Go Carolina By David Sedaris Analysis

Go Carolina Final Draft

The story “Go Carolina”, by David Sedaris which gives us his perspective as a fifth-grade boy struggling with his speech and sexual identity. Sedaris is called out amongst his classmates on a weekly basis for speech therapy with a therapist named Ms. Chrissy Samson who Sedaris begrudgingly refers to as an “agent”. Throughout his time with Ms. Samson, Sedaris struggles and constantly fails to correctly pronounce her name rather than say “Msth. Thamson”. As a means of coping, Sedaris learns how to avoid words with an s all together as seen in the text when he states “At school, where every teacher was a potential spy, I tried to avoid an s sound whenever possible. ‘Yes,’ became ‘correct,’ or a military ‘affirmative’”

So, what has changed over the years that has caused people to make ongoing therapy sessions a priority? Let’s identify and analyze what barriers people face and how they’ve overcome them within society to see a rise in therapy participants. An article from Futures Recovery Healthcare website states there are four major mental health treatment barriers that society faces which are 1) Lack of awareness, 2), High cost, 3) Limited options, and 4) Social stigma (Futures Recovery Healthcare, 2021). With the rise of social media and the increase in downtime at the start of the pandemic, more people are accessing information about therapy, the various types of mental illnesses, and its benefits on overall health. I believe the high cost and limited options saw a decrease as awareness increased combined with being forced to stay, therapy had to evolve into online sessions. This shift lowered costs and provided more options for those seeking therapy. Lastly, the social stigma for seeing a therapist has greatly declined since people are more open about sharing their experiences through social media outlets as well as using social media to establish a community of like-minded

As if the tension between Sedaris and Ms. Sampson wasn’t difficult enough for a child so young to cope with, she makes matters worse. Smith talks about what I believe to be a defining moment that created Sedaris’ trauma that could lead into adulthood when she says, “The last day he had class with her he tried to show a softer side of herself. This made David feel like he could be vulnerable, and he slipped up and used a word that began with the letter s. The teacher proceeded to embarrass him, and he goes on to say that to this day he will use other words that don’t require him to use the letter s”