One in three teenagers, ages 13 to 18, will have an anxiety disorder. General anxiety disorder is a mental illness that affects many parts of the human brain and some examples would be the left anterior insular cortex. The chemical imbalance of the brain causes people with generalized anxiety to worry excessively and get physical reactions like not being able to relax and sleep problems (University of Rochester Medical Center). To add this disorder to young adult novels would help teenagers and adults understand people with anxiety and why they have different symptoms because the symptoms will be affected by the severity of the disease.
A young adult novel is mainly for the age range of twelve year olds to twenty years old. This age range is usually about developing someone's personality and understanding for oneself. Adding life issues to young adult books would help younger people develop their minds more because they will be able to understand others and the world around them more. Statistically speaking 22.3% of people ages 18 to 29 will have a form of anxiety. Different forms of anxiety like general anxiety and panic disorder should be represented frequently with more focus on anxiety and its symptoms, as well as on the guardians to put books in front of their child that shows how to deal with anxiety in a positive way.
When adults give children or young teens recommendations, they should show realistic symptoms and healthy ways to deal with these symptoms. Anxiety has a lot of symptoms but a couple are doing “reckless things that could harm you or others” (National Institutes of Health) or if someone “worries about many things such as future and past events”(University of Rochester Medical Center). Being anxious could cause others to want to just do something to keep the negative energy out of their body, even if it is hurting themselves. A book that shows anxiety symptoms really well is called Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman and it follows the main character Caden Bosch and the novel follows two timelines; one is his reality and one is his hallucinations that are on a pirate ship. There was a scene where the main character Caden Bosch was walking for miles and was barefoot, so he purposely hurting his feet just keep thinking: “You’ve been walking around that way [barefoot], and it’s left your feet blistered,scraped and bloody” (Shusterman 119). His parents were really worried about him and how he’s been treating his own body. He also lied to his parents about making the track team so he could continue walking by himself. By adding this scene into a young adult novel the people reading it could understand how someones thinking process could be powerful to a point where they won’t stop even though people are trying to help him out of it. Anxiety at a scientific level is: “... failure to appropriately represent the value of a positive event… ” (White). This pretty much means that people who have Generalized Anxiety Disorder struggle with taking positives out of a situation, even a majorly positive situation. While this is the truth about how a reward system works, novels could show people trying to get better and improve, by admitting that they have a problem and getting help by the end of the novel. In Challenger Deep the main character got help from therapy and went to a mental hospital. By having truthful symptoms put into the story it makes it more realistic.
Young adult novels should provide different forms of treatment. While hiding a mental illness can be part of the plot they should discuss different treatments that they can help improve their anxiety by the end. Some treatments can include “cognitive behavior therapy, medicine and family therapy” (University of Rochester Medical Center). Cognitive behavior therapy is when someone first has to find a therapist to help them face their fears and past trauma. This could get uncomfortable for some since they would have to bring up some very personal topics up if they want to get the help they signed up for. While these treatments are supposed to work, they will take time to work. Challenger Deep did a really good job at this when Caden Bosch said, “They all think medication is magic , and they become mad at me when it's not”(Shusterman 181). In this book, Caden Bosch, has a really severe anxiety disorder, but it does not specifically specify which disorder he has, but they speculated that it could be a case of schizoaffective disorder. Schizoaffective disorder is when someone has hallucinations, but they also have symptoms from a mood disorder, like depression or anxiety. By having treatment being represented it is being shown that it is a good thing to get help and help is available. Challenger Deep also deals with medicine and the side effects which can include their anxiety getting worse. When Caden starts taking the medicine, the voices of anxiety started to disappear, but he felt as if all of his personality has been drained. Caden had to make a sacrifice which would help him in the long run as he will be able to control his hallucinations, but he’ll have to deal with the medications side effects. If a child or teenager does deal with a mental health problem then they should be reading about different treatment options and the side effects of each.
Usually in stories authors discuss people who have environmental anxiety instead of biological anxiety. Environmental anxiety is when past trauma or outside forces causes someone to have an anxiety disorder while biological anxiety is when someone is born with it or develops anxiety at a young age.Eliza and her Monsters is about the main character Eliza who has severe social anxiety,but also has a really famous webcomic fanfiction that gets millions of views but nobody knows that its Eliza that’s writing it. The main character, Eliza either developed anxiety when she was really young or was born with the disease: “I hate all of them (sports) because I didn’t-don’t-have any coordination and I didn’t -don’t like to talk, so I didn’t play well, so my teammates wanted me gone”(Zappia 25). This character has always had trouble with people since she was little and she was always terrified to be around people, even if they were just teammates. Eliza also had the fear of people hating her and wanting her to leave the group. Scientific studies have been going on to really understand where anxiety comes from, which they are still testing to this day, but they do not fully know how anxiety is generated. While the novel does not show Eliza’s mother or father having anxiety symptoms, the gene could have traveled down from a different family member. While some novels, like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, have a specific reason behind the anxiety, it's nice to see a different perspective on the topic.
Having a panic attack and an anxiety attack are two different things so when a character has one or another they are not usually established which one they are having. Scientifically speaking people living with panic disorder have both panic attacks and anxiety attacks: “In the U.S. roughly 50% of the people with panic disorder experienced both expected and unexpected panic attacks” (Brook). An anxiety attack is less severe than a panic attack, because people can usually expect an anxiety attack coming on, which means that they know how to handle it. An example of an anxiety attack is in They Both Die at the End by Atam Silvera: “I’m breathing really hard and my heart is pounding and I don’t feel better, not even when Rufus massages my shoulders” (Silvera 204). This is well written because when someone is having an anxiety attack, they will struggle to relax and start to hyperventilate. The symptoms shown in this one sentence also enhances the plot because the readers get to see the characters grow closer during Mateo’s attack. A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard, talks about a selective mute main character,Steffie,with major anxiety issues but she starts getting better as the book moves forward because she finds a group of friends and starts taking medication for her anxiety. An example of a panic attack that is portrayed in A Quiet Kind of Thunder is set in Steffie’s room at two in the morning: “And then it happens. The panic… it becomes something physical that clutches at my insides and squeezes out the air and the blood” (Barnard 222). This is an example of a panic attack instead of an anxiety attack because she didn't see it coming because she was improving, she was getting better, and nothing went wrong in the day. Her anxiety was being controlled but it was never fixed completely. When writers write realistic panic attacks or anxiety attacks they are able to strengthen their writing and the readers understanding of anxiety.
Anxiety has many different mental health disorders that are categorized by different symptoms. People with anxiety have an increase of “Norepinephrine and Serotonin”in their brain (University of Rochester Medical Center). This is the part of someone's brain that will cause the person to act differently depending on how severe a person's anxiety is and how their personality causes them to react. Each person would have a different symptom or a different combination of symptoms. For example, in Challenger Deep Caden Bosch has a more severe anxiety than Mateo from They Both Die at the End. In Caden's experience he ended up getting so bad he had to go to a hospital so he would not hurt himself. In Mateo’s story he just needed someone to calm him down and keep him going and living life to the fullest.In both cases, they have forms of anxiety, but each case shows a different set of symptoms and severity. It's important for writers to write characters having anxiety with their own personalities because they can show young adults that there are real people who live with this mental illness and they do not experience it in the same way. In both of these young adult books it shows that “ephemeral feelings of panic and anxiety flow into teens’ lives” (Bean). Minor anxiety is a part of everyone's lives so having teens learn about while enjoying a book can help them get through their minor or major anxiety symptoms.
Anxiety is a part of a person, but people with anxiety should have more than one personality trait. Having representation of anxiety is important but it is also important to see the character as a whole so it could be connected more in real life. For example, in Challenger Deep the main character, Caden Bosch, had a mental illness but he also had other personality traits like loving to draw: “When I’m not pacing, I’m drawing; when I’m not drawing, I’m thinking…”(Shusterman 47). Shusterman was able to write his characters dealing with a mental illness without throwing away their personality. While these authors explain mental illness they are also supposed to “deal with issues that are relevant to teens” (Bean). In the real world anxiety will be harder to spot because it is not the main thing someone will show the outside world. A lot of the time in real life,people that have anxiety will mainly show off other major characteristics about themselves before talking or showing their anxiety. Having anxiety be present in a novel and having anxiety be characteristic is amazing, but the character should also have other major characterization throughout the story.
Characters in anxiety novels should not have someone come into their life to “cure” them, but to be there to support them. An example of a novel that shows a good way to add a relation is in Eliza and her Monsters by Francesca Zappia, the main character Eliza is starting to fall for a boy that also has a form of anxiety: “We don’t talk, because there are too many people around and Wallace doesn’t like to write on vertical surfaces'' (Zappia 129). Wallace is helping Eliza become braver but the author is talking about how Eliza is going through self discovery. Eliza is still shown with major anxiety but she is also learning how to control it better by being around more people in real life and not being just being friends with people on the internet. A negative example would be Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher as mental health is romanticized in this story. Thirteen Reasons Why follows a girl named Hannah Baker who makes tapes about every person who harmed her during life before she commited suicide. Jay Asher wrote Hannah Baker as someone who wanted people to fix her life for her and he made it seem like help was unreachable. By doing that the character was not able to control her mental health. Other people in the mental health community think, “Its powerful storytelling may lead impressionable viewers to romanticize the choices made by the characters and/or develop revenge fantasies' '” (Conolly). This article talks about how impresable young teenagers can be and how this story makes them think that suicide is a revenge instead of a series one time thing. Anxiety is a disease that people have to learn how to control, it will never go completely away but it is not something that should be put in to get revenge on someone. The brain will always be affected by anxiety but someone can learn how to control it and that could be shown in a young adult novel by having the character show personal growth but still have the anxiety symptoms be there slightly.
When a guardian gives a book to a child about anxiety it should be in simple terms so they can understand it, but also in respectful terms. Young adults and teenagers are all about development in the body and brain, so having well written anxiety representation could help them have more understanding about themselves and others.They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera was about a future where there are people who have jobs where they call people on the day that they die. In this novel the author talked about how some people’s houses feel like a prison that they are in: “It has been my sanctuary and my prison… breath in the outside air instead of tearing through it to get from Point A to Point B”(Silvera 13). The author is able to get his point across in simple terms that many people will understand but he is also able to keep the tone serious. In this scene Mateo is trying to get the nerve to leave his house. He got his Death-Day call, so he was having major anxiety about death and dying. Anxiety in real life also has symptoms like: “Almost constant thoughts and fears about a child's or family safety”(University of Rochester Medical Center). One of the many symptoms consist of having the fear of death of themselves or the people that they care for. Having the symptoms being shown in a simple, less complicated way can help people who don’t have any knowledge about the disease or if a teenager is trying to learn more about the disease. An article about the Netflix series Thirteen Reasons Why talked about if students do decide to watch it, they should be talking to an educator or a guardian about their emotions or feeling in the show: “The difficult issues portrayed do occur in schools and communities, and it is important for adults to listen, take adolescents’ concerns seriously, and be willing to offer to help” (Conolly). While this show does talk about mental health it uses Hannah Baker's problems as an excuse to take revenge on people who did her wrong. This is not a respectful plot line because it makes younger students believe that suicide is an approperite way to deal with other people. Having that represented in a novel adds a real life scenario without making the novel scientific where people do not understand.
People with anxiety tend to be more empathetic to other people’s emotions, so adding that to a novel could add a less intense truthful characteristic to anxiety . This is not a must have when talking about anxiety but when someone has anxiety they tend to have more empathy, which “is characterized by the ability to understand and share an emotional experience with another person” (Knight). In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky was able to show how empathetic the main character was to Patrick when finding out Patrick’s secret about his homosexuality: “You see things. You keep quiet about them.And you understand”(Chbosky 37). His friend Patrick really understood how much Charlie watched and understood others and their emotions. When reading other novels they focus on not understanding people: “I’ve been living with them their whole lives, but until now they’ve felt like strangers”(Zappia 259). This scene is discussing how Eliza was just learning about her brothers when she was forced to go on a camping trip. According to Knight’s experiment: “Interestingly, many of the regions [the brain] involved in anxiety are also implicated in empathy, namely the amygdala insula and mPFC”(Knight). These parts of the brain are used in anxiety and in empathy so they both go hand in hand with each other so adding this effect into novels will help people understand that a lot of people with anxiety will understand others and their emotions really well.They Both Die at the End has a very empathetic main character, Rufus and he cares so much but he doesn’t want to show it: “I’m happy for you, but mad jealous too. And if that isn’t enough to get you out, I need you” (Silvera 121). This connects to the definition of empathy because he shared that emotion with the people he cares about, even though they are not around him. He left the people he cared most about because people were trying to get him arrested. Empathy is a topic that more young adult authors should explore when talking about anxiety.
Anxiety representation should show that the author has experienced the disease or did a lot of research in their writing because otherwise it seems that they just glaze over the topic. When an author goes over an important topic like anxiety they should know what they are talking about: “The thing with SSRIs- Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors… where we worked out a med plan for me as well as Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) sessions every other week” (Barnard 32-33). The author did major research on the topics since she mentioned two ways a person could get help for their anxiety that are talked about a lot in scientific research papers: “Exposure to somatic cues combined with cognitive therapy was compared to relaxation therapy designed specifically for panic disorder” (Barlow). Cognitive therapy is supposed to help patients with panic disorder but it can be used for other anxieties so the fact that Sara Barnard used therapy and medicine could be showing that some people might have to go through a process before finding out what works for them. The main character, Steffi, tried therapy but she needed something stronger to try to get her to talk during school, so her parents would allow her to go to college. The author was also able to mention the use of medicine for anxiety that is used in real life. Having Barnard use an actual medicine that helps both anxiety and depression helps people understand that there are steps in the thought making process on what type of treatment someone would take to see what works best for them. This type of research caused the reader to understand actual people who have to go through the decision of what they are going to do for treatment.
Authors who write young adult fiction could use anxiety to show more character growth rather than using the mental illness as a conflict point. Having anxiety as a plot point is not realistic because anxiety in real life affects how teenagers interact with the world around them.When dealing with a serious topic like anxiety the author should try to be realistic and use anxiety to show as one of the many characteristics. Having more anxiety representation in young adult fiction will help younger people understand how anxiety might affect them and their peers in everyday life. Learning about anxiety through a fiction book will be able to show people that it is a normal part of life for some people. In general, people think about a certain type of person when thinking about people with anxiety. When an author is able to add realistic representation the readers will be able to understand that there are different symptoms and personality traits depending on the person and type of anxiety that they have. Being more critical when reading could help readers learn more about what is healthy representation and what is poor representation with anxiety. Thinking critically about what's true in the books you read could cause readers to learn more about different people and everyday problems. As young teenagers don’t know everything about the books they are reading it is the guardians job to help find good representation in young adult books.
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