Susana

In Girl, Interrupted, Susana is a girl suffering from depression. She is advised by a doctor to enter a mental institution after her suicide attempt. She goes into this institution feeling that she does not belong there because she is “not crazy”. At first she denies having attempted suicide. She declares that she just had a headache and that is why she took all those aspirins. Susana overcomes her illness with the help of the other girls in the hospital, one of the nurses, and her own will.

Susana is experiencing depression because she seems sad most of the time. She also experiences sleep disturbances. In her graduation ceremony she was sleep, which tells me that she was oversleeping. While at the institution she had insomnia, only with the pills she was able to sleep. She does not enjoy her family’s party or any other social gathering. Susana seems nervous all the time; she tries to alleviate her mood by smoking, which she does very frequently. She also has some psychotic features with her depressive episode because she experiences delusions. She tells the doctor that she did not have any bones in her hands when attempted suicide and that they came back afterwards. From her flashbacks we can see that she had constant suicide thoughts, and she was planning how to do it for a long time. She has difficulties making decisions, especially about her future. Her description of her symptoms are mostly somatic, she complains about having a headache instead of saying that she is depressed. Susana is just dealing with the stress of being young, trying to fit in, and find out what she wants out of life. Her parents are not very supportive. Her relationship with the other girls in the hospital helps her to realize that she is not the only one that has these feelings of inadequacy in this world.

Girl, Interupted