Revisiting the bell jar: Putting young girls under the lenses of patriarchy

Off Our Backs, Jul 1999 by Spiers, Rebecca Myers

Revisiting the Bell Jar: Putting Young Girls Under the Lenses of Patriarchy

Everyone knows what it's like to call the operator. And everyone knows how crushing the reality is when that particular number has been disconnected. It hurts even more when you scramble for your options and the operator is rude to you. This is how I describe my experience in a "recovery" center (AKA: mental hospital). Except there were hundreds of operators and the whole phone book was redesigned.

At fifteen, I was incarcerated in the Pine Grove Recovery Center located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. After repeated suicide attempts, my parents and I agreed that it might be helpful to take a trip to the adolescent unit. By then I was desperate, both to get away from my family, and also to stop the self-mutilation that came almost daily. I thought they would help me. I thought they would be nice to me. I thought I would meet other teenagers that were going through the same thing. I thought a lot of things. But one thing that never crossed my mind is that I would lose all identity, personality, and control over my life once I stepped through those doors.

After the needs accessment, I was pulled through double doors to the see the Clinical Assistant ("CA") on duty. My mother was with me (offering me no privacy or comfort) as they rifled through my suitcase removing "dangerous" items. They removed my toiletries (saying that I could swallow them or the alcohol that was in them to harm myself) and put them behind the counter to be removed only twice a day for thirty minutes. They removed my razors (I still bought into the beauty myth) for the obvious reasons. This is how they would control my body.

But then their search got more intense, rifling through every book I had, removing all music (it often had a negative influence--rock and roll is of the devil) and band T-shirts (for above reasons). They interrogated me for half an hour on the content of my books. I had to explain why I carried Marilyn French, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath. To respond to my inquisitor's mysogynistic airs, I explained my need for other women's writing in a very careful way. The Women's Room was a story about a group of housewives. Anne Sexton "reinvented" fairy tales and Sylvia Plath "just has a bad life." They let me keep The Bell Jar, which just happened to be the one that offered me the least hope. This is how they begin to control my mind.

They made me fill out tons of paperwork, including one that asked of any special diet. When I filled in vegetarian, the CA scoffed at me and said, "That isn't necessary. You're just trying to be cool." This is another way that they would control my body.

They made me complete a drug test and a strip down search for dangerous items.

After we went through the standard bureaucratic procedures, my mother left. At once, their smiles disappeared. They forced my to remove my shoes until I could, "clean up my act." They took pleasure in writing the initials EP and SP by my name which stood for Escape Precaution and Suicide Precaution and Suicide Precaution. They threw my point sheet (used to tally up points for my "behavior") at me and sent me to my room for the day. I apparently needed to "rest" and "get used to my surroundings." What I would really be getting used to were days without the sun, being drugged out of my senses, and being treated like shit. I went to my room with only a point sheet for the following day, four outfits, and a worn copy of The Bell Jar and no way to make sense of what was happening.

I slowly put my clothes away. I made no effort to reread the book that had become my Bible over the last couple of months. I carefully studied the point sheet. There were three categories: "Interaction With Others," "Personality," and "Following the Rules." I could get up to three points for each category (three being the most) each day. I assumed that if I followed every rule everyday, then by their quantitative metholodgy, I would get back my shoes and their respect. I was right about the shoes. I was wrong about the respect.

I decided that my "fragile" spirit could make it through to "group counseling" that afternoon. I walked into the room to the faces of fifteen broken spirited teenagers. They seemed as if they wanted to rebel but were all too drugged to do anything. Amidst their curious glances, I stated my name and why I was there. "My name is Rebecca and I'm here because I can't stand to live in the world anymore." The CA officiating the ceremony of self-esteem destruction looked me in the eye and said, "Rebecca is new. She tried to kill herself and it seems like she's somewhat of a poet." A small bit of laughter escaped from the mouths of my peers.

After the humiliation of group was over, they brought me my dinner in the lounge. It was a small cafeteria as dinner with ravioli filled with dead cow (which I had not touched in over three months), potatoes, turnip greens, and a stale roll. I was given two small containers of milk and orange juice to chase the food down.