Running with Scissors

Running with Scissors is based on the personal memories of Augusten’s very unusual childhood

and teen years. Most of his childhood he grew up with his mother, Deirdre. She was an aspiring

poet. Augusten always looked up to his mom, he wanted to be just like her. Augusten’s father

was always too busy involved in his job and didn’t spend much time with him. His mother and

father would fight a lot, which soon led to a divorce. After the divorce, Augusten’s father,

Norman started to drink on a regular basis, and his mother started to see a therapist.

His mother struggled with depression, and saw therapist, Dr. Finch. She started to see him daily,

and have therapy sessions at his house. She brought Augusten along with her, he thought the

doctor seemed strange, especially his house, it was a wreck. There was furniture all over the lawn

and the house was painted a pink color. Augusten always questioned him as a doctor, but his

mother just thought that Dr. Finch knew best, and was just trying to help the situation. Dr. Finch

thought Deirdre was in trouble with her husband and suggested for her to get away for a while.

She was diagnosed with bi-polar, and always seemed to be on too many medications. She left for

the weekend and left her son in the care of the Finch family.

His mother became very unstable to take care of her son. When Augusten was twelve, she left

him with the Finch family, he didn’t have a choice. She left him for the Finches to adopt him. His

mother had abandoned him, and his dad wouldn’t accept his calls. He was now stuck with this

strange family. There were Dr. Finch’s two daughters, Hope and Natalie. He got along well with

Natalie, they were only one year apart. Hope was Finch’s favorite daughter, and there was also

Agnes, Finch’s wife. She seemed nice, but bizarre.

At this time, Augusten didn’t know how to cope with the feeling of abandonment, he would

write down his thoughts in a journal to help him. He gave up on calling his father in hope of

getting him out of his new home. Weeks went by, and also gave up hope of his mother coming

back. She would stop by, but only for a short weekend visit, or therapy session with Dr. Finch.

Most of the time, she was delusional. Augusten spent most of his time with Natalie, she became

his best friend. He didn’t go to school much, he often skipped, and soon dropped out.

By the time he was fifteen, he was making decisions by himself, he had little supervision, and

was dropped out of school. He developed a relationship with one of Dr. Finch’s patients, a

schizophrenic that was twenty years older than him. He learned a lot about love from the

experience. No one ever mentioned a problem with their relationship. Although Augusten made

most of his decisions himself, he wanted so badly a normal life of a teenager, to be grounded, to

have rules and boundaries.