Susanna Kaysen, an eighteen-year-old in April of 1967, agrees to enter McLean Hospital, a residential psychiatric facility in Massachusetts. Although she plans to stay only a few weeks, Kaysen remains at McLean for nearly two years. The doctor who forcefully advocates her committal to a mental hospital interviewed Kaysen for only twenty minutes. Kaysen tells …
Summary: Toward a Topography of the Parallel Universe Kaysen begins her account of mental illness and hospitalization with a question often posed to her: how did she end up there? Kaysen believes that people are curious about the circumstances of her hospital stay primarily to discover whether they might find themselves in the same situation. …
Summary: Freedom Lisa has run away. Despite frequent escapes, Lisa is always caught and returned to the hospital, disheveled and cursing at the nurses and orderlies. When the girls ask Lisa what life is like on the outside, she tells them that it’s scary without caretakers. Lisa sleeps and eats very little, giving her a …
Summary: My Suicide Kaysen considers the suicide attempt that contributed to her stay at the hospital. She compares suicide to premeditated murder, asserting that detachment, planning, and motive are necessary to a successful outcome (in this case, death). The person must prepare by imagining the means of death, be it jumping, slashing wrists, or leaping …
Summary: The Prelude to Ice Cream McLean Hospital has hosted many famous patients, including Ray Charles, James Taylor, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath. Kaysen wonders whether poets are particularly vulnerable to mental illness. McLean boasts a beautifully landscaped campus and sits on a hill outside the affluent town of Belmont, Massachusetts. Occasionally, the girls are …
Summary: Another Lisa A new patient arrives, also named Lisa. The girls decide to call her Lisa Cody in deference to the other Lisa. The Lisas sit in two different phone booths and have conversations with each other, yelling playfully back and forth. The doctors have yet to diagnose Lisa Cody. Cynthia suffers from depression, …
Summary: Velocity vs. Viscosity Kaysen believes that mental illness can be divided into two types: fast and slow. The slow type brings everything in a patient’s mind to a crawl. Time seems to creep by, powers of observation and insight are blunted, and even the body’s heart rate and immune system become weak. The fast …
Summary: Bare Bones Kaysen sees the hospital as a place of both shelter and captivity. Confined to the ward, the girls can avoid taking responsibility for schoolwork, parents’ wishes, and jobs. The patients’ families pay hefty fees for their children’s treatment. Kaysen wonders whether she and her fellow patients are confined to the hospital in …
Summary: New Frontiers in Dental Health As her time at the hospital approaches its end, Kaysen begins to plan her next steps. She thinks back to the job she held before hospitalization—typing student bills at Harvard. Kaysen was surprised by the sexism she encountered there. The typing and supervisory staff was strictly segregated by gender, …
Summary: Borderline Personality Disorder This chapter, an explanation of Kaysen’s diagnosis, is taken from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition (DSM-III). The most prominent characteristic of a borderline personality is an uneven sense of identity. This instability manifests itself in conflicted relationships, an inability to make ethical choices, confusion about sexual …