The Symptoms Of Susanna's Suicide
The following symptom that she faced was when she took her suicide ideation a step further from just having thoughts of suicide to actually committing the act. Susanna describes her suicide attempt as an inspiration that came to her one morning as she woke up and decided that her task for the day would be to swallow fifty aspirin. Thus, she lined up, counted, and swallowed fifty aspirin as she attempted to commit suicide (Kaysen 37). After swallowing the fifty aspirin she discussed later how she quickly realized that she had made a mistake and was gripped with humiliation and regret as she walked to the grocery store to pick up milk that her mother had asked her to do before she swallowed the aspirin (Kaysen 37). Luckily, her suicide attempt
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She often self-harmed herself as a way to get a release from her suffering. As through self-harming she was able to counteract her feelings of numbness and get through to herself that she was in fact in pain even though her hurt couldn’t be shown outwardly (Kaysen 153). Essentially by self-harming she was able to match the inward pain she felt with an outward physical pain to prove to herself that she was suffering. Susanna discussed how part of her suffering was in part because no one else knew or could see her pain. She states that “if people knew and admired—or abominated—me, something important would be lost. [As] I was trying to explain my situation to myself. My situation was that I was in pain and nobody knew it, even I had trouble knowing it. So I told myself, over and over, you are in pain. [Self-harming] was the only way I could get through to myself…[that] I was demonstrating, externally, and irrefutably an inward condition” (Kaysen 153). Thus, she began self-harming first by scratching her face and then later transitioning to wrist banging. With the face scratching, Susanna would scratch her face to the point where her face would look puffy and odd-looking the next day (Kaysen 153). For the most part leaving her open to questions from others as her face would look bad afterwards. Therefore, she transitioned to wrist banging which she particularly loved because not only did it allow her to get her release
She often self-harmed herself as a way to get a release from her suffering. As through self-harming she was able to counteract her feelings of numbness and get through to herself that she was in fact in pain even though her hurt couldn’t be shown outwardly (Kaysen 153). Essentially by self-harming she was able to match the inward pain she felt with an outward physical pain to prove to herself that she was suffering. Susanna discussed how part of her suffering was in part because no one else knew or could see her pain. She states that “if people knew and admired—or abominated—me, something important would be lost. [As] I was trying to explain my situation to myself. My situation was that I was in pain and nobody knew it, even I had trouble knowing it. So I told myself, over and over, you are in pain. [Self-harming] was the only way I could get through to myself…[that] I was demonstrating, externally, and irrefutably an inward condition” (Kaysen 153). Thus, she began self-harming first by scratching her face and then later transitioning to wrist banging. With the face scratching, Susanna would scratch her face to the point where her face would look puffy and odd-looking the next day (Kaysen 153). For the most part leaving her open to questions from others as her face would look bad afterwards. Therefore, she transitioned to wrist banging which she particularly loved because not only did it allow her to get her release