How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"Do you mean to ask me if I think you belong here, if yours is what is called a mental illness" Then the answer is yes" [...] As bald as that. Yet with the terror connected with the hedged-about word 'crazy,' the unspoken word that Deborah was thinking about now, there was a light coming from the doctor's spoken words, a kind of light shone back on many rooms of the past." (3.40-41)
When Dr. Fried reveals that she thinks Deborah is mentally ill, it scares Deborah. But it also frees her now that it's out in the open. Sometimes things are scarier when we keep them bottled up and secret. And hey, as we all know, the truth will set you free.
Quote #5
After a while, hoping to hear the voice, becoming sadder with the loss of it, she found it again in the night of stars […] the same rich voice saying like a poem, You can be our bird, free in wind. You can be our wild horse who shakes his head and is not ashamed. (8.16)
Ah, yes. Here we see the good old days of Yr, before it got all "judgy," like the real world is. Yr used to represent total freedom of expression for Deborah, not to mention freedom from pain. But it's all illusory—there's no real freedom when you're totally confined within your own head.
Quote #6
"My help is so that you can be free to fight for all of these things. The only reality I offer is challenge, and being well is being free to accept it or not at whatever level you are capable. I never promise lies, and the rose garden world of perfection is a lie…and a bore, too!'" (13.41)
Dr. Fried is brutally honest with Deborah. She knows the world can be cruel, and she makes no promise that she'll magically be able to solve all of Deborah's problems. But Dr. Fried knows that being healthy gives you the freedom to meet the world head on and decide how and who you're going to be in life.