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contains descriptions of self-harm, mentions of suicide, depictions of life in a psychiatric ward, and the use of outdated language to describe mental illness, as well as several references to antisemitism.

Deborah’s inner world clashes and contrasts with the outer reality of the world around her, and after years of horrible experiences, she retreats into the inner world of Yr almost entirely, ready to leave reality behind. She senses herself to be approaching some sort of destruction, which she calls “Imorh.” Whenever Deborah starts to approach reality, the voices and gods of Yr and the Collect call out to her, warning her against it, begging her to come back, and describing her as a poison against the world to scare her. Deborah sometimes becomes caught between her perception of Yr and reality, although something she calls a Censor is supposed to be there to keep the two separate. When this happens, she names herself Januce, “because she felt like two-faced Janus—with a face on each world” (13). When Deborah’s inner volcano erupts, “her lack of inner control matched the anarchic world with an Yr gone newly mad itself” (189).