Stuck In Neutral

Shawn repeatedly uses mechanical language to refer to his bodily functions, creating a separation between his mind/identity and his body. However, his body is not functional; therefore, he uses the terms of broken mechanics in order to communicate this. The title of this book, Stuck in Neutral, demonstrates how he feels about his body: his body is like a car that does not function on its own but rather has to be pushed and pulled along by external forces. This terminology figuratively places his body in mechanical limbo, demonstrating the inherent separation between his body and mind, as well as the lack of control his mind has over the function, or lack thereof, of his body. But Shawn does not merely feel stuck in limbo; rather, he experiences a limbo that is broken, in many ways, from reality:“I felt like a machine breaking” (22), Shawn says of his seizures. In using the terminology of a breaking machine, Shawn also conflates being broken with a kind of freedom and escape, specifically the freedom that he experiences during his seizures. In order to escape from the broken machinery of his body, Shawn’s body must further break, demonstrating the idea that he must suffer self-destruction in order to achieve heightened reality.