I also am reading the AP Psychology book, my ap world history teacher lent me. Psychology is awesome! Psychology is the biopsychosocial process of how a person thinks and behaves which can be influenced by environmental, genetic and social factors. The number of mu receptors determines a person’s tolerance to pain, yet people can minimize pain if they focus on something else such as when a doctor tells a patient to look away when they are given a shot, by focusing on something else, the pain receptors in the brain aren’t as active since the mind is focused somewhere else and the person only feels a slight sensation. Also there is the power of suggestion such as when people have complete faith in what their doctors say and do something that they never would have done unless under hypnosis such as in a case study where some patients who were sick were given a pill that was really a gummy bear disguised to look like a pill, yet they were told that this pill would make them better, the patients took the pretend pill and were better. It is amazing what the mind can do and how it can affect health. Since the brain has nerves connecting to our body and these nerves communicate messages that help send electrical signals to help our body function, our mental thoughts can affect our bodies negatively or positively depending on what we think about. There is also the theory of multiple intelligence where Howard Gardner thought mind could be divided into eight different specific functions each person having a different degree of the eight different intelligences. The eight different intelligences are:

1. Musical Rhythmic and Harmonical- talent in music, sounds, singing (I like music and can imitate them, but I’m not an instrument person)
2. Visual-Spatial: imaginative, visualize things clearly in their minds (applies to me)
3. Verbal-linguistic: good at reading, writing, memorizing words and dates (applies to me)
4. Logical- mathematical: reasoning, numbers, critical thinking, problem-solving (algebra is okay, but I have a more creative mindset and enjoy science to math)
5. Bodily-kinesthetic: agility, coordination, athleticism, people who have high bodily-kinesthetic are good at sports (amateur soccer and lacrosse, bowling and badminton are great) , dancing (not in front of people), acting (I don’t like the stage, but i can perform)
6. Interpersonal: empathy, compassion, understanding for other’s moods, cooperation, teamwork, leader or follower, enjoy discussion and debate (applies to me)
7. Intrapersonal: relating to the self, self-reflective, able to see one’s faults and talents, understand oneself (applies to me, although sometimes I have trouble finding out who I really am and wondering what my talents are)
8. Naturalistic: survival in nature, interest and connection in nature, retaining information from nature and surroundings, human interaction with environment such as hunter-gatherers (applies to me, I love nature and enjoy camping. I have stuff to learn about wilderness survival though, but I think I know enough)

Also in psychology, it also says that there are three types of parents: demanding, authoritative and passive. Demanding parents are good because they teach their kids self-discipline and morals, yet they can be be judgmental, criticizing and hard to open up to and are also the ones who enforce rules such as grounding or placed on restriction. Authoritative parents are the best way to be because they discipline their children, yet also allow them to grow and develop independently, they are open-minded, praise their children for good things, but also reprimand them in a way that creates a healthy relationship between the child and the parent and isn’t too demanding and negative on the child. Authoritative parents maintain a healthy authority, but also let kids have a freedom. Passive parents let their kids have mostly free reign on their own lives and don’t punish as much. Also there have been some studies that children with demanding parents are more likely to develop eating disorders like anorexia because they feel like they need something they can control and the stress from their parents often leads to feel like they need some sense of worth. Also there is also a theory that men who get along with their mothers will treat their wives well since they have a feminine influence. It’s amazing how much insight psychology can bring in understanding people. Sometimes children will try to please their friends by doing reckless things since they can’t please their parents no matter how hard they try. Such as in the realistic fiction story, The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines where Tom Barney’s parents didn’t think there was a future for their son because, Tom’s older brother Michael had been arrested and Tom could turn out like them. At first Tom was a very studious student, yet when he couldn’t please his parents because their opinions of him were already jaded by his brother, he began to think of the uselessness of trying so hard and began to take a downhill turn. He makes a bad turn when he tries to please a self-absorbed girl, Grace by joining the military because he thought it would please her to know he was a brave person. Is it really worth it to let other people’s negative opinions influence your path?

I think I have learned a lot and acquired much insight into people’s behavior and the way they act just from reading Meyers AP Psychology. Do you think children can change themselves for the better if they don’t like some of the values their parents have? I believe that they can, yet there are so many people who say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and no matter how hard you try, you will still be like your parents. I know that I value hard work and education same as my parents, I also value self-discipline like them. Yet different from them, I am more of a realist and also more spiritual and hopeful than they are. I believe that there are many possibilities out there and that if you believe and work hard you can go far and attain happiness in life. I believe that there should be temperance in self-discipline and that an open mind and compassion are great instead of being judgmental and not accepting some things. I am the person who if I have a goal, I will try my best to work for it and although sometimes I do compare myself to others, i try not to let it bring me down, but to let others’ successes to motivate me in creating my own. Although sometimes I may have doubts, I try not to let what others say bring me down and if something bad happens, I try to accept it and say whatever, stuff like this happens, i’ll just let it go. I don’t want to be like my parents in the way they hold on to negative thoughts and let negative occurrences bring them down, I want to find spiritual fulfillment in life by understanding myself instead of seeking it through material pressures like money and to live each moment of my life being grateful just to be alive. The people I admire the most aren’t the wealthy and smart ones, there the ones who are healthy and fit like Jillian Michaels and also the ones who are spiritually fulfilled like Buddha. Currently I am working on how to build my immune system, improve my circulation (keeping my hands and feet from getting too cold in winter and too hot in the summer) and healing my eyesight. Feel

Thanks bevan for the support;) I agree with you cheerio, sometimes my thoughts get too far ahead or at other times they feel hazy and like you said “i need to get out of head.” Whenever my thoughts get out of order, I tend to workout, read a book or listen to music. I hope things are going okay with you guys. anita, i agree with you interpretation that sometimes people feel detached from themselves or reality and often realize that childhood fantasies don’t always come true. In Girl, interrupted; the narrator, Susanna Kaysen is like that, sometimes she feels her childhood slipping away from her and she feels detached unsure of how to face the reality of the world which seemed so new to her when she was a child. I think Susanna needs to learn how to accept reality and learn not to deny it and to confront the parts of her that she doesn’t like instead of denying them. On page 37, Susanna mentions that she wishes she could kill the negative parts of herself, the parts that keep distorting reality, the part that makes her feel detached and sad and makes her wonder whether is she really alive or not. Yet, I feel like she needs to accept that part of her and let it go instead of fighting against it. I agree that sometimes television and books over-exaggerate reality, although i don’t watch television either except for workout videos, I enjoy reading books because I feel they at least give some sense to reality as they were written by real, life people and thoughts. I agree that the mental hospital (Mclean Hospital) seems like an obstacle and also a protector of those patients within it from reality. One of the characters, Torrey has ambitions to escape the hospital, but is afraid to see the real world and never makes it to freedom even though Lisa and the other patients see the potential in her.

I think everyone wants freedom and a self-fulfilling life, but it is important for them to first accept their faults and let them go and not to deny them. I think everyone in life has doubts and sometimes the world can be a stressful place, yet people need to keep hope and face reality one step at a time. Everyone has those times when they feel lost and insecure, yet the important thing is to realize that it is okay. Typically when I feel lost and sad, I tend to workout or make a list of my talents and I remind myself of how much I have accomplished. I have also learned to accept and let go of parts of my past and also to be healthy and tone my body. I am thinking of using reiki to heal, let go and bring closure to the parts of the past that still continue to give me negativity. I learned the hard way in seventh grade to not deny reality and sadness and not to keep the sadness inside. I thought it would be okay if i pretended I was fine and kept everything inside, yet the sadness piled up in eighth grade and I realized I had to let it out. That was when I started writing poetry and also setting a goal to get good grades to keep my mind active and to comfort myself because I had few friends those two years. Also I realized that everything has a balance and to expect the unexpected, that sometimes sad things can happen and to expect them, accept them and let them go. We should live each moment of this life accepting ourselves and never losing hope in our dreams no matter our age.

In Girl interrupted, Susanna talks about being diagnosed with Borderline personality disorder which includes “experiencing instability of self-image as feelings of emptiness and boredom” (Kaysen 154). Susanna often tried to explain her condition to herself because she didn’t understand it; she states “I was in pain and nobody knew it, even I didn’t know it” (Kaysen 153). Susanna often felt she was numb and would be bored, not sure if she was real in this society and she would feel alone and not sure if she could feel anything or not, so she would remind herself that she was in pain and also do wrist-banging to feel something instead of numbness and give her sense of reality that she is here on this earth and not just drifting through life numb. Susanna also mentions “My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous. I could not and did not want to … attend to any other subject in school other than english and biology. I saw myself as unfit for educational and social systems” (kaysen 154-155). I feel like Susanna didn’t think she had a future and was just living on less than mediocre base by her faults and this made her feel sad and empty, but she didn’t really have a high self-esteem to live by either because she didn’t know how. Susanna was a pariah in the 1960s when she didn’t go to college and was different from everyone else. She would write poems instead of essays which is why I think the chapters in this book are seemingly short since she liked to keep things simplistic. Susanna didn’t think she had skills necessary for life, so she had a pessimistic outlook; she often wondered if she could make a life out of boyfriends and literature. Susanna also had periods of self-loathing because she saw others going toward their future and she would criticize herself for her lack of interest and detachment from wanting to go anywhere in life, yet I feel as if Susanna truly didn’t know where to go in life and was confused. in one scene in the book, when Susanna visits the dentist, she is so worried about losing time; i feel as if there may possibly be the idea that Susanna feels like she is going out into the real world and that her childhood is slipping away and she is not quite ready to accept the world’s responsibilities because she doesn’t feel as if she has the skills in life. It’s as if to keep things simplistic and also find some meaning in this world since she feels time is slipping away from her. Yet, Susanna realizes she doesn’t want to ever cross the line again where she feels numb and she is in a mental hospital; she wants at least some control over her thoughts. Susanna mentions “The idea of suicide worked on me like a purgative or cathartic” (Kaysen 158). She would think of suicide and feel sad over her premature death, then she would feel better. Even though she seems afraid of facing the reality of the world, Susanna seems to think that suicide is like a giving up and she needs to at least try to understand the world and her thoughts and suicide wouldn’t help her because she would just be ending her life and not giving herself any time to think about herself and possibly understand her life. Susanna meets Lisa at the end of the story and Lisa says “I want us to be a real family, with furniture and all that. I want him (Lisa’s kid, Aaron who Lisa broke up with her significant other) to have a real life. And temple helps” (Kaysen 163). Lisa wants to have a future and create for her kid a life for him and for herself to make up for the time she lost in the mental hospital; she wants to be happy and live her life. She goes to temple for a place of comfort and worship to keep herself in hopes of her future. She even has a life as suburban matron in Brookline. Susanna goes to the Vermeer in the Frick (NY) with her boyfriend and she notices a photo titled “Girl Interrupted at her Music” from which she got the inspiration for the title of the book. Susanna says ” She had changed a lot in sixteen years. She was no longer urgent. In fact, she was sad. She was young and distracted, and her teacher was bearing down on her, trying to get her to pay attention. But she was looking out, looking for someone who would see her” (Kaysen 167).
Susanna had looked at the painting before and had been disconcerted by the girl which she thought was warning her to not do something and telling her not to go, her interpretation has changed. She now sees the girl almost like herself when she was seventeen and she wasn’t really applying herself in school and the teachers were yelling at her and she was sad because she wasn’t sure where to go in life.
It also states “Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen,as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that?” (Kaysen 167).
Susanna feels her life at seventeen when she was young and just trying to enjoy life, not wanting to face the world’s responsibilities was snatched away from her when she was sent to a mental hospital at eighteen. She realizes that all the moments she could have had, that one with the mental hospital and the teachers yelling at her while she was in school was most prominent and how it’s not fair that that one moment could take up so much time and significance in her life and waste all the other moments.
Susanna starts crying when viewing the picture and says to her boyfriend “Don’t you see, she’s trying to get out” (Kaysen 167).
She seems to be thinking that the girl is trapped forever in the canvas and that memory in her life and she can’t get get to enjoy life fully almost like Susanna, herself who is still trapped in her own thoughts of sadness and negative outlook on life since she doesn’t know where to go.

Her boyfriend’s reply seems harsh because he doesn’t understand her interpretation of the art and doesn’t seem to even consider it as he just says “All you ever think about is yourself. You don’t understand anything about art” (Kaysen 167) and he just walks away. I almost think this is even more self-deprecating on Susanna because now someone is telling her that she is a shallow person and doesn’t really understand art which goes back to add on to the thoughts that Susanna has of herself that she feels like she doesn’t have a future in life and doesn’t really understand the world. The boyfriend’s comment makes me feel sad for Susanna because it just adds to her thoughts of inadequacy and the thought she can’t do anything right.

Upon viewing the two pictures of happiness (lady and her maid; soldier and his sweetheart) Susanna also says “Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful, we wish our clothes could glisten and ripple against our skins, most of all we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened by simply looking at them” (Kaysen 168).

She mentions that in the two paintings it almost feels like the lady and the soldier are in their own world of happiness, they have everything the want and the rest of the world is looking at them through a hole wishing they could be like them.

Susanna says “The girl at her music sits in another sort of light, the fitful overcast light of life, by which we see ourselves and others only imperfectly, and seldom” (Kaysen 168).

She seems to be saying that the girl at her music is like all the others in life who haven’t found their purpose, who judge themselves and others and also pay attention to themselves more than others. Susanna seems to wish for a world where people don’t struggle in life, know their purpose and care for each other and themselves, yet she doesn’t seem to believe such a world exists.

Girl interrupted seems like a metaphor for our world today and how everyone longs to find their purpose, how teenagers still hold on to their childhood dreams and still are finding out how to live in this world, struggles of life facing obstacles from people judging you and being overly criticizing of yourself and just trying to keep on to the hopes and dreams while braving the world and finding a place in it. And also the concept of how time seems to be slipping away and how some people try to deny reality or hold on to their memories to have something to hang on to. I feel like everyone has questioned the meaning of life and felt overwhelmed at times and wished that they could have something to keep their hopes and know that they have a future, that their life isn;t just slipping away.

I think Lisa tries to live her life and start again and make up for the time lost and I admire her. She doesn’t let what happened to her in the past affect her and is willing to try to make a place in this world. I feel that it takes courage, perseverance, hope, belief, gratitude and acceptance and taking life one step at a time and building from there to create the life one wishes to live.