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Eleonora Sargsyan
Professor Kane
Englsih 115
15 December, 2016

Essay 3.2: Susannas Sanity

In the movie One flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, McMurphy, the main character, tells the
other patients in the mental ward, Youre no crazier than the average asshole on the street.
Many of us on the outside will find ourselves going in and out of sanity. It can come to a point
where the fine line between sane and insane will be indistinguishable. In the 60s especially,
when civil wars and deaths were happening every day, one was easy to be found on the border of
insanity. An award winning memoir, Girl Interrupted, written by the main character herself
shares Susanna Kaysens stay in a mental hospital during the late 1960s. Throughout the whole
book, Susanna debates whether she was ever truly ill in the first place. She would agree with
McMurphy, as she too wrote in her book that she will never know if the person walking beside
her on the sidewalk is more insane than her. Susanna was diagnosed with a borderline personality
disorder. She describes this condition as a self-destructive behavior in which the sufferer has an
unclear idea about long term goals. To Susanna, this was just typical behavior in a teenagers life.
According to Linda Westbrook, borderline personality disorder is a severe personality disorder
characterized by disturbances in emotional regulation, impulse control, interpersonal
relationships, and identity. BPD affects 1-2% of the general population and is the most common
personality disorder in clinical settings representing 10% of the patients in in a teenagers life

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(2). Kaysens life outside ended when she took 50 aspirins and her being placed in McLean
mental hospital for one and a half years. Still, she was sane enough to be released from the
hospital because, she had a conscious mind that could distinguish reality from illusion, her
condition was certainly better than that of the other girls in her mental ward, and her living back
in the world would provide her with a healthier environment.
She had a conscious mind, and consciousness is a big factor to sanity. Even though the
timing of the book was not chronological, making her healing process harder to understand,
Kaysen did show signs of sanity in McLean. She always accepted and understood her condition.
For example, she realized that she had a problem with patterns and the way it would leave her
feeling. For this reason, she tended to avoid them. Understanding that one has a problem is the
first step to solving that problem. Kaysen understood the things that led her to want to commit
suicide, and she hated the part of her that was considering suicide. This means that from the
beginning, Kaysen was not fully insane. Sane by definition means to be mentally sound and to
possess a rational mind that includes mental faculties in such condition as to be able to anticipate
and judge the effect of one's actions in an ordinary manner. Susanna Kaysen eventually did end
up developing a sane mindset after she was released from the hospital, not to say that she wasnt
close to reality in the mental ward. However, during her days in McLean, Kaysen took actions
that she wasnt conscious of doing. For example, during the time when she started to dig in her
hand for bones, she did not realize what she was doing (Kaysen 124). She wanted to make sure
that she was a human being. Her behavior was a result of seeing Torrey being removed from the
hospital because of her judgmental parents, which might have reminded her of her problems with
her own parents and caused her to distress. 25 years later, Kaysen only looked back at the
incident and realized what had happened. We could presume that she was more knowledgeable

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about it because of the way she was writing about it in her book. This is because she spoke very
maturely about this looking back, creating an impression that she established a better sense of
things when released. Her consciousness of what was happening with her mind, proves that she
was sane enough to be released from the hospital.
In McLean, there were girls that had severe cases of insanity almost incomparable to
Susannas. Susanna Kaysen and Georgina, her roommate, were the sanest ones of their ward.
Even though Georgina was diagnosed with schizophrenia, she acted much better than the rest of
the girls in the mental ward. However, Susanna was far more insane than anybody in her ward.
In fact, putting her in the same place as people with severe mental illnesses, might have been bad
for her. This is because in her mind, she couldve grouped her with the rest of the girls and her
condition would seem worse than it actually was. In the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoos
Nest, the men in that mental ward actually had severe illnesses that needed serious treatment.
They were the very definition of insane. Insanity is the state of being seriously mentally ill.
People who are insane are filled with deep madness. Susanna wasnt in the healthiest condition,
but she wasnt completely insane either. Even though both mental wards were very different, it
shows the great difference between Kaysen and those men. Kaysen was much saner compared to
them. She did not deserve to be placed there longer than she should have.
Finally, staying in the mental institution could have had a worse outcome. In that
environment, it could have been easy to go crazy even if one wasnt crazy yet. For example, the
girls had five-fifteen minute checks. Having someone check on you every five minutes is alone
to make one go crazy. Seeing all the events happening in the institution is another thing that
could have help in ones turning to insanity. Kaysen saw many bad incidents in her ward. She
found out that one of the girls had committed suicide. Another one burned herself, and was

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walking around without skin. Just when it couldnt get worse, the new girl had fecal matter all
over her room. Such atmosphere was everything but healthy for Kaysen. She not only was being
inhabited with girls with true madness, but she was also being treated like a true madness herself.
Being in an environment where she believed she was sane, but are treated completely insane
could have had a bad outcome in the healing of Kaysen. While Kaysen did do things in her
teenage years that might have seemed a bit crazy, we need to consider a few things. Kaysen was
a teenage girl, going through crazy things like having major issues with her parents, while living
in the 60s. The 60s cannot be underestimated in the impact that they left on the people living in
that era. According to Sharon Monteith, the ideals and the failures of the 1960s echo powerfully.
The deification of an authentic sixties risks a loss of intellectual skepticism (185). Most people
at that time believed that they would not live past 30-40 years. Therefore, they did things as if it
was their last day. As described in Sharons book, there were wars, civil wars, and so many crazy
events, but at the same time important things were happening at that time (185). In a way, the
girls in Kaysens ward felt safer in the institution rather than the outside world. It was a good
hiding spot for them. Therefore, it can be argued that what Kaysen was going through was not
totally abnormal taking into consideration the times, at least not to the point of being thrown in a
mental institution for longer than one and a half years.
Susanna never tried hiding her naughty side. She did do crazy things in her younger
years. Kaysens experiences in her teenage years could have caused depression at some point, but
at the same time they might have seemed common in that era. During those times, it was easy to
fall between the fine line of sane and insane. Unfortunately, Kaysen was classified as being part
of the insane. While Kaysen did need some help during those times of her life in order to get out
of depression, she shouldnt have stayed longer than a small amount of time in the hospital. It is

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evincible that she was sane enough when she was released from the hospital. Staying in there
longer than what she already had stayed couldve had a bad outcome. Therefore, it was better for
her to be released than to have stayed in a place in which she no longer belonged.
Girl Interrupted was truly an interesting book that gave out the experience of someone
from what she calls the parallel universe. After all, the path to insanity is so possible to happen to
anybody. One never knows if the person that just walks past them on the sidewalk is more sane
or insane than oneself. Susanna Kaysen did fall under insanity for a short time in her life;
however, what was more important is that she stood back up. What was special about Kaysen
was her conscious mind. Having a conscious mind is the number one evidence of still being sane.
Kaysen had that.

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Works Cited

Monteith, Sharon. American Culture in the 1960s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
2008.
One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest. Directed by Milos Forman, performances by Jack Nicholson
and Louise Fletcher, Warner Home Video, 2011.
Westbrook, Linda F., and Maria H. Jackson. Borderline Personality Disorder: New Research.
New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009.