Within You, Without You

"the underlying sexodrama of the movie Girl, Interrupted"

Hi, welcome to our second collaborative fic – the first one that numerous people will read, hopefully.  That brings us to point one: if you read the fic and have any reaction at all beyond the boredom of complete mediocrity, please review.  We have no money for enhanced statistics, so if people don't review, we will never know if anyone is reading at all, especially since Girl Interrupted doesn't have its own category here.  So then we will get depressed and we will throw ourselves off bridges and you won't get any more fics from us.  This means that if you like the fic it is especially important that you review.  Call it an investment in your fanfictional future.

Other points in no particular order: this is a fic based around the movie Girl, Interrupted, if the subtitle didn't give that away.  Specifically, it explores the horribly transparent but still implicit relationship between Lisa and Susanna.  In other words, this is a lesbian story.  A lesbian story about gay muff-divers who are women and have sex together which constitutes f/f slash.  I am warning this in more words than necessary because I have seen people get flamed for writing slashfic despite very clear warnings in the author's notes.  So this is clearer than clear:

********************************WARNING LESBIANISM AHEAD*******************************

Also, this is an homage, not plagiarism - if Michael Cunningham could do it with The Hours and Will Self could do it with Dorian, then so can we do it and no one can sue us.  Especially because we have no money. And some quick editorial notes: italics indicate either flashbacks or diary entries (excepting the initial Beatles quotation), and aside from these italicized sections, the point of view shifts from chapter to chapter between Susanna and Lisa.  

Regarding the basis of the story itself: it started as an exploration of the lesbian subtext in the movie, and then after awhile went really AU.  However, some of our material was drawn from sources outside of the standard VHS version: certain themes were taken from the cut scenes featured on the DVD (which you really need to see if you're at all interested in this movie), and still others are taken from the shooting script (out of print but available on www.abebooks.com), which has still more scenes that were excised from the movie as well as interviews with the director and screenwriters.  All in all we did way more research than is normal or probably healthy for a fanfic, which is why you should read it and review it, so our work won't be in vain.  Also you don't want our death by bridge-jumping to be on your hands.

Yes.  After that exceedingly verbose introduction… go to.

-The Writers

* * *

We were talking
about the space between us all
and people who hide themselves
behind a wall of illusion
never glimpse the truth
then it's far too late
when they pass away…

Try to realize it's all within yourself
no one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small
and life flows on within you and without you…

When you've seen beyond yourself
then you may find
peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come
when you see we're all one
and life flows on within you and without you

-The Beatles, 1967

* * *

You know, people think it's got to be fucking hell living in a mental ward. They don't say it around me - nobody says much of anything around me. Keep Lisa quiet, that's the goal around here: the aides are scared of me, the nurses try to manage me, the doctors hate me, and the patients… well.


But that's for later. What I mean is that you all, you all who are reading this, you're all sitting there pitying me for what a fucking hard life I must have, right? Six years in the loony bin, how can she stand it? There are about six types of you and you can figure out for yourself which type you belong in. There's the saints, the ones who are so terribly concerned about what horrible things must have happened to me to make me this way. Those are the ones who fall all over themselves with concern and send fruit baskets at Christmas. There's the flakes, the ones who can't think any deeper than clothes and TV, the kind the whole locked-ward shebang scares the holy shit out of. They're the ones who run in the other direction when they see someone walking down the street talking to the air.

Then there are the ones who do the denying: there's no such thing as "mental illness"; you're no crazier than the rest of us, so cut the bullshit, quit the pills and whining and get a job.  And finally, there are the ones who "understand." They're the ones who talk in the low sympathetic tones, who ask solemnly about childhood trauma and gently but firmly click the lock shut on the padded room. They're the ones who run this place, and they're the ones who understand the least about anything.

The truth is that the ones who think we're no crazier than anyone else are more right on than anyone else. But they're missing the point. The point isn't that we're crazy; the point is that they are. We're in here because we let it all hang loose, as they say, but who the fuck are you to judge what crazy is? You're so fucking attached to your dim little vision of reality you can't wake up and smell the fucking roses. You think there's a "right" answer to life, to sanity, and there's not.


Unless you ride the top of it. See, that's the only problem with most of the chicks in here: they get so bogged down in it all. And before you tell me that's why you're different, you tell me the last time you cried, and what about. You lost your job? Your husband cheated on you? Your mother died? And because that was why you broke down and lost it, that makes you okay, right? Get real. You're as fucked up as anyone else. And until you can slide right by that stuff without noticing, you're not alive. You're not free.

And when you're free they still want to lock you up. But then it's out of fear, plain and simple.

Getting bogged down - that was my mistake today. Hearing about Jamie that way - it was a shock, that's all. A nasty old shock. But I'm back now. Back in control now.

And the girl who took her place is pretty hot.