Girl Interrupted (34-68)

Summary: Susanna begins talking about suicide, she mentions that suicide is like premeditated murder. She says it's something that one thinks about more than once, and it takes some getting used too. She states that a successful suicide is one that demands good organization and a cool head. She says she had a debate with herself, and that debate was whether she would kill herself or not. She did attempt to kill herself, she took fifty aspirin pills. Before she did this, she called her boyfriend to tell him she was going to kill herself. Her boyfriend called the cops, they showed up at her house and told her parents what Susanna had done. Susanna went out in public and reached Mass. Ave. before her parents found her. She had to get her stomach pumped, they took a long tube, put it up her nose and down the back of her throat it was like she was being choked. After that she decided she would never take aspirin ever again. Then later on, she questions herself whether there would be a next time.
         Susanna also wonders how a doctor she had only seen once could have submitted her to a mental hospital. The doctor told her she would not be there long, but she had been lied too. The mental hospital was arranged in three phone booths, inside there were a couple of single rooms, the living room, and the eat kitchen. This way it looked good for first time visitors, however once you past the living room things change. There was a very long hallway, with seven or eight double rooms on each side, the nursing room on one side, and then the conference room. The toilets and showers were to the right to make sure they were in sight by the nurses. In front of the nursing room, was a blackboard. This board gave an advance warning of a new patient. There was also a seclusion room that was the size of a suburban bathroom. In the seclusion room you could go yell all you want, and get back out because you yelled in the TV room it meant you were acting out. In the seclusion room all there was, was the chicken wire enforced in one door, to be checked upon. In this room if the patient was not locked in for a reason then anybody could join.
 
Quote: "Freedom was the price of privacy" (Kaysen 47).

Reaction: This quote refers to the seclusion room, as to the patient having the chance to request being in there. However, the room was for people who went bananas and should be locked in there. Anyone who maintained a higher level of noise would be put in seclusion. Seclusion worked after a day or night in there. Therefore, relating to freedom as the price of privacy Susanna is talking about how the nurses would check up on a patient if they were yelling to check out their reason for yelling. Which is when the request business came into place, a patient could request to be locked in the seclusion room and they would also have to request to be let out.