Girl, Interrupted and normal adolescence .
In the book Girl, Interrupted the protagonist, Susanna Kaysen, is a troubled youth who is confined, against her informed will, to a mental hospital for a year and a half. During this time she shows her sanity, not only through lucid thought and clear understanding of the world around her, but through the apparent lack of mental illness.
Susanna is admitted to the hospital under her own signature, but has been provoked and deceived by her doctor in a time of confusion. In her first meeting with the psychologist who condemns her to the hospital, she seems unclear of the meaning of what he says, and unwittingly agrees with him to be committed. " "You need a rest," he announced. I did need a rest, particularly since I"d gotten up so early that morning "Don't you think? Don't you think you need a rest?" "Yes," I said".(7-8) She clearly didn't understand what the Doctor intended by "rest". Once the doctor tells her that she is going to the hospital she is nervous and angst-ridden. She tries to reason with the doctor, who won't listen to her, but also forces her into the taxi which takes her to the hospital. This is not the reasoning of an insane or mentally unstable person. A memorandum describing Susanna includes the statement: "History of suicidal attempts". She admits but only one suicide attempt, whereas the official statement gives the impression of several occasions of her trying to kill herself. .
The admittance papers to McLean Hospital describe Susanna Kaysen as a "Psychoneurotic depressive reaction. Personality pattern disturbance Schizophrenia" (3) and "Profoundly depressed - suicidal. Promiscuous, might get pregnant" and, "Despariate"(11), (desperate). In Susanna's accounts of her mental condition, later in the book, the stories she relates speak only of normal adolescence and, excusing her suicidal episode, an relatively ordinary high school experience.
