![]() Near the conclusion, Susanna described the symptoms of BPD and how they apply to her. She also claims that, while she sometimes had very distorted thinking, she was always aware this was the case, and never confused these thoughts with reality. While denying being “genuinely suicidal,” on one occasion she consumed 50 aspirin and passed out in public, only to awaken after having her stomach pumped. She also described suicidal thoughts and aborted attempts, and at least one attempt that almost succeeded. Susanna’s symptoms included depression, “chronic emptiness and boredom,” skin picking and beating her wrists (forms of self-harm). This too is an important reoccurring theme. Perhaps these things seemed not so unusual to her at the time, though they were evident to others. Her memories of the event as told in the story leave out the concerning details that led to her admission: confusion, suicidality, withdrawal and isolation. She includes her referral and admission paperwork. She claims it was presented to her as a short rest, lasting only two weeks, yet it would last almost two years. Susanna tells the story of being admitted to the hospital after a short visit with a new psychiatrist. She describes mental illness like slipping “into a parallel universe,” where things are both very similar and very different. Susanna begins by claiming that, when others ask about her time in the hospital, they are really motivated by a concern that something similar could happen to them. Written as a series of short stories or reflections on various topics, the book opens with a meditation on the nature of sanity and insanity. That is the situation as portrayed in Girl, Interrupted. ![]() Before effective treatments like DBT, persons with BPD were often placed in hospitals because nothing else seemed to work, or because providers did not know what else to do. Today, people with BPD do still end up in psychiatric hospitals, but that is often not the best decision. The truth is, we did not have effective treatments for BPD until fairly recently, such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy. We are told our main character has BPD (though we are not told much about what this means, nor do we really see it expressed), and she is locked up with other, much more impaired individuals (occasionally seen tied down, or receiving electroconvulsive “shock” treatment against their will). The primary message that comes through, however, is that BPD must be very serious, if it requires months of hospitalization. Is BPD portrayed accurately in those works? Or does it give the public a distorted image of what it means to have BPD? The truth is the book and film don’t show much at all about BPD, or what it means to live with BPD. ![]() The book is fairly simple, detailing 18 months Kaysen spent in an inpatient psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts in the 1960’s when she was 18 years old (Kaysen, 1994). The author was not a fan of the film, which added melodramatic embellishments. The film is based on a memoir of the same name written by Susanna Kaysen. When many persons think of BPD, they think about the 1999 film adaptation starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie (perhaps confusing Ryder’s character, the one diagnosed with BPD, with Jolie’s character, the erratic but charismatic sociopath). Girl, Interrupted is perhaps the most popular work in popular culture about Borderline Personality Disorder. ![]()
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