The Buddy Willard Chronicles

Buddy Willard asked Esther Greenwood: Who are you going to marry now, now that you've been... here? He motions to the well-kept grounds of McLean Hospital, which isn't specifically mentioned by name in her famous novel, but is where Sylvia Plath got her inspiration for The Bell Jar.

I just finished reading The Bell Jar, having read it once before a long time ago. I am familiar with the notion of a man asking me who I would marry 'now', 'now' being after my stint somewhere secret, somewhere unsavory. I sat on a man's lap once and he asked me that, and I felt something like interest towards him - that someone could be so casual about locked wards and sickness, as if life ever really exists outside of that. But also, how sinister it is to dismiss someone because they have suffered in a stigmatized way.

I remember the rejections, how the men would say, "I didn't want to tell you this over the phone," and they would break up with me in crowded bars in front of their friends. I have taken Ubers home, numb and inconsolable, and I have spent time dissecting my actions and words. At another point in The Bell Jar, Buddy Willard, Esther Greenwood's old boyfriend, asks her if it is 'him' who 'makes women crazy', as he had dated her and another girl at the mental hospital.

Going back to sitting on that man's lap, the one who told me we couldn't "really date" because I had "been in the hospital," I think of how idiotic that sentiment is. That we can make each other crazy, or be crazy, or have people judge us for being crazy. It's so stigmatized, this business of mental illness. I can gratefully say I have not seen that man in years.

The moment everything changed was when I could look back on this man, who I had at one point loved very much, and think of him not as better than me for not having suffered in a hospital, but as lesser than me, for putting me down.

Reflecting on The Bell Jar, and stints at McLean Hospital, is hard. It hits close to home. But the moment everything changes is the moment you realize you deserve better than men who judge you for it.