Girl, Interrupted

Patient Georgina picks up a syringe from the floor. (0:01)

Writer Susanna Kaysen as narrator: “Maybe I was just crazy.” (0:02)

Doctor, referring to Susanna: “Put her in restraints. Withdraw blood for tox.”
”Give her 5 mg. of Valium IV.” (0:02)

Susanna in psychotherapy session with Dr. Crumble. He asks her, “Are you stoned? Do you smoke pot, take LSD? No drugs?”
”Your father is a friend of mine. He’s a colleague.” Boundaries? (0:03)

Susanna tells cab driver Monty, “I see things.”
Monty: “You mean like tripping?” (0:10)

Susanna signs arinted agreement: “CLAYMOORE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL”
Hand printed on another page: “... depressed -- has attempted suicide.”
She tells administrator(?) Arlene, “I didn’t try to kill myself.”
Arlene: ”That’s the kind of thing you talk about in therapy, honey.” (0:11)

Susanna tells her high school principal, “Look, I’m not going to... drop acid...” (0:12)

Patient Polly tells Susanna, referring to patient Jamie, “She was sad last week ‘cause Lisa ran away, so she hung herself with a volleyball net.” (0:19)

Nurse McWilley offers pills to Susanna: “They’ll help you sleep.” (0:20)

Susanna’s roommate Georgina tells Susanna, “Pseudologia fantastica.”
”I’m a pathological liar.” (0:23)

Susanna tells her friend Toby, “Make a stupid remark, kill yourself... You miss the train, kill yourself.”
Toby: “‘Cause I don’t want to kill myself?” (0:26)

Lisa tells Susanna, referring to Melvin, “Your the-rapist, sweetpea. Unless, unless they’re giving you shocks.” (0:31)

Susanna in session with Dr. Melvin Potts. He tells her, “You’ve been feeling depressed.“
”I understand you tried to kill yourself last week.”
Susanna: “I didn’t try to kill myself.”
Melvin: “The time jumps, the depression...”
Susanna: “I guess I’m puzzled as to why it is I have to be in a mental institution.”
”Everyone here’s... crazy.” (0:32)

Lisa tells patient Daisy, “Pony up some Valium.”
Daisy: “I don’t take Valium.”Lisa: “You’re a laxative junkie...”
Daisy: “I like my dad’s chicken, and when I eat something else, I puke.” (0:37)

Susanna, referring to Daisy: “She’s... insane.”
Lisa: “That’s why... Freud’s picture’s on every shrink’s wall.” (0:40)

Session with Susanna’s parents. Pott’s: “With all due respect, Mr. Kaysen, psychiatry and economics are different... Her stay... depends on her response to treatment.”
Carl Kaysen: “For what, depression?”
Annette Kaysen: “So what is this borderline business you mentioned on the phone?”
Susanna: “What borderline business?”
”Borderline what?”
”Borderline between what and what?”
Potts: “It’s a condition... called borderline personality disorder.”
”It is five times more common among those with a borderline parent.” (0:41)

Lisa recites Dorothy Parker’s poem Résumé 
"Razors pain you.
Rivers are damp.
Acids stain you.
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful.
Nooses give.
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live." (0:43)

By telephone Susanna tells Lisa, “I have a borderline personality.”
”He thought it would affect my recovery.” (0:44)

Patient Janet tells Susanna, “When they built this place they put the tunnels in so the lunes didn’t have to go anywhere in the cold.” (0:47)

Susanna’s chart:
"1. Psychoneurotic depressive reaction.
2. Highly intelligent, but in denial of her condition.
3. Personality pattern disturbance, resistant, mixed type.
R/O Undifferentiated Schizophrenia.
ESTABLISHED DIAGNOSIS: Borderline Personality Disorder” (0:49)

Books on Dr. Wick’s shelf: Man’s Unconscious Passion by Lay, Patienthood, Strategies of Psychotherapy, The Roots of Psychotherapy, Personality Development at Preadolescence, (0:50)

Janet: “No remission observed.”
“Lisa thinks she’s hot shit because she’s a sociopath.”
Cynthia: “I’m as sociopath.”
Susanna: “Borderline personality disorder: An instability of self-image, relationships and mood... impulsive in activities that are self-damaging” (0:50)

Susanna: “You know, taking us for ice creams in a blizzard makes you wonder who the real whack jobs are.” (0:51)

Daisy: “Melvin thought that I should live in a halfway house...” (0:53)

Lisa tells Barbara Gilcrest, “Just don’t point your... finger at crazy people.” (0:54)

Lisa: “Good luck, crazy bitch.” (0:56)

Toby: “Susanna, you’re not crazy.”
”They’re insane.”
”I know this sounds crazy, but I think I love you.” (1:01)

A nurse tells technician John, referring to Polly, “Seclusion. Take her to seclusion.” (1:05)

“They drugged nurse McWilley.” (1:10)

Susanna tells psychiatrist Dr. Sonia Wick, “Polly freaked out last night...”
Sonia: “Someone who’s compulsively promiscuous might...”
Susanna: “I’m ambivalent.”
Sonia: “Do you know what that means, ambivalence?”
”Ambivalence suggests strong feelings in opposition.”
”Am I sane, or am I crazy?” (1:11)

Nurse Valerie tells Susanna, “You know, I can take a lot of crazy shit from a lot of crazy people, but you, you are not crazy.”
”You are a lazy, self-indulgent little girl who is driving herself crazy.”
”Susanna: “Wick is a psycho.” (1:18)

Lisa tells Susanna, “They gave me shocks again.” (1:19)

A van driver shares his joint with Susanna who passes it to another passenger. (1:20)

Partiers smoke a hookah. Susanna tells partier Tony, “I’m a crazy girl.”
Tony: “You’re crazy, so we can’t have one night of bliss?”
Susanna: “I am a crazy girl.”
Tony: “Do you see purple people? My friend, he saw purple people... he told them he didn’t see purple people no more.”
”He still sees them.” (1:21)

Daisy asks Susanna, “You got Valium?” (1:23)

Daisy tells Lisa, “Give me the Valium.”
”Just give me the... Valium.”
Lisa pulls back Daisy’s sleeve revealing scars.
Lisa: “But you’re in so-called recovery...”
”Help me understand, Dais, ‘cause I thought you didn’t do Valium... Tell me that you don’t take that blade and drag it across your skin...”
”A man is a dick... is a dad, a Valium, speculum, whatever.” (1:26)

Susanna discovers Daisy has hanged herself and grieves.
Lisa: “What an idiot.”
Susanna says into the telephone, “I think she killed herself.” (1:32)

Susanna asks Valerie, “How the hell am I supposed to recover when I don’t even understand my disease?” (1:39)

Susanna: “All I know is that I began to feel things again, crazy, sane, whatever I was...” (1:41)

Susanna in psychotherapy session with Wick. (1:41)

McWilley tells Susanna as she hands them to her, “Sleeping pills, darling.” (1:47)

Aids wrestle with Cynthia in a straightjacket. (1:48)

Lisa reads: “I can honestly say that my memory has been transformed... so by Freud’s definition, I have achieved mental health, and my discharge sheet reads ‘recovered.’”
”... and that I’m criminally insane.”
”And I told Daisy... and she killed herself.” (1:50)

Lisa drops a syringe on the floor. (1:56)

Janet tells Susanna, “I had to trade with a transvestite on the men’s ward.” (1:57)

Susanna visits Lisa who lies in four point restraints. (1:57)

Susanna asks, referring to Ruby, “Polly, you think if I left Ruby here, you’d take care of Ruby for me, let me play with her when I come for my therapy?” (2:00)

Susanna: “My final diagnosis, a recovered borderline... Was I ever crazy?”
”Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret.” (2:00)