In the afterword, Slater talks about different disorders like "epilepsy...boderline personality disorder...post traumatic stress disorder...bipolar...Munchausen's...OCD...depression...autisthat doctors have thought she had had at some point in her life (220). However, these disorders could possibly be metaphors for different phases in her life. In the novel, she suggested that her epilepsy may be a symbol for her constant restlessness, different angles of her personality, etc. Her PTSD could have been after the breakup with Christopher or the rejection of her articles. Though these illnesses are very present in modern society, I feel as though people and physicians throw the terms around. Maybe she did really have all of these illnesses. Maybe her doctors were just so confused with her psyche that they felt it necessary to put a label on her forehead. Maybe these disorders are just metaphoric of different phases of a child's adolescent life. Maybe no one really ever have illnesses; people just perceive them as different and thus place a name to their difference. Slater, in the afterword and the entire book, has shown that she is not epilepsy. She is a creative being, filled with imagination and invention that make her unique and fascinating character and thus person. However, as much as doctors and researchers explore diseases like Tourette's and epilepsy, they will not completely ever understand what is real or what is expected of the patient. Thus, diseases like epilepsy are metaphorical of people, they only ever answer questions with "a question mark" (221).
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