I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by author Joanne Greenberg is a now-classic semi-autobiographical account of a sixteen-year old girl’s struggle with schizophrenia. Following traumatic events that occurred during childhood, Deborah withdraws further into herself, living in a fantasy universe called Yr (pronounced “eer”), and drifts in and out of reality. After a suicide attempt, Deborah’s parents seek treatment for her in an institution.

The story is reminiscent of Susannah Kaysen’s 1993 memoir, Girl, Interrupted. Kaysen was institutionalized in the 1960s after a suicide attempt and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. However, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden was published many years earlier (1964) under the pseudonym Hannah Green, and of course, deals with a very different kind of mental illness. Still, a major theme in both of the books is that both of the young women feel "safe" being on the "inside", and feel liberated from social stigma and responsibility. But they both eventually realize that unless they take steps toward their recovery - frightening as the "outside" world may be - they will remain hospitalized, and never actually, truly, be free.