“DIANA, NATALIE, DAN, AND GABE: ’Cause what doesn’t kill me doesn’t kill me, 

So fill me up for just another day.”

In this passage, the Goodman family utilizes an anti-proverb to undermine the happy façade they are putting on to face the day. Rather than indicating that what doesn’t kill them makes them stronger, the redundancy of the first line emphasizes that the family’s struggles have an attrition effect, gradually weakening them without strengthening their resolve. The fact that all of the family members sing this privately underscores the sense of dysfunction that characterizes the Goodman family.

“DIANA. I will hold it all together 

We’re the perfect loving fam’ly 

If they say we’re not, then fuck ’em 

DAN (Going to her). Diana. Diana. 

DIANA. The perfect loving fam’ly

I will keep the plates all spinning

And the world just keeps on spinning

And I think the house is spinning…”

This passage marks the exposition of Diana’s mental illness, which is revealed as she excitedly fixates on maintaining the family’s perfect image until it makes her dizzy. Dan’s spoken interjection breaks the reality of Diana’s song, emphasizing the gap in their perception and undercutting the reality of Diana’s excitement.

“You play till the strings or your fingernails break. 

So you’ll rock that recital and get into Yale, 

So you won’t feel so sick and you won’t look so pale, 

’Cause you’ve got your full ride and your early admit—

So you’re done with this school and with all of this shit 

And you graduate early, you’re gone as of May 

And there’s nothing your paranoid parents can say 

And you know that it’s just a sonata away…”

In this passage, Natalie outlines her ambitions to earn her way into Yale by the sheer merit of her musical ability. In doing so, she also exposes the underlying motivation that drives her strenuous work ethic: Her desire to get away from her alienating home environment. Yorkey employs references to physical injury, like broken fingernails, sickness, and paleness, to concretize the attrition effect that Natalie’s family life has had on her individual life and how she is struggling with Breaking the Cycle of Inherited Trauma.

“Who’s crazy—the one who can’t cope, 

Or maybe the one who’ll still hope? 

The one who sees doctors or the one who just waits in the car?”

In this passage, Dan draws a dichotomy between himself and Diana, suggesting that he may be “crazier” than Diana for choosing to believe in the success of her treatment when history has shown otherwise. This passage undercuts Dan’s constant support for Diana as it begins to reveal the resentment that underlies his promises to stand by her regardless of the circumstances. His frustration also reveals aspects of his own private pain, reflecting The Limits of Emotional Repression.

“And though he’ll never hold me 

He’ll always take my calls. 

It’s truly like he told me: 

Without a little lift, 

The ballerina falls.”

Diana reflects on her relationship with Doctor Fine, who functions in this scene as a foil for Dan. When Diana indicates that she can be emotionally vulnerable around Doctor Fine because he is available to listen to her at all times, she is implying that she cannot do the same with Dan. She references the image of a ballerina being lifted by her partner, which recurs throughout the play as shorthand for support.

“All these blank and tranquil years—

Seems they’ve dried up all my tears. 

And while she runs free and fast, 

Seems my wild days are past. 

But I miss the mountains. 

I miss the dizzy heights. 

All the manic, magic days, 

And the dark, depressing nights.”

Diana’s internal monologue in “I Miss the Mountains” reveals her attitude towards living with mental illness. She contrasts her present life against the early days of living with her illness, which she frames as being exciting, even if it caused her to experience emotional peaks and valleys. Her nostalgia suggests that she yearns for a similar sense of adventure in her present life, where her illness is constantly treated as something that needs to be solved or eliminated. Diana thus wrestles with The Limits of Emotional Repression, fearing her medication makes her too “blank and tranquil.”

“You don’t know. 

I know you don’t know. 

You say that you’re hurting—

It sure doesn’t show. 

You don’t know…

It lays me so low

When you say let go 

And I say 

You don’t know.”

Diana here accuses Dan of being emotionally unavailable to her. She contrasts his words (“You say that you’re hurting”) against his actions (“It sure doesn’t show”) to underscore that his usual approach of emotional repression doesn’t work for her. She is voicing her need for a partner who can be as vulnerable as she is, rather than a partner who is quick to move on from his grief, cementing The Limits of Emotional Repression as a theme.

“Yeah, I thought you should know.

I am the one who knows you, 

I am the one who cares, 

I am the one who’s always been there.

[…]

I am the one who needs you 

And if you think that I just 

Don’t give a damn 

Then you just don’t know who I am.”

Dan defines himself as Diana’s primary support system, though the resentful tone he takes against her (signaled by the condescension of “I thought you should know”) turns this self-definition into a paradox. Yorkey uses anaphora to center Dan’s ego in this passage, repeating the phrase “I am” until Dan uses it to make a rare admission of vulnerability. Dan reveals his true reason for supporting Diana, which is to ensure that his own emotional needs are met.

“Superboy and the invisible girl…

Everything a kid oughta be. 

He’s immortal, forever alive—

Then there’s me.”

Natalie contrasts herself against Gabe by making allusions to comic books and superhero stories, transforming the characters being alluded to into archetypes that help to define their dynamic. Natalie describes Gabe as being “immortal, forever alive,” which contradicts the reality of his death. The final line of the passage, “Then there’s me,” implies the contrast, suggesting that Natalie is defined by her vulnerability and the precarity of her life. Her frustration stresses Breaking the Cycle of Inherited Trauma by showing how Gabe’s death has affected Natalie, even though she never got to know him.

“And though you made me, 

You can’t change me—

I’m the perfect stranger who knows you too well.”

In “I’m Alive,” Gabe hints at the fact that he continues to exist as a projection of Diana’s imagination and grief. By calling himself “the perfect stranger who knows you too well,” Gabe reminds Diana that she can never know what would have become of the real Gabe. Instead, his personality is built from an intimate knowledge of Diana’s wants and fears, making him an extension of her mind rather than a living, breathing person.

“Admit what you’ve lost 

And live with the cost…

At times it does hurt to be healed.”

Doctor Madden reminds Diana of the difficult process that healing from mental illness requires her to undergo. Diana has used the projection of Gabe to console her over the fact of his death, but the challenge of confronting the reality of what happened to him is the main source of her pain. By reminding Diana that healing hurts, Doctor Madden is challenging her to move beyond coping and confront the source of her pain.

“And I’ve never had to face the world 

without her at my side…

Now I’m strolling right beside her 

as the black hole opens wide…

Mine is just a slower suicide.”

Dan elaborates on his own grief and fears as he tries to care for Diana. This includes his admission that, like Diana, he similarly experiences an ideation for death as a result of the grief he carries for losing Gabe. Ironically, while he is verbalizing the very things that would allow him to renew his relationship with Diana, he finds it too difficult to share these admissions, fearing that it would make him look weak as the head of their family. His hesitation to open up invokes The Limits of Emotional Repression.

“One light shines in the drive—

One single sign that our house is alive. 

Our house, our own—

So why do I live there alone?”

At the end of Act I, Dan introduces the symbol of light that represents his hope for a better life. This symbol comes at a crucial turning point in Diana’s treatment, as Dan deploys it to convince her to try electroconvulsive therapy. What resonates with Diana here, however, is Dan’s admission of vulnerability in the moment: He reminds Diana that he lives in the house they both share, yet he lives there “alone,” beckoning her to join him in hope.

“It slips my skin 

And trips my brain—

I feel the burn 

But I don’t feel the pain.

Is my brain reborn or is it wrecked? 

In freedom or in fear? 

Wish I were here.”

Yorkey draws a parallel between Nataile’s drug use and Diana’s experience of electroconvulsive treatment by having them sing in unison as they engage in these activities. They relate how the drugs and the treatment distance them from their bodies, allowing them to escape the pain they feel because of their experiences while also alienating them from the reality of the present. When they express their wish to be “here” despite the fact that they no longer feel the pain, they are expressing the alienating nature of their coping mechanisms.

“DOCTOR MADDEN. A little loss of memory is normal, 

And helpful in forgetting all her fears.

DAN. I couldn’t give a flying fuck what’s normal—

We haven’t had a normal day in years.”

The difficult impact of Diana’s memory loss undercuts Doctor Madden’s reassurance that she is experiencing “normal” side effects. Dan reacts with curt language, cursing to express his frustration and resignation over how much of a strain the family has been under for “years,” culminating in the disparity between Dan and Natalie’s memories and Diana’s. His rejection of what Doctor Madden defines as “normal” reveals The Illusion of Family Normalcy.

“It’s an open book to write here, 

It’s a life we can restore. 

We can get back what we had and maybe more…

Maybe get us back to better than before.”

In this passage, Dan expresses the opportunity that Diana’s memory loss offers their family. He sees a chance to rewrite the narrative of their family, predicating his desire for “normalcy” on a shared lie that he and Natalie will perpetuate in Diana’s mind. Dan’s desperate attempt at trying to control what Diana remembers reveals that he is still swayed by The Illusion of Family Normalcy.

“They moved me from your memory—I’m still there in your soul.”

As Diana begins to recollect her memories of Gabe, Gabe suggests that Diana’s experience of grief goes deeper than memory. By emphasizing that he lives on in Diana’s “soul,” Gabe highlights the limits of medical intervention, which focuses on the physical conditions of people who have mental illness without considering the aspects of their life that are too abstract to be treated as part of physical reality.

“What happens if the medicine 

Wasn’t really in control? 

What happens if the cut, the burn, the break 

Was never in my brain or in my blood 

But in my soul?”

Diana echoes Gabe’s sentiment later on as she confronts Doctor Madden at the climax of the play. Her rhetorical questions underscore the critique of medical intervention, posing them as queries that Madden cannot address with his expertise in physical medicine. Diana compares her wound to different types of physical injuries (cut, burn, break), as if the real wound transcends all these categories and cannot be contained by a single word.

“DIANA. It’s time for you to start thinking of your own happiness.

NATALIE. It’s not happiness. It’s Henry.

DIANA. You love him.”

This passage marks a turning point in Diana’s relationship with Natalie. By urging Natalie to prioritize her happiness over Diana’s comfort and well-being, she is giving Natalie a chance to grow out of the confinement that their repressive home environment has enforced on her. She stresses this by correcting Natalie’s assertion that Henry does not make her happy: She understands that Natalie and Henry are in love, and that this love would make Natalie happy. Their reconciliation begins to help Natalie embrace Breaking the Cycle of Inherited Trauma.

“I see me in you.

A girl full of anger and hope, 

A girl with a mother who just couldn’t cope, 

A girl who felt caught 

And thought no one could see—

But maybe one day she’ll be free.”

Diana compares Natalie to herself, explicating the cycle of trauma that Natalie has inherited from her mother. Diana’s acknowledgement carries the sympathy that Natalie has longed for from her mother the whole play through. This sympathy culminates in an expression of hope: For Natalie to experience the freedom that she never could by Breaking the Cycle of Inherited Trauma.

“I don’t need a life that’s normal—

That’s way too far away. 

But something…next to normal 

Would be okay.”

In this passage, Natalie articulates the title of the play, cementing the idea that “normalcy” is an impossible standard for their family to achieve. By aspiring to achieve a life that is “next to normal,” Natalie voices her desire for them to strive towards function, rather than resign themselves to trying to live up to an artificial standard. This resolves the theme of The Illusion of Family Normalcy.

“Sometimes life is insane, 

But crazy I know I can do.

’Cause crazy is perfect, 

And fucked-up is perfect, 

So I will be perfect…”

Henry reassures Natalie that he can support her in spite of her fears that she has a predisposition to mental illness. His assumption that “life is insane” suggests that the world is defined by absurdity. This view makes Natalie’s fears feel manageable, something he can live with because absurdity surrounds him already.

“With you always beside me 

To catch me when I fall, 

I’d never get to know the feel of solid ground at all.”

Diana articulates her motivations for choosing to live separately from her family in this passage. Though she values Dan’s support, she realizes the need to seek treatment on her own terms, allowing her to think of what will work for her without having to consider Dan or Natalie’s comfort zone. In doing so, she can support herself on “solid ground,” rather than live as a burden for Dan and Natalie to carry.