin and went to the supermarket. After taking the pills, she felt that she had made a mistake and regretted doing it. As she was walking to the store she said she had lost her peripheral vision, her ears rang and her pulse was pounding. She said she wasn't trying to kill herself, but trying to kill a part of her. She wanted to get rid of her suicidal part. She passed out at the meat counter at the supermarket. She described the last thing she saw was meat, bruised, bleeding and imprisoned in a tight wrapping. She got her stomach pumped and afterwards became a vegetarian. She knew it wasn't just that meat was the last thing that she saw before she blacked out; it was something more than that. I think it could ha
Later, she went to go see a doctor and he met with her for about fifteen minutes then had to put into a taxi and sent to a psychiatric hospital. It was the first time she had met with him too. He had told her that she looked tired and he had a bed for her that she could rest in for a couple of weeks. She was only eighteen so she went along with it. When she arrived at the hospital, she had to sign herself in because she was of legal age. What she didn't know was that if she did not sign, they would have had to get a court order against her in order to commit her; which they wouldn't have been able to get. Had she known why she was going to the hospital she said she wouldn't have signed. While she was at the hospital she didn't act like a normal person. I think she acted differently because of the people she was around. She was around psychiatric patients, so she was not expected to act normal, so she didn't. So, her symptoms were pretty severe, trying to kill herself and all. She also represented things for other things. Almost as if she was mixing reality with fantasy. She would look at a rug and know she was looking at a rug, but see a forest or a flock of birds. That is another severe symptom. Therefore, I believe that they indeed did warrant hospitalization; anyone that tries to kill themselves needs some kind of help after all. However, I don't agree with how she was put in hospitalization and kept there. The doctor had met with her for fifteen minutes and had her committed. It seemed as if the doctor felt a sense of an accomplishment by sending her there. She was tricked and wasn't told what she was signing. Yet, in
Some common words found in the essay are:
Susanna Kaysen's, Kaysen I've, Girl Interrupted, commit suicide, trying kill, psychiatric hospital, rug forest flock, met fifteen minutes, doctor met fifteen, bruised bleeding imprisoned, flock birds, bleeding imprisoned, doctor met, forest flock birds, bruised bleeding, fifteen minutes, wouldn't aspirin, stomach pumped,
Approximate Word count = 1114
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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