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Mental Illness in YA As a Minefield—Explore at Will: Guest Post by Rachel M. Wilson (author of Don’t Touch)

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There’s never going to be a time where it’s not worth talking about mental illness, wellness, and health. It’s important to address it head on with contemporary YA especially, and it’s important to have it addressed from a variety of standpoints and perspectives. Welcome to Rachel M. Wilson, who is here to talk about the exploration of mental illness in YA and the expectations that are built around it in the books — and in the flesh.






Rachel M. Wilson studied theater at Northwestern and received her MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her debut novel Don’t Touch came out from HarperTeen in September, followed by “The Game of Boys and Monsters,” an eerie standalone short from HarperTeen Impulse. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, 



Rachel now writes, acts, and teaches in Chicago, Illinois.






One of my favorite theater games for young people is called minefield—yes, it’s dark, all the best games are. One student’s blindfolded, and the rest of the class creates an obstacle course out of chairs, desks, textbooks, the healthy options they failed to eat at lunch … Then another student verbally guides his or her blindfolded partner through the minefield. If so much as the hem of a sleeve touches one of the obstacles—EXPLOSION. We’re all done for.



Writing about mental illness can feel a bit like that, especially when writing for young people.
There are so few YAs touching on mental illness that any new addition is expected to do some heavy lifting, to fill a gap or meet the needs of a particular set of readers. Authors, gatekeepers, and readers are coming from a dozen different angles and attitudes about what mental health in YA fiction should look like.



Some of these attitudes I agree with. Others, I’m not so sure. Some represent opposite ends of a debate while others only seem to, and many are steeped in such muddy waters that I’d rather not see them presented as absolutes. In any case, here are a few of the “musts” and “shoulds” I’ve encountered:



  • YAs about mental illness should be medically accurate.
  • Mental illness in YA should, like everything else in a novel, serve as a metaphor for larger themes.
  • YAs about mental illness should include lighter scenes or humor to give readers a break.
  • A YA about mental illness must leave the reader with a sense of hope.
  • A mentally ill character in a YA must be shown to receive treatment and “get help.”
  • A YA about mental illness should portray adults as potential allies.
  • Recovery from mental illness should be portrayed as long and difficult.
  • Recovery from mental illness should be portrayed as a positive and hopeful experience.
  • YA that addresses the stigma surrounding mental illness risks reinforcing stigma.
  • YA about mental illness should portray pharmaceuticals in a positive light.
  • YA about mental illness should focus on therapy as a preferable treatment to pills.
  • Suicide is a dark subject that alienates readers—proceed with extreme caution or avoid altogether.
  • YAs about mental health run the risk of glamorizing mental illness (and especially suicide)—proceed with extreme caution or avoid altogether.
  • Mental illness is an affliction, separate from a character’s true personality, to be struggled with, defeated, and recovered from.
  • Mental illness never fully goes away, and thus should be embraced as an integral part of a character’s identity and personality.
  • We need more books in which mental illness is the primary problem facing a character.
  • We need more books in which mental illness is incidental and not the primary problem facing a character.
  • YAs about mental illness are “problem novels,” and thus, about as literary as after-school specials.
  • YAs about mental illness are “problem novels,” and thus, very important for young readers.



Phew! It’s enough to make a girl want to write fantasy, sci-fi, dystopia, ANYTHING with a filter, any genre that’s not expected to mirror the struggles of actual teens in this present-day, real-here-now world. And of course, the contradictions and conflicts in the above statements reflect contradictions and conflicts found in said real world. Woe to the author who tries to navigate this minefield with zero explosions.



Thanks to the stigma that still surrounds mental illness, our culture’s conversations about it are somewhat stunted and unsettled. People hold strong (often conflicting, sometimes uninformed) attitudes about therapy, pharmaceuticals, suicide, and even the legitimacy of psychology and psychiatry as fields of medicine.



When I enter a conversation with someone in my social circle, I can safely talk about any number of potentially touchy subjects—gay marriage, reproductive rights, the somewhat-progressive-somewhat-problematic lyrics of Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass”—with a fair expectation that we’re going to more or less agree. If I start a conversation about mental health, I know no such thing.



I’ve been told that psychiatric drugs are part of an oppressive conspiracy or a crutch or a placebo, heard close friends say they don’t “believe in” mental illness, heard more guys than I can count complain about their “crazy” ex-girlfriends, read one too many tweets about the “selfishness” of suicide. Thankfully, comments like this don’t derail me as they once did, but they used to set off personal explosions that might throw me off track for months. And so naturally, I avoided these conversations.



I think that’s part of why it’s still hard for YA readers to find books touching on mental illness. We’re not all comfortable with the conversation—we’re not sure how our thoughts on the subject will be received, so we keep our mouths shut.



Of course, the least common variety of mental illness—the dangerous and scary kind—is the easiest to talk about and best represented in pop culture. Mass shooters and serial killers receive tons of media attention. The one genre with no shortage of mentally ill characters—and with a relatively uncomplicated point of view on mental health—is horror. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of horror, including horror about psychopaths, but in most of these stories, crazy=scary=bad.



Contemporary YA about mental illness has to thrive in a stigmatized climate. But it also has to navigate another kind of fear—the fear of the power of fiction. When we start talking in absolutes, fear is often at play. The “musts” and “shoulds” listed above are testaments to the power we recognize in these stories. Contemporary, realistic stories strip away the distance that’s integral to historical and speculative fiction. Because of their proximity to real life, we credit these stories with a special potential to guide or mislead teen readers … to help or cause harm.



But here’s the thing. Like the explosions in a game of minefield, the scary consequences in a work of contemporary fiction are still fiction—parts of a story that reader and author co-create. The actor traversing an imagined minefield can rip off the blindfold and see only desks. The reader can slam a book shut, take a break, or stop reading altogether. A reader’s investment in a story gives it power, and this investment remains in the reader’s control. Fiction that questions or explodes some of the above absolutes can offer a safe way for readers to explore their own conflicts and concerns around mental health. The least comfortable part of the story might be the part that rings most true.



I love that Meg in Nina LaCour’s The Disenchantments feels ambivalent about taking the medicine that prevents her panic attacks. I love that Lisha in Corey Ann Haydu’s OCD Love Story gets fed up with Bea’s symptoms and isn’t always an empathetic friend.



Readers who’ve written to me about seeing themselves in Don’t Touch tend to mention some of Caddie’s less comfortable traits—like her reluctance to be open about her problems. One reader told me about the guilt she still feels about having kept so many secrets from her friends. Another mentioned this line: “… right then I want to tell him everything and see how he reacts, see if anyone can understand and not think I’m crazy like I know I am” (147).



She wrote, “Thank you for writing that. Thank you for making that an OK thought to have.”



That’s a line that I might have cut if I’d let fears about reinforcing stigma or using the word “crazy” in a negative way take precedence over Caddie’s voice. It’s hard to predict what bits and pieces of story will mean the most to a reader.



No book can satisfy every “must” and “should” listed above. One that tries will likely come out feeling sanitized and dishonest. Explosions can be messy, but they can also clear a path. So let me present an absolute I can get behind:



YA that includes mental illness should seek to honestly represent a unique character’s experience of a particular illness in a particular place and time and all the messiness and conflict that goes along with that.



As with other categories of diversity, it’s important to allow for diversity and difference within narratives about mental illness—to embrace books that start conversations, that address stigma and conflict, that deal in messiness. Writing, recommending, and reading fiction about mental illness can feel fraught with peril, but it’s still important to step onto the field.



It’s been great to see books about mental illness included in the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, and I was excited to see a panel of authors who self-identify as “basket cases” talking about their experiences with anxiety, depression, & ADHD at YALL Fest. These conversations aren’t always comfortable, but silence and stigma are bestie-best friends, so let’s keep the conversation flowing.



As for recommendations:





Contemporary YA Books Featuring Mental Illness

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Mental illness and mental well-being are topics that keep emerging in contemporary YA, and they keep being explored in worthwhile — even life-changing — ways. This list features very recent contemporary YA titles that have tackled mental illness in some capacity. 

All of these titles were published in the last two years, though many, many more titles have come before and many more will come after. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but rather one meant to show a range of experiences. Some of the descriptions aren’t entirely insightful as to what the mental illness tackled is, and sometimes that’s purposeful (The Stone Girl, for example, highlights the eating disorder but there is most definitely a mental illness coexisting with it). 

If you have other favorite contemporary realistic YA titles that tackle mental illness and mental well-being from any period of time, feel free to leave the title and author in the comments. And yes, you may borrow and share this list as you see fit. 

Descriptions are from WorldCat, unless otherwise noted. 

Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith: The discovery of a startling family secret leads seventeen-year-old Kiri Byrd from a protected and naive life into a summer of mental illness, first love, and profound self-discovery. 

Opposite of Hallelujah by Anna Jarzab: For eight of her sixteen years Carolina Mitchell’s older sister Hannah has been a nun in a convent, almost completely out of touch with her family–so when she suddenly abandons her vocation and comes home, nobody knows quite how to handle the situation, or guesses what explosive secrets she is hiding.

Something Like Normal by Trish Doller: When Travis returns home from Afghanistan, his parents are splitting up, his brother has stolen his girlfriend and car, and he has nightmares of his best friend getting killed but when he runs into Harper, a girl who has despised him since middle school, life actually starts looking up.



Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn: A lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy must either surrender his sanity to the wild wolves inside his mind or learn that surviving means more than not dying. 

Crash and Burn by Michael Hassan: Steven “Crash” Crashinsky relates his sordid ten-year relationship with David “Burn” Burnett, the boy he stopped from taking their high school hostage at gunpoint.

Drowning Instinct by Ilsa J. Bick: An emotionally damaged sixteen-year-old girl begins a relationship with a deeply troubled older man.

Crazy by Amy Reed: Connor and Izzy, two teens who met at a summer art camp in the Pacific Northwest where they were counsellors, share a series of emails in which they confide in one another, eventally causing Connor to become worried when he realizes that Izzy’s emotional highs and lows are too extreme.
Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos: A sixteen-year-old boy wrestling with depression and anxiety tries to cope by writing poems, reciting Walt Whitman, hugging trees, and figuring out why his sister has been kicked out of the house.
Zoe Letting Go by Nora Price: Zoe goes to a facility to help cure her anorexia as she comes to terms with the loss of her friend and her own identity. 

Bruised by Sarah Skilton: When she freezes during a hold-up at the local diner, sixteen-year-old Imogen, a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, has to rebuild her life, including her relationship with her family and with the boy who was with her during the shoot-out.

Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown: Seventeen-year-old Kendra, living in the shadow of her brother’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, takes a life-changing road trip with him.

This is Not A Drill by Beck McDowell: Two teens try to save a class of first-graders from a gun-wielding soldier suffering from PTSD. When high school seniors Emery and Jake are taken hostage in the classroom where they tutor, they must work together to calm both the terrified children and the psychotic gunman threatening them–a task made even more difficult by their recent break-up. Brian Stutts, a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq, uses deadly force when he’s denied access to his son because of a custody battle. The children’s fate is in the hands of the two teens, each recovering from great loss, who now must reestablish trust in a relationship damaged by betrayal. Told through Emery and Jake’s alternating viewpoints, this gripping novel features characters teens will identify with and explores the often-hidden damages of war. 

Chasing Shadows by Swati Avasthi: Chasing Shadows is a searing look at the impact of one random act of violence. Before: Corey, Holly, and Savitri are one unit– fast, strong, inseparable. Together they turn Chicago concrete and asphalt into a freerunner’s jungle gym, ricocheting off walls, scaling buildings, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. But acting like a superhero doesn’t make you bulletproof. After: Holly and Savitri are coming unglued. Holly says she’s chasing Corey’s killer, chasing revenge. Savitri fears Holly’s just running wild– and leaving her behind. Friends should stand by each other in times of crisis. But can you hold on too tight? Too long? In this intense novel, told in two voices, and incorporating comic-style art sections, Swati Avasthi creates a gripping portrait of two girls teetering on the edge of grief and insanity. Two girls who will find out just how many ways there are to lose a friend– and how many ways to be lost. 
The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin: A troubled sixteen-year-old girl attending a wilderness school in the Idaho mountains must finally face the consequences of her complicated friendships with two of the other girls at the school.
OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu: In an instant, Bea felt almost normal with Beck, and as if she could fall in love again, but things change when the psychotherapist who has been helping her deal with past romantic relationships puts her in a group with Beck–a group for teens with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Cracked by K. M. Walton: When Bull Mastrick and Victor Konig wind up in the same psychiatric ward at age sixteen, each recalls and relates in group therapy the bullying relationship they have had since kindergarten, but also facts about themselves and their families that reveal they have much in common.
Freaks Like Us by Susan Vaught: A mentally ill teenager who rides the “short bus” to school investigates the sudden disappearance of his best friend.
Lexapros and Cons by Aaron Karo: Realizing that his OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) is out of control, seventeen-year-old Chuck Taylor, who wants to win his best friend back and impress a new girl at school, tries to break some hardcore habits, face his demons–and get messy.
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick: A day in the life of a suicidal teen boy saying good-bye to the four people who matter most to him.
Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley: Sixteen-year-old Angie finds herself in her neighborhood with no recollection of her abduction or the three years that have passed since, until alternate personalities start telling her their stories through letters and recordings.
The Stone Girl by Alyssa Sheinmel: Seventeen-year-old Sethie, a senior at New York City’s Franklin White girl’s school, has outstanding grades, a boyfriend, and a new best friend but constantly struggles to lose weight.

Mental Illness in Contemporary YA: Guest Post from Hilary T. Smith (author of Wild Awake)

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Let’s kick off contemporary week with Hilary T. Smith’s post about the importance of good, solid, realistic fiction about mental illness.

Hilary Smith is the author of the novel WILD AWAKE and of this semi-defunct blog. She lives in Portland, OR, where she is studying North Indian classical music and doing her best to keep the neighbors from having her spaceship van towed.

Burn the Pamphlet, Wrestle With the Bear: Mental Health Narratives and YA Literature

Our cultural scripts for mental illness are pretty uninspiring. The suicide pamphlet in the school nurse’s office advises you to Get Help and Speak to a Counselor, where “help” is often a code word for “life-long medication,” and the counselor might be the wise healer of your dreams, or might be a not-very-wise adult who hands you another stupid pamphlet and sends you on your way. If you weren’t so busy being outlandishly sad or paranoid or hyper, you would be tempted to shout: “People! I am going through what may prove to be one of the most potent and devastating experiences of my life, and you want me to read a fucking pamphlet?”





In a cool culture, they’d send you into the forest to wrestle a grizzly bear, or everyone in your village would surround you in an all-night evil-spirit-dispelling drum circle dance, or they would give you a nice old Pippi Longstocking house on a leafy street where you could live in a way that worked for your brain and didn’t bother anyone.





Anyone who has been on the receiving end of the suicide pamphlet (or the OCD pamphlet or the psychosis pamphlet) can tell you that when it comes to talking about mental illness, our culture has a terrifyingly limited vocabulary. We tiptoe. We oversimplify. We squawk the same Top Ten Tips over and over like parrots in a cage.
The conversation about mental illness has become completely jammed up by this squawking, and it’s going to take a lot of smart, inquisitive, and imaginative people to unjam it.





This is where YA comes in. Many of those potential conversation-changing people are kids and teens right now. One of the exciting things that YA literature can do is provoke teens to question different elements of their culture—whether you’re talking about politics, gender stuff, or reality TV. Why should mental health be excluded from that kind of questioning?





One thing I love about YA right now is that so many books have moved past the “issue-addressing” narratives of previous decades and are delving into the messiness and complexity of experiences like mental illness not as “issues” to be “resolved” but as part of a larger story. What is the difference between an “issue novel” and a novel-novel, and why is this difference important?





In an issue novel, the Problem is shown to be a certain situation or behavior (teen drinking! disordered eating! manic escapades!) which is shown to cause Conflicts that result in Consequences. The conflicts and consequences surrounding this single situation or behavior are the main drivers of plot and character; the story is over when the situation has been defused and/or the behavior modified. A novel-novel might also involve a problematic situation or behavior which creates conflicts and consequences, but the Problem is shown to be something greater than that choice or behavior. The Problem might be free will, or social justice, or alienation, or finding one’s place in the world—but whatever it is, it takes place in a much larger context in which the “problematic situation or behavior” forms a small piece. With that in mind, the plot might not hinge on the situation or behavior or at all—it might simply be taken as part of the background.





If The Catcher In The Rye was an issue novel, we might see Holden Caulfield receiving counseling for the death of his brother, getting help for his drinking habit, making up with his parents, and going back to school.





If Wonder When You’ll Miss Me was an issue novel, the story would most almost certaintly revolve around the protagonist “coming to terms” with her highschool tormentor instead of hitting him in the head with an axe and running away to join the circus with her imaginary twin.





In Dante and Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe, the teenaged characters drive into the desert to smoke pot. In a lesser version of the story, the pot smoking would be discovered and addressed and Made Into An Issue; luckily for the reader, Benamin Alire Saenz allows it to simply be a beautiful and believable part of the story.





So how do we write YA novels involving mental illness without turning them into issue novels? First, ask yourself if a given behavior or situation really needs to be treated as an “issue” at all (with all the capital-r Resolutions that this entails). Is mental illness really the main source of conflict in the story? Or can mental illness be part of a story about love, or freedom, or intergalactic space wars? Do you need to “Resolve” it in a dramatic way? Or can you treat it like Dante and Aristotle’s illicit toking in the desert?





As a YA writer, you are quite literally affecting the range of stories teen can access about mental illness. Are you going to hand them another pamphlet, or send them to wrestle with the bear?
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Hilary has offered up a signed copy of Wild Awake to one winner. Enter below and I’ll draw a name at the end of the month.