I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Deborah frantically tries to work through her mental health crisis before Dr. Fried leaves, and while she does make enough progress to move down to B ward, Dr. Fried leaves with much work still to be done. When Deborah goes to see Dr. Royson for the first time, he is clinical and demands answers rather than conversing. Deborah thinks about how she promised Dr. Fried she would make an effort with the new doctor, but voices from Yr tell her that Dr. Fried is dead. Still, she tries, explaining some words from the Yri language and attempting to connect, but Dr. Royson doesn’t seem to understand. The doctor uses logic to disprove some of Deborah’s thoughts, with which she cannot help but agree. Deborah sinks into herself without Dr. Fried and finds herself putting cigarettes out on her arm in an effort to quell an inner volcanic fire with an outside one. She is taken back to the D ward by a doctor. She is grateful to see that he is not poisoned from touching her, but she then yells at her voices to leave her alone, prompting the doctor to put her in a cold pack. Deborah comes back to reality some days later, in bed with a patient named Mary beside her. Deborah is surprised to have come out of the darkness, and Mary notes that even bad experiences must end eventually. Deborah marvels at the fact that people can come through a mental health crisis to help one another. Deborah decides to find a way to cause another “backfire” (175) on her body that night.

Deborah continues to burn her arm in the same place, attempting to fight off the volcano inside herself. The wounds become infected, and Deborah marvels at how little attention the nurses pay to her. When she tells a doctor about it, he rebandages her wounds, and the incident results in much stricter smoking rules. Deborah steals butts off the nurses and patients to continue harming herself. None of her efforts quell the volcano, however.

When Dr. Fried returns from vacation, she is saddened to see Deborah in such a state, and accuses her of letting herself become that way as a sort of revenge for Dr. Fried’s leaving. Deborah is relieved that Dr. Fried is alive and ashamed of her own recurring mental health crisis. Deborah defends herself, explaining that she thought Dr. Fried had died and tried her best with Dr. Royson, but he only seemed concerned with proving his own theories. She says that she hates herself, her life, and her impending death, and Dr. Fried replies by noting that Deborah’s capacity to hate is at least equaled by her capacity to love. Miss Coral receives a new book of plays and offers to read it with Deborah. Soon, the entire ward has joined in a parody reading of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Esther hears about Deborah’s self-harm and comes to visit Dr. Fried, who tries to assure her that despite how it appears, Deborah is responding to treatment and improving slowly. She encourages Esther to tell her family that Dr. Fried would not invest her valuable time on someone she thought could not improve.

When Deborah sees Helene attack Sylvia out of nowhere, she feels compelled to comfort Sylvia but cannot bring herself to move from her spot. During her next visit with Dr. Fried, Deborah tells Dr. Fried about the guilt she feels about that moment. She disagrees when Dr. Fried blames the burning on Deborah’s anger toward Dr. Fried and the facility. She resolves to stop stealing cigarettes from the other patients in repentance for what she failed to do for Sylvia.

When Deborah’s has another mental health crisis, she is in the bathroom alone. She begins banging her head against the floor and then uses a button to cut her finger, drawing words in Yri on the walls with her blood. She is soon found and barely aware that she is being helped. She speaks out in Yri, talking about the anger within her. She is taken to seclusion, but continues banging herself on the walls and is put in a cold pack. There, she stays for several hours until it occurs to her that the death she has been fearing is likely a mental death, not a physical one.

With Dr. Fried, Deborah can only speak in broken phrases, half in Yri, but tries to express the feeling of her two worlds colliding. She feels anger and fear, and perhaps, as Dr. Fried notes, some relief knowing she no longer has to try to separate the two worlds. Dr. Fried compliments Deborah’s strength and her will to live, as well as her intelligence in getting help when she needs it.

When Miss Coral throws a bed at one of the only nurses that Deborah likes, she wants desperately to question Miss Coral about it, but knows she cannot, as it only serves to bring shame and judgment. Instead, she eavesdrops on the nurses, but only hears them talk about her and the incident in the bathroom, which makes her feel a deep sense of humiliation.

Talking to Dr. Fried, Deborah asks what the point is of fighting for a life, and Dr. Fried reminds her that she is fighting for the challenge of achieving happiness and peace in her life. She asks Deborah if she feels she is becoming more ill, and Deborah says she does not. When Dr. Fried meets with the staff of D ward, she relays what Deborah said and adds that she believes Deborah’s expressions of anger and fear are a step in the right direction from the stone-faced, distant person that existed before. The others are skeptical, but hope that she is right. Someone asks if people who have a mental health condition can have morals at all, and Dr. Fried assures him that they all do.

Winter comes, and despite the fact that she continues to break into rages and asks to be cold packed daily, Deborah notices the staff becoming kinder toward her. Dr. Fried explains that it is because after her eruption, the distant, emotionless expression on her face was replaced by her inner humanity. The staff can now see her as a member of their world. Hearing this frightens Deborah, because she could never understand why her facial expressions never matched what she was feeling.

That night, Deborah goes to the bathroom alone and stares out the window at the sunset and trees in the yard. They appear gray at first, but gradually everything assumes its color, and Deborah realizes that “all the voices in all the worlds” (203) are quiet for once. It suddenly occurs to her that she will not die, but will instead become very much alive, and that the process of this change is already beginning. At dinner, she can taste her food fully. The next morning, she remembers that something has changed and recalls the colors and sense of connection she felt. Deborah tells Dr. Fried of the change, and they work on unearthing the rest of the truths of Deborah’s life and past. Deborah realizes that both she and her grandfather are a sort of embodiment of “anger and martyrdom” (206). She asks Dr. Fried if she will have to give up the world of Yr, and Dr. Fried reminds Deborah that these things will always remain her choice. Deborah’s burns have lingered for months, and when she has them cleaned, she still feels no pain. A new doctor puts some antibacterial ointment on them and they finally begin to heal, and Deborah muses that perhaps one day she will feel pain.