"One Flew Over the Coocoo's Nest"

 

      Susan finally reached college age. She was grateful to get out of her surroundings.  She was accepted and went to Sophie Newcomb (Tulane) University.  Her parent’s wealth allowed her to go far from home.  She met a nice young man and started a dating relationship. She was accepted into a sorority, life seemed to be improving for Susan.

      Only for Susan, life was full of tragedy. 

      Without her grandfather's presence, the family business began to decline.  Shopping malls were becoming stiff competition for small downtown areas and with too many stores to manage, key employees embezzled funds.  Susan’s dad had to close the businesses, but did not go into bankruptcy.  Near the end of Susan’s first year at college, her parents informed her that she would have to transfer to an instate school, that was at the start of 1973.  She applied and was accepted into the University of Illinois as a foreign language major.  Her skills were so advanced she was accepted as a junior, which meant she had to spend a year abroad. 

      Susan had no friends, and knew no one in the program.  She shipped out to Barcelona for her year abroad.  During that year, her boyfriend also chose to study abroad, in England.  But during the year they broke up.  Susan was not ready for the commitment and sexual revolution.  She continued to get depressed.  The result was the start of the pain and sickness of depression.  The house she lived at was run very miserly.  The woman who housed her provide little to eat and little heat in the winter.  Susan returned after her second year of college sick and grossly under-weight.  She was barely over sixty five pounds. Her parents immediately took her to doctors who diagnosed her as anorexic.  The treatment, institutionalization.

      This was the first time Susan really faced trauma in her life. Now alone in a mental institution, being given all sorts of drugs and having little contact with friends or family, life might as well have been over for her.  With threats from doctors and force feeding, she was told they could keep her for her entire life if she did not eat and show improvement. And cooperate.  Susan did survive this defining moment in her life.  She gained some weight and was permitted to return to this college, where she had no friends and knew nobody. 

     This was the first major crack in Susan's persona.  She Became very defensive about comments on her appearance, her mental health, and her life.  She also developed her first separate persona, the "good girl".   She would put on a good appearance to show the world and her parents that she was happy and healthy.