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Running Head: EXPOSURES
An Analysis of the Novel Exposures,
Bipolar and Depressive Disorder
Kareem Husaini
NYIT
EXPOSURES
Summary
Exposure by Kathryn Harrison is a novel that describes the troubles a woman,
Ann Rogers’s experiences throughout her daily life because of trauma that she had
experienced in her childhood. Ann is a talented photographer at Visage Video, and she
photographs weddings were her job is to make it look as if it was the perfect day even
thought it might not have been. In the early part of the books the reader is introduced to
Ann, and her father Edgar Rogers who was a photographer who made himself popular by
taking pictures of Ann from an early age until she hit puberty. The pictures of her were
sexually explicit, and provocative. They included images of Ann masturbating, often
nude, and depict her as dead. Ann’s mother Virginia died during childbirth, and she
always wonders what she was like because she’s left with only photographs of her. Ann’s
early life was anything but conventional, and to make things worse her father resents her
for her mother’s death.
Edger raised Ann, and gave her everything she needed accept love. He never gave
her much attention, or affection and that really affected Ann in a negative way. His
neglectfulness is what jumpstarted her mental issues because it made her do things to try
and get attention from her father. One of the things was her attempt to satisfy her father’s
desires for amazing pictures by being the best model she could be for him. Each sitting
would take hours, and this is difficult for anyone let alone a young girl who suffered from
diabetes since birth. Her wanting to satisfy her father was so intense that she would often
ignore feelings sick, and weak due to her missing insulin shocks to restore her sugar to
normal levels. She defends her self-negligence to it helping her father’s pictures because
her paleness from being sick made her look even more dead for the pictures. On one
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EXPOSURES
occasion it even led to her going into a diabetic coma, which landed her in the emergency
room, and her father going to court to defend his negligence to maintain custody of his
daughter.
After successfully maintaining custody of his daughter he became more aware of
her insulin shots, and she never missed one again. Another thing that Ann would do is
that she cut herself just to make herself feel because she claimed that she always felt
numb. Later on when Ann was in high school she had an encounter with a professor who
was familiar with her fathers famous photographs of her. He would masturbate to them,
and have a bunch of them in his house. He stalked her for a couple of weeks until he
finally kidnapped her, and took her to a secluded place where he made her go into insulin
shock. In the emergency room nurses identified the man was lying about his identity, and
he was arrested. During the process Ann was delirious, but managed to scream out that he
raped her, however tests concluded that no such thing happened. As time passed, and Ann
made it to college her mental problems started to really take effect when she finds out
that her father committed suicide. When she gets back to college after her fathers funeral
she is depressed, and numb to everything. She’s alone in her dorms because everyone is
away at home, and she lets herself fall into a diabetic coma. When doctors revive her at
the hospital they conclude that it was a mild attempt at suicide, and they make her see a
therapist.
Ultimately it helps her, and she graduates with honors. In her adult life she
maintains herself pretty well, and is able to function somewhat normal with the help of
drugs, and complex defenses to protect her self from the pain and hurt she had from her
childhood. Since the sudden advent of her father’s works being placed in a show at an art
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EXPOSURES
museum Ann has relapsed worse than ever. Her drug use, compulsive shoplifting,
irritability, and erratic behaviors have all increased. The behavior has caused strain in her
family, and work life. Finally things reach a boiling point after her husband Carl reveals
that he knew about her dirty secrets, and she breaks down. Faced with the potential
failure of her marriage, and jail time for being caught shoplifting more than once she
finally reaches rock bottom. During her court hearing for her shoplifting charges a
psychiatrist diagnoses her with bipolar disorder, the depressive type, as well as suffering
from disordered thinking, impaired judgment, tenuous impulse control, and
methamphetamine abuse. The psychiatrist recommends that she be institutionalized to
have lithium therapy for her bipolar disorder, which requires regular blood serum testing
to determine proper therapeutic level to eliminate toxic side effects. In the end Ann
begins to take control of her life, and her mental and relationship health begins to mend.
Diagnoses
The main character of the novel Ann, is suffering from two mental disorders. She
has Bipolar disorder, and Major Depressive disorder. Throughout the novel the character
shows persistent signs that she is suffering from these mental disorders, and certain things
she does during a stressful time in her life highlight what happens to an individual who is
struggling to cope. According to the DSM5, Ann has the majority of the symptoms that
are associated with bipolar, and major depressive disorder.
Symptoms
When diagnosing someone as bipolar they must have 3-4 of the separate
symptoms of the disorder, and when regarding Ann she has 7. She repeatedly experiences
periods of times where she has abnormally goal-oriented activity. Some of the activities
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EXPOSURES
in particular are when she shop lifts repeatedly without any intention of stopping her
negative actions. She also experiences this in social situations. In particular, she
constantly has the objective of either not looking guilty of committing a felony like
shoplifting or her just trying to seem normal instead of abnormal. Ann also suffers from
not being able to sleep properly. Her insomnia is another reason why she always seems to
be out of sorts, and irritable. In social situations she also constantly feels pressure to keep
talking in order to hide her personal problems. She rationalizes that by constantly talking
people will think she’s normal, and that it will dispel any attention, and negative thoughts
that other people may have of her in addition to other people catching onto how she’s
actually feeling. This occurs a lot in the novel during her most stressful moments when
her life is falling apart. Whenever she’s comes home to Carl she automatically goes into
the defensive and lies about how her day was, and she talks a lot so that he doesn’t get
suspicious of her secret wrong doings.
Another symptom of bipolar disorder is that the individual may have flights of
ideas or racing thoughts. In Ann’s case this may be a bit complicated because she does
have this, but it may also be partly due to her use of speed. Regardless of this, she still
experiences racing thoughts, in particular it is usually of her being paranoid of people
watching her and finding out that she’s high, shoplifting or thinking negative of her. In
social situations this anxiety, and paranoid thoughts are racing to the point where she is
consumed, and sometimes has to separate her self from the situation to take a break.
Increase in goal-oriented behavior is prevalent in Ann’s case. The activity has been
mentioned previously with her efforts to constantly seem normal in front of other people.
Close friends such as Doris, and coworkers also frequently ask her if she is doing ok
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EXPOSURES
because she is looking very out of it, and skinny. Another symptom that she has is her
constant involvement in dangerous activities. Ann constantly experiments with different
drugs to help her get through her daily life. She uses: speed, takes crystal whenever she
has bad moods/anxiety, and is addicted to nose spray. These addictions are
dangerous for anyone let alone someone with mental, and health concerns. Her
involvement in dangerous activity also involves her shoplifting. This may be her
most dangerous one because it could potentially ruin her career, and personal life by
her being sent to jail. Due to her mood disturbances she also ends up trying to
commit suicide twice in her life, as well as her being hospitalized twice due to her
self-destructive behavior. Her gender related diagnostic issues are that she is in the
gender group that is most likely to receive bipolar disorder because females are 15
times more likely to suffer from it than the general population. Past history of
suicide attempts, and days spent depressed are also associated with greater risks of
suicides. Environmental factors show that higher income countries have people who
are more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder as opposed to lower income families.
Ann resides in the U.S., which is a high-income nation in addition to her status being
of middle to high middle class status. Genetic factors such as family history may be
another reason why Ann is bipolar. People with a family history of bipolar disorder
are 10 times more likely to inherit the disorder as opposed to those who don’t.
Mental disorders run in Ann’s family relating to her father, and grandparents. Suicide
risk in people with bipolar disorder is 15 times higher than the average person.
Cultural issues are not a factor when discussing bipolar disorder.
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EXPOSURES
When diagnosing someone with Major depressive disorder one must have at
least 5 of the 9 symptoms to be classified as having this disorder. Ann clearly has the
first symptom, which is feeling sad or empty for most of the day. The reason she feels
this way is because of what her father did to her. Those childhood experiences
traumatized her, and left her with a mental scar that she carried throughout her life.
For the second symptom, she definitely feels a diminished interest in her daily
activity. She is so unable to go throughout her daily life with her normal self that she
has to take drugs to pick her up, and mask the messed up feelings she has inside
because it allows her to fulfill her daily duties. Ann has also been subject to a
noticeable amount of weight loss during the periods where she is most stressed.
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