Mental health has become a big issue for many college students; anxieties arise over classes, depression from being away from home, or just realizing that you chronically have these conditions. Because of this, many schools, including Hamilton, have counseling centers that encourage students to reach out and get help when they need it. But reaching out for help can be a terrifying experience — and some people may need to find more connections before taking that final step.
Many of you may have noticed while skimming the shelves at Barnes and Noble or Books-a-Million that the main plot of many new Young Adult (YA) novels is a protagonist dealing with some form of mental illness such as an eating disorder, depression, self-harm, suicide, or OCD. This recent trend has been circulating and growing for a few years now, with books such as
Thirteen Reasons Why
by Jay Asher,
Wintergirls
by Laurie Halse Anderson,
Willow
by Julia Hoban, and
every last word
by Tamara Ireland Stone. The question is, why are writers and publishers pushing this material? The answer is simple and comes in two parts.
First, the writers feel strongly about the subject matter and the characters they’ve created. This is an obvious one. Any writer can understand that once you have an idea, you need to finish it and keep it in your vision. If that means that your protagonist Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD, then that’s how the book is going to go.
Tamara Stone, author of
every last word
, argues that authors didn’t necessarily start this trend on purpose — they just wrote the books they saw needed to be written. Stone herself has a son with anxiety and based her book on a friend’s daughter who was diagnosed with OCD. Stone believes that books and fiction about mental illness are helping to break down the walls and stigmas surrounding mental health and foster open, healthy conversation about the changes occurring in teens’ minds.
Kathy Fraley is a therapist who has worked in several areas of mental health with kids for the past 25 years. Fraley believes that writing books that mentally ill adolescents can relate to is a great first step on the road to recovery. Fraley says that with her research and personal experience, she has noticed an actual increase in anxiety and depression in adolescents, possibly because we are creating a world where mental illness can be talked about and can be diagnosed without such a stigma hanging over them. She continues to say that now schools and other institutions have started addressing risky behaviors and steering kids away from outlets like alcohol and drugs. Because kids instead turn to relatable things, such as books, there is a strong feeling among authors to write books that address these issues.
Secondly, publishers know that teens will buy books like these. From a business perspective, the drama, the suspension, and neatly-wrapped-up-tied-with-a-bow endings appeal to young adults. The appeal leads publishers to these types of novels because of their likelihood to sell and, therefore, generate profit. Publishers are also aware of the spike in diagnoses in the past few years. They know that young adults buy these books not just for the drama, but because they want a protagonist they can relate to.
Fraley thinks that using relatable fictional characters to open the conversation about mental illness is a great way to get on the path to treatment, especially for adolescents. The only caveat, she continues, is that eventually, no matter how much the teen may identity with the character, they need to come to terms with the fact that the book is fictional and the only way they can get real help is by coming back to reality and reaching out.
Stone and Fraley both make good points when they say that books are a great way to reach out and connect with adolescents — or really anyone — who is struggling with a mental illness. Being able to read a book and see the protagonist struggle with the same problems you struggle with when you don’t really understand what is happening to you can be life changing. Fraley is right again when she says that the journey cannot stop when the book ends, the reader needs to come back to the real world, realize the differences between the book and their own life, and know to reach out for professional help. Mental illness is a serious problem — but a very treatable one.
