The girl at her music sits in another sort of light, the fitful, overcast light of lie, by which we see ourselves and others only imperfectly, and seldom.
Susanna Kaysen makes this comment on Vermeer’s powerful painting, a piece that most likely played an integral role in her mental illness. In her best-selling novel Girl, Interrupted, she recounted how, at the age of eighteen, she had failed to graduate high school, and found herself housed in a prestigious mental hospital in Massachusetts. She was eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, an illness that I will be writing on in an upcoming post. The entire narrative is profound and moving; a memorable recovery story.
Blossoming Psychology 