Girl, Interrupted

If you need a thought-provoking book to read anytime soon, I highly recommend Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen.

I've always had my questions about the label of depression and other mental diagnoses. Reading this book has convinced me that I am not sane, whatever the definition of the word may be. What does sane even mean? What is madness? It seems we arbitrarily decide that someone is "ill" if they act against what we as society determine to be "wrong" behavior.

Is someone considered depressed even if she shows no intention of taking her own life? Is depression something to be worried about then, if there's no danger of suicide?

Is it normal for a girl to continuously fall for the guys who have never given her the light of day? Or does that make her erotomanic?

I think one obvious "abnormal behavior" we think of in regards to mental illness in young adults is self-mutilation. Cutting, banging, that's not me, right?

Then I remembered that I once "operated" on my own skin out of curiosity. One day, I was sitting in class for organic chemistry and started scratching at a mole that had formed on my finger. Eventually, the top layer of skin came off, thin as a spider web, taking the tiny pigmented spot along with it and leaving no trace or scar. Intrigued, I went back to the house later that day and started another operation on a different mole on my left hand. This time, I was actually left with a scar.

Is this considered self-mutilation? My action seemed to be out of boredom more than anything.

I'm not Edward Cullen. I can't read other people's minds, so what's a normal thought? Are my thoughts normal? Or am I actually abnormal, insane? Would people freak out if they could actually read my mind?

What happens when somebody doesn't fit into the system that society has created? Susanna Kaysen couldn't see herself following the prescribed path -- going to college, getting a job, getting married, having kids. Am I the only one who also had these thoughts about the system when I was in high school, as I was working my ass off in AP classes and filling out college applications? Am I better at deluding myself into playing the system -- and if that's true, does that mean Kaysen is saner than the rest of us who had these doubts?

One of my fears in regards to my writing is that as I am officially no longer a teenager in three months, will I still be able to write with the voice of a teenager? You would not believe in how many different ways I've learned this January that I still have yet to grow up. It turns out I'm growing up right alongside my characters as I continue to wrestle with my writing.