OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu is not what it seems. Yes, there is a love story, but the main message of the story itself is about growing to love and accept yourself for who you are. This is the real love story and the subject is conveyed rather intensely. The way Haydu portrays this theme borders between terrifying and beautiful. The outcome was a beauty, but the build up was intense and unrelatable to many, causing a dark undertone within her character, Bea. In OCD Love Story, the theme of denial of oneself and overcoming the truth to face who you really are, with the discovery of true love; the love for yourself is evolved drastically throughout the novel. To illustrate, Haydu creates her character Bea, a young girl diagnosed with OCD, …show more content…
but refuses to believe it. Bea likes to believe she only has anxiety and overlooks her concerning compulsions. In particular, Haydu develops her character in odd ways, as you delve deeper into Bea’s mind, it becomes evident she’s less than okay. Bea’s insecurity, fear, and dismissive qualities activate her compulsions which drives her to great lengths. Thus, leading up to her ultimate breakdown and discovery of oneself. To start with, Bea is first introduced to seem as if she is an average high school student, but as the story evolves; her little tendencies become more than just habits. Bea is full of anxiety, from being scared of herself; who she is to how she feels as if she can hurt anyone around her. She worries over how weird she is and that everyone will just become sick of her. Furthermore, she questions her compulsions, her walls begin to breakdown, and Bea finally realizes her condition, but it’s too late. Her condition eventually takes over her and her awareness of it doesn’t help. However, once she’s reached her breaking point, her limits, she finally overcomes the truth. Whereas, in the beginning, Bea denied herself of who she was, then understanding the truth, but unable to put any action into it and is unable to control herself. Eventually, she breaks down and it metaphorically pushes her off the cliff she’s been hanging onto for so long. But once she falls, Bea soon realizes that cliff wasn’t as far off from the ground as she thought. She lands safely and overcomes the hate she had for herself. Bea lessens her compulsions and burns away her past, slowly recovering bit by bit. She burns her notebook from her stalking days, stops pinching her thighs from so much anxiety, her driving gets better, she doesn’t feel like she’s a danger, and she learns how to interact with the people around her more openly. Bea overcomes herself, because she only ever feared herself, and with this she falls in love with who she is. Concerning this, Bea has a lot of internal monologue with herself.
She constantly questioned herself between right or wrong and argued with herself about her every choice. In the beginning and towards the middle, you can see how much everything affected Bea. For example, “I don’t want her to know that I’m nauseous and dying to scream and sweating so badly that my shirt is shrinking with dampness” (Haydu 283), “Maybe I am the real threat against them” (Haydu 216), and “The gasping, the difficulty breathing, make it worse...So I turn around and drive down the side streets until I find her,” (Haydu 128). These three quotes represent the loud and convoluted thoughts of Bea during her time of denial. She thought she was dangerous to her loved ones, her compulsions made it difficult for her to do daily activities, and her anxiety levels could raise so high; you could feel it yourself. But, eventually, she finally overcomes it all and in many of the words spoken or thought from Bea are filled with acceptance and true understanding. Regarding this, “A pink notebook I burned” (Haydu 340), “I don’t go in. I don’t have to” (Haydu 341), “I am running out of things to comfort me” (Haydu 316), and “Dr. Pat says you make your own decisions,” (Haydu 335) are a couple representations of a newly developed Bea. She burns her stalking notebook and her compulsions disappear, she doesn’t give in to her compulsions, and decides that her disorder doesn’t control her; she …show more content…
does. Once Bea overcame this incredible notion, this labyrinthine-like battle with herself; she not only changed the person in her, but the people around her changed too.
Bea once being so insecure and excluded herself from everything, became this confident young woman who understand who she truly was. Her new trust and love for herself is so evident that the people around her also changed for the better good. Bea’s boyfriend, Beck, who also has OCD, lessened his compulsions, her best friend, Lish, has a better understand and acceptance of those with disorders, her parents are finally opening up with her, and the previous couple she stalked are finally loving each other again instead of arguing. Much less, Bea realizes that who she was or how she acted, really had a huge effect on everyone around her. In the end, everything was going to be
okay. OCD Love Story was more than just a sappy teen-fiction. It had romance and it had angst, but the love story wasn’t between some teenage girl and boy, but it was a love story between yourself. Bea, a high school student, is diagnosed with OCD and refused to accept this fact. But, as she developed and grew into a different person everyday, she learned more about herself. Not only that, but compared to the her now and the her then, they could be complete strangers. This story gives a whole different kind of aspect of learning love. OCD Love Story was beautifully written. My knowledge in certain disorders like OCD was very limited when reading this, but the unrelatable feeling towards the characters and drastic emotions you could feel from Bea was real. Everyone in this novel was so hard to understand, that it made it more real than being able to understand the characters. All in all, the theme had a massive impact, I never knew you had to love yourself so completely. I found it hard to understand how a person could do that, but it was mesmerizing. Love yourself and accept who you are, that is the greatest love you’ll ever feel; do not deny yourself and continue discovering the you in you.
While she might think that her plans are working, they only lead her down a path of destruction. She lands in a boarding house, when child services find her, she goes to jail, becomes pregnant by a man who she believed was rich. Also she becomes sentenced to 15 years in prison, over a street fight with a former friend she double crossed. In the end, she is still serving time and was freed by the warden to go to her mother’s funeral. To only discover that her two sisters were adopted by the man she once loved, her sister is with the man who impregnated her, and the younger sister has become just like her. She wants to warn her sister, but she realizes if she is just like her there is no use in giving her advice. She just decides that her sister must figure it out by
The majority of the novel is centered around the efforts of Mark and his friends Trina, Alec, and Lana to find the source of this disease and the cure, as they know that they are also probably infected. Along the way, they find Deedee, a young girl who was shot ...
	Lisa Shilling starts off as any normal teenager, attending school, going out with friends, and even dating. As the novel progresses, Lisa slips into dark, depressive moods on occasional days, and then into depression altogether. Lisa’s friends notice her change and take it into their own hands to give her "therapy" because Lisa’s parents are not willing to accept her sickness. As the depression progresses, many frightening incidents happen, but Lisa’s friends stick with her, helping to give strength to Lisa as well as themselves.
At the end she risks her life and becomes a pretty to become and experiment to David’s moms to test a cure to the brain lesions created when they go ... ... middle of paper ... ... o save them from going through a transformation that will change them forever. The moral of the book is you don’t have to get surgery to look a certain way.
...he story with the various characters. Melinda’s acquaintance, Heather works hard at finding friends and becoming popular, but in the end she turns away from Melinda. The story is about the high school years. Many times when we are growing up we can’t wait to get there because we will be treated as adults, but the truth is the problems that come along when we are older can be difficult. The various clans of students help present the theme by showing us that there are many different types of people. The popular cheerleaders, the jocks, the geeks and those who are just trying to fit in. Melinda transforming the janitor’s closet symbolizes her hiding her feelings and Melinda’s inability to speak and tell people what happened to her. High school can be fun but unfortunately through the eyes of Melinda it was a very hard time.
Her father works out of town and does not seem to be involved in his daughters lives as much. Her older sister, who works at the school, is nothing but plain Jane. Connie’s mother, who did nothing nag at her, to Connie, her mother’s words were nothing but jealousy from the beauty she had once had. The only thing Connie seems to enjoy is going out with her best friend to the mall, at times even sneaking into a drive-in restaurant across the road. Connie has two sides to herself, a version her family sees and a version everyone else sees.
The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression. " In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
In “Girl Interrupted” Susanna Kaysen, the main character, goes through many episodes that give a picture of the disorder she’s suffering from. The first such incident occurs when the psychiatrist talks to Susanna about her failed suicide attempt. During the conversation, she is seen as confused and irritated by his presence. While the psychiatrist questions her, her mind seems to be somewhere else because she is having flashbacks of her past, maybe a sign of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Susanna seems uncertain about things, she claims that she does not know what she feels.
There is no one to listen to her or care for her ‘personal’ opinions. Her husband cares for her, in a doctor’s fashion, but her doesn’t listen to her (Rao, 39). Dealing with a mentally ill patient can be difficult, however, it’s extremely inappropriate for her husband to be her doctor when he has a much larger job to fulfill. He solely treats his wife as a patient telling her only what could benefit her mental sickness rather than providing her with the companionship and support she desperately needs. If her husband would have communicated with her on a personal level, her insanity episode could have been prevented. Instead of telling her everything she needed he should’ve been there to listen and hear her out. Instead she had to seek an alternate audience, being her journal in which he then forbids her to do. All of this leads to the woman having nobody to speak or express emotion to. All of her deep and insane thoughts now fluttered through her head like bats in the Crystal Cave.
This causes loneliness and leaves the protagonist overwhelmed with her mental state. Since she has been advised the rest of the cure, she spends the majority of her time studying the pattern of the yellow wallpaper and uses her creativity and imagination to come up with a conclusion.... ... middle of paper ... ...
They all become a support system for each other. Precious learns to read and write, and starts journaling daily about the life that she daydreams about having for herself. She feels that her body, looks, incest, and abuse in her home with her mother have caused her life to be unpleasant. She daydreams about dating a “light” skin guy, being in movies, and having a very functional family with her two kids. A social worker by the name of Ms. Weiss helps Precious by discovering the incest and abuse in Precious’ home.
The main idea of the book was a girl learning to cope with her past and and trying to grow from it. Charlie starts of in a mental institution for self-harm. She is then taken out of the place because of her mother’s lack of money. She goes to Arizona to be helped out by her friend Mikey, which is gone most of the time. Charlie gets a job at a weird coffee place and meets a guy named Riley, where they instantly get a connection. The rest of the book is Charlie trying to learn how to deal with all of her past hardships and find a better way to deal with the memories and pain. The only two coping methods she seemed
Tracy’s identity development is heavily influenced by her new friendship with Evie from that moment on. Evie is so popular, but she makes very poor choices and Tracy follows her lead because she wants to seem just as “cool” as her new companion. This is a type of peer pressure that affects many teenagers daily.... ... middle of paper ... ...
...f the bad that is going on in her real life, so she would have a happy place to live. With the collapse of her happy place her defense was gone and she had no protection from her insanity anymore. This caused all of her blocked out thoughts to swarm her mind and turn her completely insane. When the doctor found her, he tried to go in and help her. When the doctor finally got in he fainted because he had made so many positive changes with her and was utterly distressed when he found out that it was all for naught. This woman had made a safety net within her mind so that she would not have to deal with the reality of being in an insane asylum, but in the end everything failed and it seems that what she had been protecting herself from finally conquered her. She was then forced to succumb to her breakdown and realize that she was in the insane asylum for the long run.
Self-destructive behaviors are also very common in individuals with Borderline personality disorder. Susanna validates this trait by her lack of motivation, conversations about suicide, and her suicide For example; Lisa, the diagnosed sociopath, displays very little empathy for those around her. This is made clear when she sees Daisy’s post suicide body and is not saddened whatsoever. Another accurate portrayal is the patient with anorexia nervosa Janet. Janet refuses to eat, is in denial about her condition, is emotionally labile, and is always exercising.