I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Content Warning: This guide contains descriptions of self-harm, mentions of suicide, depictions of life in a psychiatric ward, and the use of outdated language to describe mental illness, as well as several references to antisemitism.

“When he saw them again, leaving after their good-by, they, too, looked like people in shock, and he thought briefly: wound-shock—the cutting-away of a daughter.”

The doctor who receives Deborah when she is admitted observes in her parents a sort of shock that is usually experienced in people who are severely wounded, like soldiers. It is as though some piece of them has been suddenly robbed from them and their control.

“She liked working with patients. Their very illness made them examine sanity as few ‘sane’ people could. Kept from loving, sharing, and simple communication, they often hungered for it with a purity of passion that she saw as beautiful.”

Dr. Fried has an admiration and empathy for her patients that few doctors, especially of her era, possess. She notices their unique views of reality and the world as valuable and sees them as people worth learning from and helping. There is A Fight for a Life that people with mental illness continue to strive for, often against the odds, and this is inspiring to the doctor.

“Sometimes she was able to see ‘reality’ from Yr as if the partition between them were only gauze. On such occasions her name became Januce, because she felt like two-faced Janus—with a face on each world.”

Januce is a symbolic name that Deborah gives herself when she is straddling The Inner World Versus The Outer Reality. This happens often and causes confusion both for herself and those around her. She cannot tell which world she is experiencing or respond properly in these moments.