Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder

For the second film analysis, I watched "Girl Interrupted." The movie is about a teenage girl name Susanna Kaysen who has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. People with Borderline Personality Disorder "are often emotionally unstable, impulsive, unpredictable, irritable, and anxious. They also are prone to boredom. Their behavior is similar to that of individuals with schizotypal personality disorder but they are not as consistently withdrawn and bizarre" (Santrock, 2005). In "Girl Interrupted" Susanna Kaysen the main character, goes through many episodes that give a picture of the disorder she's suffering from. The first such incident occurs when the psychiatrist is talks to Susanna about her failed suicide attempt. During the conversation, she is seen as confused and irritated by his presence. While the psychiatrist questions her, her mind seems to be somewhere else because she is having flash backs of her past, maybe a sign of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Susanna seems to be uncertain about things, she claims that she does not know what she feels. She was taken to the hospital after she tried to commit suicide, she took a bottle of aspirin. Her reason for taking the full bottle of aspirin was major headache, which was also alarming to the psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist recommended that she be admitted to a mental hospital for women, where she can rest and recover. Another sign of the Borderline Personality Disorder is casual sex. Before she went to the mental hospital Susanna had sex with her professor whom her family knew really well. While at the hospital, she had flashbacks of the whole ordeal, and her professor asking her to have sex with him again. She also had sex with a guy name Toby. She met Toby at a party and they had sex the same night. Than one day when Toby came to visit Susanna at the hospital, they had sex and then she tried to have sex with a guy name John who works at the hospital. At times she felt guilty and regretful. At the hospital she met a girl name Lisa who was a sociopath. Lisa was a trouble maker, on numerous occasions she escaped and came back. So one time Lisa and Susanna decided to escape and met a girl name Daisy, who was a former patient at the hospital. While at Daisy's place, Lisa was blunt about what she thought of Daisy, which caused Daisy to commit suicide.