I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Content Warning: This guide contains descriptions of self-harm, mentions of suicide, depictions of life in a psychiatric ward, and the use of outdated language to describe mental illness, as well as several references to antisemitism.

Yr and the Collect are the imaginary forces within Deborah that are sourced in her traumatic experiences and in the defensive wall she has cast in front of herself against the world. Yr is made up of several gods that claim to help and teach Deborah, but who never seem to offer anything but ridicule and warnings of future pain. The Collect are “the massed images of all of the teachers and relatives and schoolmates standing eternally in secret judgment and giving their endless curses” (14-15). Yr is particularly symbolic, with each god having a unique purpose and representation in Deborah’s life. Anterrabae always seems ready with warnings of what could happen to Deborah should she decide to let go of the world of Yr:

Don’t toy with us, Bird-one, because we can do it up, down, and sideways. You thought all those descriptions were metaphors: lost one’s mind, cracked-up, crazed, demented, lunatic? Alas, you see, they are all quite, quite true.