This paper will identify two different mental illnesses and how each separate one is presented in a movie. Borderline personality disorder will be discussed in relation to Girl Interrupted and schizophrenia will be discussed in relation to A Beautiful Mind.
Borderline personality disorder, which effects only about 2% of the United States population, seems to be one of the most "controversial" mental illnesses today because it is hard to diagnose and know one really knows if it actually exists. The causes of the disorder, by some, is believed to be that people with the disorder are born with an innate biological tendency to react more intensely to lower levels of stress than others and take longer to recover from it, however many borderlines have a history of some kind of abuse or neglect. In other words, their emotional level peaks on less important things and take longer calming down from them. Another cause could be that they grew up in an environment in which their beliefs and image were constantly invalidated and this made them vulnerable. Borderline personality sufferers tend to be passive when inside they are falling apart.
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