I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Deborah has a dream in which a hand holds three pieces of coal. It closes and puts strong pressure on the coal, and Deborah can feel the sensation of it. She cries out for it to stop, but the hand soon opens to reveal three diamonds, and a voice tells her that this will soon be her.

Deborah’s hunger for the world and life extends to thoughts of her family, and she goes home for five days. While there, she is visited by countless relatives and navigates the challenges of ordinary communication. Deborah tries her best and is praised for her positive attitude and the drawings she brings home. One night, she overhears her mother and Suzy arguing, as Suzy accuses her parents of putting all their attention on Deborah. Esther tells Suzy that they do that to excuse her other, less-desirable behaviors. Deborah wonders if her suspicions of her mental health condition passing onto Suzy are coming true.

Deborah’s creativity is unleashed, and she spends much of her time in the craft shop working with anything she can find. A new patient named Carmen moves into the D ward, and her gusto reminds Deborah of Helene. Deborah and Carla develop a mind game in which they reinvent things like work and school to suit their own views of what would make these things better. They imagine a mental hospital without bars on the windows, or one where the nurses have to experience what the patients do. One night, they decide to trick the attendants and escape the facility, running down the road and laughing together. Deborah feels free and joyful and even Yr responds in kind: “Anterrabae was singing gloriously out of Yr, songs of the beauties of the world which he had not given for many, many years” (234). Eventually they turn back, and when they get to the facility, they are separated and secluded, but Deborah feels it was worth it to smell the rain and feel free. In explaining the experience to a doctor later, Deborah notes that nobody decided to do it; it just happened. After talking to Carla as well, the doctor tells both girls that he doesn’t plan to revoke any privileges and is proud of them for taking such a courageous step. When Deborah finds out that Carmen was already picked up by her father, she suddenly realizes the faith and patience her parents have demonstrated in allowing her to stay for so long, even with the possibility that Deborah may never heal.

Helene is transferred to the B ward, and Deborah and Carla welcome her with caution. Word soon arrives that Carmen ended her life after leaving the facility, and an argument ensues amongst the patients about whether she could have lived if she had been given a chance to get better. Deborah is on the hopeful side, and realizes that the argument is a reflection of a patient’s inner struggle between giving up and fighting to live. Deborah believes, too, that Carmen’s illness was one which was more obvious and visceral, which meant she had even more of a chance. She now understands that showing emotion is a sign of health, not a sign of illness. Carla soon announces that she plans to go out and try to live again, and Deborah is overcome with fear of losing a friend and having to one day venture out herself.

When Carla leaves, Deborah starts leaving the facility and going into town to sing with the church choir. She talks to the staff often, wanting to know about their lives outside, and eventually requests her own release from the facility. She moves into an outpatient home nearby. The place is looked over by an elderly woman who seems to hold no prejudice against patients from the facility, unlike most of the town.

Talking to Dr. Fried, Deborah realizes that there are past memories of joy that she forgot about—entire periods of her life filled with happy times. Deborah admits she still talks with the gods of Yr but knows now that they are creations of her own mind. Dr. Fried asks Deborah if she still sees Carla, and Deborah explains that while they see each other less often, there is a closeness between them after suffering and fighting together. Deborah explains that Carla never seemed interested in her art, and in fact seemed to recoil from it. Deborah recalls a dream she had a week before, in which she heard a song from the stars, and a voice pointed her toward the horizon. The voice explained the unique curve that each human’s life makes and how, together, it makes up human history. It urges Deborah to dig for Carla’s curve, and explains that her creativity is buried deep within her. Dr. Fried tells Deborah that the dream was reminding her of how special and rare her drive to create is, especially given how it lasted through all of her treatment period.

During the first few months of living on her own, Deborah attempts to engage with her community at church and sewing class and spends her free time drawing. Over time, she starts to feel like these things are not enough for her to feel like she is truly experiencing the world, and she notices that no matter how she tries, people do not want to approach her. She cannot qualify for any jobs because she never finished high school, and when she is told this by the facility administrator, the thought of returning to high school is torturous. He suggests she make a list of things she can do, and Deborah feels a spark of hope and goes home to do just that. She creates a list of things she knows and potential jobs that could be done with that knowledge. She narrows down her list and returns to the facility, but her social worker stops her to let her know about a high school equivalency program she can take in the city. It is a relief, but Deborah is already stricken with panic at the thought of her future falling apart. The voices of Yr call out to her, and she breaks down; she is hospitalized again and wakes in a cold pack.

Deborah wakes to an attendant named Quentin compassionately checking on her. Quentin looks at Deborah and sees past her mental health condition to the person inside, confused by the fact that he has romantic feelings for someone that others deem incapable of such things. After being in an accident, which broke his ribs and left him vulnerable and in need, he understands Deborah’s current position. Deborah suddenly realizes that Quentin feels this way, and a similar feeling arises in her, one which was buried for her whole life. Anterrabae speaks to Deborah, comparing her to a fish that has been caught and is sure to die yet continues to flail. Later, Deborah decides to burn her arm again, but finds that she cannot, because the pain is far too seething now. The realization is momentous, and she calls out to Yr that there will be no more fires because she is connected to the world.

Deborah explains to Dr. Fried how the panic of school led her to have another mental health crisis, sharing an observation she made about how the world of Yr always seems to do the opposite of what the real world does. Dr. Fried, slightly frustrated that Deborah continues to pay attention to Yr, encourages her to let it go in order to enjoy reality fully. Deborah hears Anterrabae calling out to pity him, arguing that he is attached to her, and that she can never have such a strong connection with any human being. She remembers Anterrabae telling her that she had “eaten down hope from the red to the rind” (260), and she responded by saying she will chew it until it provides what she needs from it. She feels now that she cannot disconnect from that hope again—it has become a part of her.

Deborah can achieve her high school equivalency if she goes to the tutorial school and takes an exam to prove her knowledge of the subjects. She takes a two-hour bus ride each day and studies constantly while still living in the B ward of the facility. She finds that the more she goes to school and demonstrates commitment, the more she is treated like a person by the staff at the facility, and the more distant she grows from the patients. On her way out from seeing Dr. Fried one day, Deborah comes across Miss Coral in the halls, fighting off a group of attendants. Miss Coral and Deborah catch up while Miss Coral casually wrestles, and then Deborah leaves, worried for how few women seem to overcome their mental health condition.

Deborah does well in school and enjoys the sense of purpose it brings her, but she still cannot connect with her peers. On the bus one day, she wonders if she ever will, and the voices of Yr call out that she will be alone if she leaves them. Suddenly, her tutors appear in Yr and defend her hard work, and then a band of five dancers appears, and Deborah is reminded that she is one of them. With Dr. Fried, Deborah expresses her frustration in meeting people, but notes that she was given the chance to babysit by her landlord. Dr. Fried reminds Deborah that she has to trust in the world first, and hope that whatever comes out of that is worth it. She suggests to Deborah that she draw the gods of Yr and share them with the world to break down the wall between them, and Deborah decides to try.

Deborah attends the equivalency exam and waits for a month for the results. She passes well enough to be admitted into college. It is confirmation of her hard work and her connection to the world, and she phones her parents to tell them the good news. Her mother is excited, but her father seems almost saddened to hear it. Deborah ends the call wondering why her father pities her despite her hard work. She walks past the high school and looks at the boys who got where she got with so much less effort, and she considers how she may never get to be with one. The voices of Yr start taunting her again, and she suddenly remembers having read her grandfather’s copy of Paradise Lost, realizing that her image of Anterrabae was just the character of Satan from the novel. She becomes consumed by the voices but manages to make her way to the facility. When she comes to herself again, she wakes and goes out into the ward, where a familiar chaos is taking place. She is hit in the head with a cup and saucer at dinner and realizes that she is the new Doris, a symbol of the patients’ fear of their own resilience and hope. She asks for her textbooks and opens them to study as the voices of Yr beg for her attention one last time. Deborah tells the voices with full resolution that she is going to “hang with the world […] full weight” (276), in spite of what it has done to her. The gods call out a goodbye, and Deborah does the same.