Girl, Interrupted (1999) is a psychological drama movie based on Susanna Kaysen’s memoir of the same name, thus, it retells a true story. The film depicts a young woman, Susanna, having a nervous breakdown and being put into a local psychiatric hospital against her will. The first-hand account of what it may feel about dealing with severe mental health issues is important for the understanding of such experiences as well as reflection on the methods of treatment. The movie did a great job of illustrating the personal confusion and frustration associated with understanding one’s mental disorder in a context and a time when society had limited insight into psychiatric disorders.
While depression and personality disorders affect both genders across various ages, they are prevalent in young adult females. According to the WHO (2023), an estimated 5% of adults suffer from depression, with women being more likely to be affected than men. If not treated or treated ineffectively, the condition can lead to suicide, which is also illustrated in the movie when Daisy, who was released from the mental health institution but dies by suicide on her birthday. Daisy’s death shows that methods used for treating her depression and suicidal ideation were likely to be ineffective, which speaks volumes about the quality of mental healthcare in the 1980s.
It must be noted that depression rarely exists in isolation, which is shown in the movie. For example, Susanna also had borderline personality disorder (BPD). In addition to the feeling of intense sadness and loss of interest in life inherent to depression, she experiences challenges with her self-image. When describing her feelings, Susanna notes that she feels a complete dissociation from herself. In the movie, she is seen biting herself and demanding X-rays of her body to ensure that she is “real” (Mangold, 1999). Severe disturbance within one’s identity is indicative of BPD and is accompanied emptiness, sudden and out-of-place anger, paranoia, as well as a cycle of volatile and intense relationships with other people.
Young women who have BPD are often seen expressing feelings and efforts to avoid either real or imagined abandonment, which is likely triggered by negative relationships with parents or peers. Such sentiments are consistent with chronic anxiety, which may be coupled with impulsivity displayed in the patient. It is common for individuals with BPD to engage in self-damaging behaviors, which include substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating, dangerous sex behaviors, and others (Neff, 2021). The movie illustrates several examples of such behaviors as well as other manifestations of BPD. Examples of BPD and depression in the film are the following:
- Susanna mentions a “half-hearted attempt” to kill herself by taking an entire vile of aspirin with vodka (Mangold, 1999). She was having suicidal thoughts due to depression and her undiagnosed BPD and was actively engaging in behaviors conducive to suicide.
- Upon being placed at the hospital after the attempted suicide, Susanna is seen to have her wrists full of bruises. Also, she tells the nurses that she does not have any bones in her hand (Mangold, 1999). This example is illustrative of her dissociation from herself and suggests that the young woman engaged in self-harm as a result of her condition (Jones et al., 2012). Physical discomfort that one feels when inflicting harm upon herself possibly provides Susanna with an outlet for her emotional overload.
- Dangerous sexual behaviors are illustrated in the flashbacks to the main character’s past relationships. She is seen having an affair with one of her teachers and a young man she met after graduating high school. In both instances, she engages in unsafe sex with them and stays in the relationship despite not having loving feelings towards her partners. Rather, the young woman wants to feel loved, wanted, and not rejected.
- There is a scene in the film when Susanna and Lisa, her roommate, decide to sneakily leave the facility and embark on a small trip to visit their friend, who was recently released. It illustrates that the girls want to feel the thrill of doing something forbidden and thus mask the negative feelings they persistently experienced when living at the mental health institution.
- Prescription drug abuse in the movie is illustrated through the example of Daisy, who ends up committing suicide. The young woman has an eating disorder and refuses to take Valium, which the nurses give to her at the facility. Nevertheless, when she is released from the facility, she immediately asks for the drug from her friends.
To conclude, Girl, Interrupted does an excellent job of showing how depression and borderline personality disorder affect a person’s mental health and life quality. It makes a point to comment on the lack of adequacy of mental health treatment that the characters in the movie received. For instance, Daisy’s sad story shows that the treatment that she received at the mental health facility was inadequate, and she was left with her mental health struggles alone, without anyone on whom she could rely.
References
Jones, A., Smith, J., & Ott, C. (2012). Girl, Interrupted: Two perspectives. Mental Health Clinician, 1(9), 235. Web.
Mangold, J. (Director). (1999). Girl, Interrupted [Video file]. Web.
Neff, M. A. (2021). DSM-5 criteria for borderline personality disorder. Web.
WHO. (2023). Depressive disorder (depression). Web.