Mia The Daughter Runs Away Analysis

The movie Girl, Interrupted is based on the memoir written by Susana Kaysen. In this film, Susana Kaysen, the main character is first introduced in the hospital where she was taken shortly after overdosing on aspirin and alcohol. Despite taking a whole bottle of aspirin and alcohol Susana claims that it was not a suicidal attempt. In the hospital scene, there is also evidence on Susana’s wrist that she is what is known as a “wrist banger”, Susana claims that she does this because there are no bones in her hands. Shortly after, Susana is evaluated by a family friend and former psychiatrist and is strongly encouraged to check herself into a mental institution not too far from her, by the name of Claymoore. At Claymoore, she is evaluated by psychiatrist Melvin Potts. He asks her why she took so much aspirin and she replies that she wanted to make the time jumps, depression, and wrist banging stop. Susana is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder once she arrives at Claymoore.

What would you choose? Would you stay or go? Well, that's what Mia is facing. Mia is a 17 year old cello player who had an audition to Juilliard, a rock star boyfriend, a future ahead of her. That was until she was in a car accident. Now she has lost her mom, dad, and brother. She doesn't know whether to stay or go at this point. The main character's in the book is Mia, Adam(Mia's boyfriend), Kim(Mia's best friend), Mia’s mom, dad, brother Teddy, and her gramps. Although there are major differences between the book and the movie, each equally enjoyable. For various reasons I like the book and the movie equally because it shows the relationships with the characters differently.

This book is a memoir so it is all about Ashley’s life in the foster care program. Each chapter talks about the hardships she went through at all the different foster homes. Ashley was taken into foster care when she was only three years old. She was in 14 different homes in a total of nine years. She had a brother, Luke that was also in the foster care program with her. They were separated multiple times, but always ended up at the same foster home together. It was not until Ashley was adopted that they were separated for good. Ashley’s mom was in prison multiple times, she was also a drug addict. She had visitation rights, but her visitations were always supervised. At these visitations she always promised Ashley that she was going to turn her life around, and get both her and Luke back. It never happened; as a result, Ashley had a lot of trust issues and a hard time believing people actually cared for her. Ashley was adopted and had a tough first couple of years adjusting to having a family. It wasn’t until about the end of the book where she finally got used to having a real family.

Throwaway Daughter, by Ting-Xing Ye, is about Grace Dong-mei Parker. Grace was adopted by a Canadian family and has a strong hatred for her Chinese heritage. She ignored everything that is Chinese, but at the age of 9, she sees the Tiananmen Square massacre on TV and she becomes intrigued by her birth family and Chinese culture. When Grace goes to China at the age of 20, she learns a lot about her family and the one-child policy in China. She learns that her father wanted to carry on the family name and only wanted a son, her mother never wanted to give her up.

From the beatings her mother gave her to going AWOL after hating foster homes, Olivia’s life was far from perfect. When Olivia was a teenager she was a ward of the county, hopping from one group home to another. Other girls would steal her clothes and chase her around with a hot iron. She went AWOL shortly after that, living in her own apartment, having a crazy work schedule, that was just her life. Whenever she had financial issues she would return to her social worker and yet again be put into a foster home. One time she went AWOL though and couldn’t afford rent anymore, she

In the movie Girl, Interrupted the plot surrounds a period in the life of Susanna Kaysen played by Winona Ryder who was institutionalized at the Claymore mental hospital in the 1960s. In the movie, the main character Susanna is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and undergoes treatment to which at the end of the movie she is released. It is at this hospital that Susanna encounters many other patients of which she shares many experiences with. One of these patients was the longtime resident and popular amongst all the other patients Lisa Rowe played by Angelina Jolie whom Susanna became close with and would mid-movie escape the hospital with to only return on her own and find that Lisa would be back a few days later. Lisa, while being the protagonist of the movie, was very charismatic in her own way and based on her behavior and revelation in the movie is diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, particularly a sociopath in the movie.

Imagine your own family member constantly manipulating you into thinking you were going to be forever young. Now imagine that person telling every individual that you cannot care for yourself nor will ever get better. To be completely honest, that is a scary thought, not having any control over your own body and believing your caretaker that you are mentally incapacitate to care for yourself. The documentary I chose to watch and write about is Mommy Dead & Dearest, this documentary was released 11 March 2017 and the director is Erin Lee Carr. In this documentary, we see Dee Dee and Gypsy’s narrative who brings Munchausen Syndrome by proxy — a form of child abuse that involves a caretaker making up an illness for

Psychological disorders are very real and present in many people we come in contact with daily, however, are very rarely talked about. Learning about these disorders can help us to understand others and ourselves better by telling us why we do and think the things we do. One effective way that we can observe and learn about psychological disorders is through movies. “Mommie Dearest” was directed by Frank Perry. It is centered around the actress Joan Crawford, who suffered from various psychological disorders. Joan’s daughter, Christina, wrote a book about her mother and her many problems and it was later turned into a movie. It is very effective to use movie analysis as a way of learning, especially in psychology, because it provides a great way to observe without distractions. When you’re looking at disorders, it’s difficult to find a person who has many of these disorders and will allow you to observe them. Psychological disorders can be split into two major groups, personality disorders and mood disorders. Personality disorders are patterns of traits that can get in the way of your social or work life and may interrupt the individual’s normal lifestyle. Mood disorders are inconsistent and unreliable changes in mood by the affected individual. (Rathus, 1998). With all of this being said, it brings me to my point that I will be talking about for the rest of this essay. Joan Crawford demonstrates the personality disorders of histrionic, narcissism, and OCPD. When it comes to mood disorders, Joan demonstrates bipolar disorder.

When they pulled up to Mia's house Erik walked her the door and kissed her goodbye. Mia walked into a dark as the house not being able to see anything. As she turned around she saw her mother turn on the lamp. "Mom you frightened me, Mia said." "Where have you been young lady, Sheila asked?" "I was out with dad and the others, she responded. Right then and there Mia saw something different in her mom that she never saw before. She knew that her mom was a different person than who she was

“I wonder if I failed the test somehow?” (Mass 56). This line is mainly foreshadowing what is going on in Mia’s life. She is realizing that she isn’t the as normal as she once thought she was; however, she later becomes more confident in the fact that she’s different from everyone else. In this journal I will be questioning what is really going on with Mia, evaluating what she does with her newly found indifference, and lastly predicting what she will do next.

In 20111, Molly Ayer is a 17, almost 18, year old troubled foster child living in Maine who is soon going to become too old for the foster system. After stealing a book from the library, the only way she can avoid getting kicked out of her foster home and being sent to a juvenile hall is helping an old woman named Vivian Daly clean out her attic as a community service project. Molly soon learns how closely related her and Vivian’s lives are related. Vivian and her family came from Ireland to New York in 1926 in hopes for a better future, but after a fire kills Vivian’s family she is put on an Orphan Train to Minnesota in order to find a new family. The train has 19 other children hoping for brighter futures, including a boy named Dutchy who Vivian strikes up a friendship with. Vivian is soon adopted by the Byrnes who call her Dorothy. Once the Great Depression struck though, Dorothy was moved to the Grote family, who lived in worse conditions than she has all her life. Although the conditions are grim, Dorothy is sent to school every day. After Mr. Grote attempts to rape Dorothy she goes to live with her teacher Ms. Larsen before being relocated to yet another new foster home. Dorothy soon finds the Nielson family which was a seemingly perfect fit for Dorothy. The only request the Nielson family had was to call Dorothy Vivian after their departed daughter. Vivian lives happily with the Nielsons and grows up to once again find Dutchy. Vivian and Dutchy are soon

While in foster care she adapts to new dysfunctional homes and with new rules. She had an unhealthy relationship with her first foster’s mom boyfriend and that foster mom shot her in the shoulder. She was starved in another foster home and began using

The author Linda Pastan, imagines a parent running breathlessly to regain her strength from the ending connection she once shared with her daughter in her poem, “To a Daughter Leaving Home.” It’s a mother’s biggest fear when it comes to their child or children leaving home while going their own ways when the time is right. This poem is based on childhood, fatherhood, and even motherhood.

The movie, Girl, Interrupted, displays Susanna Kaysen’s eighteen-month stay at a mental institute in the 1960s. This film was an adaptation of a book based on a true story of the main character and author Susanna Kaysen. Susanna was checked into Claymore, a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, after chasing a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka. At first, Susanna denies this blatant attempt at suicide and constantly struggles with uncertainty of her thoughts and emotions. Although Girl, Interrupted exhibits several mental disorders one of the most prevalent disorder of this film is Susanna’s Borderline Personality Disorder. This film depicts majority of the signs and symptoms of a person with Borderline Personality. As stated in the textbook, “the lives of persons with borderline personality are marked by instability. Their relationships are unstable, their behavior is unstable, their emotions are unstable, and even their images of themselves are unstable” (Larsen and Buss 593). Susanna’s romantic relationships are extremely unstable and she frequently engages in casual sex. She jumps from one guy to another in a matter of few weeks. One scene that establishes this the most is when her boyfriend at the time comes to visit her at Claymore and expresses his true feelings for her and she instantly withdraws. He asked her to go to Canada with him and she turns him down immediately. She also kisses Lisa who she befriends at the mental institute, displaying a switch of

The film All About My Mother is a drama which sees a mother, Manuela, on a search to find the father of her son. This journey comes after her son, who has always desired to meet his father, was tragically hit by a car and killed while chasing down actresses of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. This play, which Manuela was an actress in twenty years earlier, becomes small piece of her son she holds, since it was the last thing she did with him before he was killed. This desire she feels to be complete is a trait which recurs in a few other characters during the story. The characters that the desire to feel complete is most shown in is Manuela, Esteban (her son), and Huma.