Psychosis Schizophrenia Is a Mentally

Psychosis

Schizophrenia is a mentally crippling illness that not only affects the sufferer but also his or her family. Joanne Greenberg's narrative I Never Promised You a Rose Garden details the internal and external struggles that surround schizophrenia. Deborah Blau is a teenager who experiences a psychotic break. Greenberg presents the psychosis as a response to childhood trauma. The book elucidates the pain of living with the disease and also of parenting children with schizophrenia. Moreover, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden explores the delusional world of the psychotic mind, as the protagonist Deborah escapes from the mundane through her alternate reality called Yr.

Deborah Blau is a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl who is hospitalized in the opening scene of the book after a failed suicide attempt. The hospitalization brings out the underlying cause for her emotional and mental instability: schizophrenia. Deborah learns how to escape from the pain of life not just by trying to end her own but by creating an elaborate and comfortable fantasy realm she calls the Kingdom of Yr. Unlike the make-believe worlds of young children, Deborah's alternative reality is harmful to her psychological and social development. The delusions are a clear sign that Blau's psyche has not developed normally and that she suffers from the mysterious mental illness called schizophrenia.

The author suggests that one possible cause for the initial onset of Deborah's disease might be physical and mental trauma from childhood. In particular, Deborah underwent a difficult surgery to remove a tumor that caused her to wet herself. Moreover, Deborah has had social troubles and experienced rabid anti-Semitism. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden takes place in the aftermath of the Second World War, when anti-Semitism was more prevalent in the United States. Greenberg's book therefore explores the multifaceted etiology of the disease, showing not necessarily that schizophrenia is caused by childhood trauma but that childhood trauma can exacerbate a pre-existing condition or innate tendency. Furthermore, the author shows that schizophrenia does not occur in a vacuum. It develops as part of the matrix of a person's life and affects family members intensely: one of the main themes of the book.

Blau flees to Yr often throughout the course of the narrative. Her therapist, Dr. Fried, tries to bring Deborah back to reality. Dr. Fried is a gentle, kind, understanding therapist who eventually breaks through to the troubled teen. However, Deborah does not break with Yr easily. She clings to her alternative world because it seems a far safer and more comfortable place than the harsh reality she knows. Deborah also forms much of her adolescent identity while on the psych ward and comes to accept the fact that she is abnormal, even "crazy." Deborah learns from her fellow inmates on the ward and reacts to their vicissitudes as if they were her own. Basically she internalizes and analyzes everything in a warped way. The author presents the psychosis of schizophrenia not from a clinical perspective but from a subjective one.

Deborah's sister Suzy reacts negatively to the extra attention her sick sister receives. Adding tension to the family dynamic, Suzy is a key character in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Family tension and the dynamic between parents and children are a part of the illness. The parents do whatever is in their power to help Deborah but at the same time they feel a deep sense of shame and frequently blame themselves for what they perceive as personal failure. Greenberg shows how parents of mentally ill children might fall into the unfortunate trap of self-hatred.

Dr. Fried helps Deborah explore the root causes of her illness by gradually leading Deborah toward frank examinations of her childhood memories. The traumatic past unearths uncomfortable issues that Deborah continues to cloak by fleeing to Yr. Yet Dr. Fried is patient with Deborah. She encourages her to confront her feelings about persecution, abuse, and fears of abandonment. One of the strengths of Greenberg's work is how she shows schizophrenia to be a wave-like illness in which psychotic episodes are not constantly occurring. Rather, patients might go long periods of time without a severe outbreak and relatively well-grounded in reality. Then an external event will trigger a memory that leads to a psychotic episode.