How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When SkyMusic had gotten clawed up by a raccoon and been in godawful pain from his infected wounds, I'd broken down—I had sworn I'd never spend a dime on those cats, but he was suffering so bad—and taken him to the vet myself, and Mom had screamed at me all that night about it, and taken SkyMusic's painkillers for herself and flushed his antibiotics down the toilet because all he needed were herbs and love. (1.15)
In this particular situation, we're pretty sure Beth wasn't the only person acting insane. Poor SkyMusic probably wasn't feeling real with it mentally, either. The fact that the cat's name is SkyMusic also probably added insult to injury.
Quote #2
I guess up until just a few years before Paul and me went into it, there wasn't much mental health care in schools […] When I asked Dad why I had to go to a shrink, back in fourth grade, he told me Mr. Knauss, Paul's dad, had worked really hard to get school psychologists into the budget, which was good enough for me right there. Then he leaned forward and looked me right in the eye and added, "Karl, we are finally advanced enough to admit some kids need help and provide it for them." (Which told me I was one of those kids.) (1.51-52)
Child psychology isn't really one of our specialties here at Shmoop, but we will say this—a big problem with Lightsburg's therapy program is that they seem to be offering help for these kids out of obligation rather than because they believe there's a genuine need. Because they're trying to be "advanced" rather than helping the students, their motives have always been skewed. This probably explains why the relationships among the Madmen themselves have done more good for them than the parade of therapists they've had.
Quote #3
Once you were in, they put a note in your file that said you were in therapy, and all your teachers saw that file. They might as well have tattooed CRAZY on your forehead. The next year every teacher would be watching you for the first weird thing you did—and has there ever been a kid who never does anything an adult considers weird? (1.56)
Another problem is that the teachers—who probably have less professional psychology experience than we do at Shmoop—pick the kids who belong in the program based on a hazy scale of weirdness. Which is dumb because teenagers are weird, so by this logic, the whole school should be one giant Madman Underground.
Quote #4
[Darla] got her ticket for being weird and obnoxious but she really did have problems, like burning herself with cigarettes and cutting little bits of skin off with a razor blade. When she was in ninth grade, the cops came to her house and she had dragged her seven-year-old brother, Logan, into the bathroom and threatened to blind him with Drano. (3.22)
The faculty members-turned-child psychologists who earmark kids for therapy sometimes get it right. Obviously, Darla is someone who really needs help. She talks to a stuffed bunny, mutilates her body, almost scarred her younger brother for life, and seems to have issues with behaving appropriately in matters, um, involving the opposite sex.
Quote #5
That was annoying. Us Madmen didn't associate with each other in public. We didn't need some dumbass football player or one of the jackoff smart kids to come up to us and make bibby-bibby noises with his finger and lip. Even though it was the seventies and like half the people you saw in movies were seeing a therapist, it was cool in the movies, but not in real life. (3.44)
Isn't this still a problem high school kids with issues like anxiety, depression, and social disorders have today? It's portrayed all the time on TV and in the movies, but in real life, there's a stigma against dealing with it or even talking about it. Clearly, this problem existed in the 1970s, too.
Quote #6
Bradshaw was being so nice he got me crying, and I told him how I felt sick as f*** about that rabbit, sometimes I had bad dreams about how its jaw had worked against my hand, the way it rubbed its nose on my palm wanting to be petted, the second when I could feel the pulse in its soft throat, and then the ripping feeling in my hand and the warm blood squirting all over my arm. Come to admit it, it was the first time I'd cried in months, and it was pretty hard to stop once I got going. (4.35)
We here at Shmoop would like to apologize for the sick feeling you just got in your gut as well as the nightmares about dead bunnies you'll have this evening. But, we really do feel this passage is important for showing the mental state Karl was in around the time his dad was dying. Obviously, there was serious anger and depression that needed to be released in a major way. It just happened that Squid's bunny was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Quote #7
Every single shrink the group had ever had, since I was in ninth grade, said that the way I lived, always working and always making money, was a "defense."
They always said it like it was something wrong. There is nothing wrong with having a defense if you're attacked, I said, inside, where they couldn't get on my tits, trying to make me say, "Oh, now I understand everything, and I am all better Mister Shrink Sir and now I will live just like you think I should." (6.14-15)
Here's the other problem with the Lightsburg therapy program: There's way too much of telling the kids what to do and how to live and not enough of helping them deal with the identity and family issues that landed them there to begin with. Pat answers aren't going to solve the problem. At least when we leave the Madmen with Leslie Schwinn at the end of the book, there seems to be a chance that they have a therapist who isn't nuttier than they are.
Quote #8
She moved around to see what I had been looking at. "Class of 1961. Just twelve years ago. They all look so normal."
"That's pretty much what I was thinking. I can't tell who was a social, who was a dork, or anything." (7.73-74)
Black-and-white school photos that resemble mug shots—the great social equalizer. Also, really great at hiding people's issues.
Quote #9
Everyone was quiet—we often were. I mean, Monday morning, not a lot of small talk subjects, how would you launch a conversation?
So, how's the medication working out?
Hey, too bad your mom got arrested again.
Hey, aren't the new sheets on the Salvation Army bunks great?" (9.3-6)
Obviously, Karl has some serious sarcasm going on here, but he makes his point—what kind of small talk do you make with peers whose lives are such a mess that small talk in itself seems ridiculous?
Quote #10
"This is all very funny," Schwinn said, meaning it wasn't. "Now, if you're all done—"
"Done? […] Lady, some of us have been here eight or ten years and we're never getting 'done.' We're just graduating. I mean, that's our point, if you haven't gotten that yet. We need the group to get by, but we ain't getting better." (25.59-60)
Karl about sums it up here. It's the social relationships within the group, not the group itself, that helps them "get by." The fact that there's a therapist facilitating the thing is purely incidental.