From Possession to Possession: Custody and Invisibility in Joanne Greenberg's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

<p><span>Life is feeling. It is a subjective interpretation of the self in corroboration to what is considered the norm at large by a particular society. Thomas S. Szasz in his essay, “The Myth of Mental Illness” has stated that, “The concept of illness, whether bodily or mental, implies deviation from some clearly defined norm” (113). Thus, it is evident that the self which is categorized as being a “deviation” from acceptable identities in society, is pushed to the outskirts and considered <em>un-able</em> to subscribe to the normative by itself. This leads to a form of custodianship to emerge from the others surrounding this self, which at the start may arise for positive reasons, but in finality, may end tragically, a notion that will be explored in this essay, which attempts to analyse the custody, or possession, of the mentally-ill self (which is considered a form of mental possession) by others, stripping it from any attempts at self-advocation and agency, in Joanne Greenberg’s (born 1932) fictionalized autobiography, <em>I Never Promised You a Rose Garden</em> (published 1964). </span></p>