I find it rather shocking, perhaps, because I am a writer as well, that many people take the habit of reading fiction as nothing more than a leisurely activity, on the same level of entertainment as mindlessly scrolling through memes on Twitter or playing video games. 

Of course, there is no doubt that with the freedom that has been afforded every single person on this earth to write and self-publish a book, unlike what was available when books could only be published through top publishing companies that thoroughly screened books before they could reach the eyes of the public, and with the recent phenomenon of improperly constructed web novels, with plots that are as absurd as the styles of writing and the prevalence of grammatical errors in each of them- this is self-deprecating, I do earn a fair amount of both passive and active income from writing web novels, that there are books that are so mindless that reading them could be placed in the same category as mindlessly scrolling through social media.

But as for me, a chronic book lover, or bookaholic, as we like to call ourselves, I have found that books, and especially fiction books, do offer more than entertainment, but an opportunity to find some of the most interesting ways to learn about new concepts. 

The importance of fiction in this regard is a bit underrated. As an almost involuntary act, one of the first things that I do if I want to find out about a particular concept or learn something new is to check if there is a novel somewhere about it.

That has been how I have managed to navigate and learn new things about one concept that has been rather intriguing to me, which is the concept of the human mind. For a relatively long time, I have been mesmerised by the way the mind of humans work and I have found myself conducting personal studies into psychology, and more specifically, into mental illnesses, trying to figure out what changes occur in the brain and mind of a person that makes the person develop a mental illness.

One of the first mental illnesses that I became interested in was depression. This did not just occur without a reason, for I was introduced to that aspect of psychology by a competition that pushed me to study depression. It was a poetry competition and even though I have forgotten what wordings were used in the theme of the competition; I do recall that it had something to do with depression and suicide. The moment I saw the competition and got interested in it, I knew that one of the first things that I was going to have to do would be to read all that I could on the sickness, and not just read up on it objectively, but to express, with words, what goes on in the mind of a person, what pushes a person to decide that suicide is the only way out for him or her.

I began researching, of course, and at the time, I did not make use of a book but did a Google search on the topic. However, while I saw a million and one blog posts that tried to explain the symptoms of depression, I could not make sense of what went through the minds of people suffering from the mental illness until I stumbled into a blog post in which the sufferers and suicide survivors used their own words to explain what it felt like for them to be on the edge, what it had been for them to decide that there was no other way out for them than to end their own lives and it was only through reading those accounts that I could tap into the thought processes of depressed people and have a feel of what they felt.

Some lines of the poem that I came up with after reading the personal accounts are:

I am alone in a dark lonely night, silent as a graveyard, basking in my state of acute pain

..........

It has been a war between hope and despair, a war in which I tried to ignore the intrusive thoughts, the impulses, the outright despair that threatened to override my survival instincts

..............

I can’t see beyond this deep pit that I have been hurled into, the pain will never end, I will be better off dead

...........

I have to do this, I need to

I need to end my incredibly painful, totally senseless now, need to end these dark nights of the soul that I have had to endure.

.....................

This may be an impulsive ultimate decision, but I have a strong conviction that it is the only way out.

Now, given that I am not much of a poet, and because of some issues that I had with my submission, I did not get to win the contest. However, there is no denying that it did open my eyes to the world of the psychology of mental illnesses and began my quest to find more ways to learn about them.

Given that I had gotten my true first understanding of the mental illness, I sought to write more about it and many more mental illnesses, using my knowledge of the illnesses to bring into light the challenges that people who pass through such illnesses go through because I felt it was important to bring these to light, given the fact that in Nigeria, mental illnesses are more or less unspoken about and many do not even get treatment.

Of course, to write accurately about both depression and other mental illnesses, I had to supplement my knowledge by reading stories of people that had suffered from the illness; it came as no brainer to me that if I wanted to learn all that I could, the best place to look in was in the world of fiction.

And that began my quest into reading on mental illnesses, including depression in fiction.

Now, I believe that depression is one of the easier mental illnesses to write about, so I found it very easy to find scores and scores of books on the topic. Here are some novels that I read and how they opened my eyes deeper into the mind of a depressed person. 

1. IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY BY NED VIZZINI.

This was one of the first books that I read on depression. It is a true-life story of an experience that the author went through (I feel as though I should note this, but after I finished reading the book, I, to my greatest despair and sadness, found that the author committed suicide a few years after writing the book so it changed a few things about the perspective I had of the book.)

The book centers on a fifteen-year-old boy named Craig. From what I can recall of the book, he enters a high-profile private high school that he worked very hard to get into, but the moment he enters the school, he begins to find it very difficult to cope amidst other smart people. Furthermore, the fact that his ‘closest’ friend, one whom he does drugs with, gets into the high school easily without putting in much work and is currently dating a girl that he has a crush on does not help matters for him.

The pressure that comes with the pressures of his over-demanding school, his feeling of inadequacy in the school, his perfectionism, the fact that he is somewhat of an overachiever, and the teenage angst that he is overcome with plunges him into depression. After some time, he finds it difficult to even eat, and eventually, after a night of coming terribly close to committing suicide, calls a suicide hotline and gets himself admitted into the institution where he spends five days on admission.

During the five days, he has experiences, meets other mentally ill people, gets a crush, and is eventually able to overcome his depression.

From the onset, when I read the book, I found it to be an interesting and heart warming book about survival and one that was very detailed and did quite a lot in opening my eyes as to not only the fact that depression is not age specific, but to the mind of a depressed perfectionist teenager. But I have to admit that I was sceptical of the five days to recovery narrative. I felt that the things that happened were a bit too rushed and there was not much of a thorough analysis or much time given for a proper dive into the internal issues that led to his depression. it almost appeared he got into the institution, fell in ‘like’ with a girl, made some new friends, found that some of his old friends were not the people that he thought they were, got some support, and that was enough. It was a nice story but from what little I knew, I felt that it did not seem quite enough to treat depression. But I had these beliefs before I found that it was a true-life story.

But the book has its peaks. There was not much suspense in the book, the action was minimal, but I have to say that it was clear that the author knew and had gone through what he wrote. The portrayal of what Craig went through before he entered the mental institution was heart-wrenching, honest, and realistic. The conversations that he had with his therapist opened my eyes to a lot of the internal struggles that a person with depression has to go through, and I even related a little to the pressure that he felt with being inadequate in school. 

Craig, the protagonist, was light in how he talked about his depression, without leaving the heavy nasty parts.

“Some days I woke up and got out of bed and brushed my teeth like any normal human being; some days I woke up and laid in bed and looked at the ceiling and wondered what the hell the point was of getting out of bed and brushing my teeth like any normal human being.”

“I just want to not be me.”

“I should be a success and I’m not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I’m still a nobody. When am I going to not be nobody?”

The author wrote other books dealing with teenage angst and depression, but I did not get around to reading any other ones.

2. BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, I’LL BE DEAD BY JULIE ANNE PETERS

I have to say; the title made me know that I just had to read the book.

And this book, oh my, it is something, to say the very least. 

The book centres around a protagonist named Daelyn, who is on her last strand of life. What this means is that she has attempted and failed to commit suicide so many times. In fact, the last attempt she had, in which she poured ammonium and bleach down her throat, resulted in her having a burned stomach lining and a collapsed oesophagus and she has to wear a heavy neck brace. Also, the attempt leaves her unable to talk and eat. She gets skinny and frail as a result.

A bit of insight is given into why Daelyn wants to end her life. She has been bullied throughout her years in school, demeaned and insulted because of her weight, and even almost gets raped at a point in time. Furthermore, because of her being overweight, her parents make her go through a series of diets and even enroll her in a fat camp in which she gets abused emotionally and tortured with excessive exercise.

This culminates in the suicidal person that she is at the moment. 

As a character, she does not have much to offer but I think I understand why the author chose to make her that way. She is at a point in which she has logged onto a website for suicidal people and has 24 days in which she intends to distance herself from every other person in the world and mentally prepare herself to finally have a successful attempt. 

Apart from the flashbacks that she has, most of her days are spent reading novels and on her laptop, having no other hobbies or activities. She is almost dead on the inside, deeply depressed, and does not show much of any emotions in the book. She could be viewed as being a bit one-dimensional in that aspect, but I think it makes utter sense. 

Right as she is trying to get distanced from everybody, in walks Santana, a boy her age that, no matter how much she tries to distance herself from him, just does not leave her alone and talks a lot to her even though she does not respond to most of his questions. Eventually, though, she begins to have tender feelings toward him and they build their friendship.

The book ends on a cliff hanger. It is the last day of the 24 days that she has set out to die and the author does not resolve whether or not she chooses to die, leaving it to the readers to decide. 

Like most books that deal with depression, this is not action-packed and is quite disturbing to read. But the writing of the author made me enjoy learning about the book and does a good job in showing what the thought process of a suicidal person feels like, as it displays raw accounts of the girl deliberating on how best to die and choosing the most pain-free ways to go about it. It is a great read if you are into heart-wrenching stories.

3. SUICIDE NOTES

This book is different from the others because, despite the title, it is quite light-hearted if compared to some of the other books that deal with these topics.

It deals with a protagonist named Jeff who, after a failed suicide attempt in which he slits his wrists, he finds himself committed to a mental institution where he is to stay for 45 days. 

But here is the thing, even though he attempted suicide, he does not believe that there is nothing wrong with him and is under the belief that he differs from the other patients at the mental institution, people that he refers to as nut jobs.

The book follows the 45 days that he spends in 45 chapters in which Jeff gets to have an experience that is somewhat similar to the one of Craig in ‘Its Kind of a Funny Story.’ However, just like the other book, this one cannot be listed amongst the best books on depression that I have read in terms of how it describes the illness. Also again, it did not go into a deep dive to explain what happens in the mind of depressed people, no doubt because they wanted to push the narrative of the main character being delusional, funny, and comical (like calling the doctor Dr. Cat Poop throughout his duration kind of funny).

However, his tone was confusing to me. This was someone that attempted suicide, something that a lot of chronically depressed people do not even get to do and he is being written as comical almost the very next day? I did not buy it at all.

There is a point in which one character, the friend of the protagonist, Sadie, commits suicide and I think that was the only point that I felt genuinely sad in. Apart from it, the book ranged from being too light-hearted to being disturbing at some points.

4. CUT

This is another book that is quite insightful, but which I had mixed feelings about. The main character is a 15-year-old girl named Callie, who cuts herself and, as a result, has been put into a rehabilitation centre called Sea Pines treatment centre.

But during the period that she is there, she does not show any sign that she is willing to change, does not even speak, and is mocked by her fellow patients as a result. In fact, while she is there, she is silent during group time, hides behind her hair, and even when she sees her counsellor, she cannot bring herself to speak. All she does is watch and listen.

She is the only cutter in the group for a while until Amanda comes into the group. Unlike her, Amanda is very vocal and shows her scars. According to the book, the moment that Callie sees the scars or tattoos that Amanda does on herself, for some reason, it makes her want to stop cutting herself.

It is later revealed that she is a perfectionist, a runner, has a sick younger brother and her parents are too busy to pay any sort of attention to her. She also has social issues, as is revealed by her silence around the other patients and how she finds it difficult to make any sort of connection with them.

Callie blames herself for a lot of things. For her brother’s illness, (and it is revealed that a particularly nasty incident with her brother, in which her brother fell very ill, seemed to lead to her cutting), for the fact that she is neglected by her parents and blames herself for her mother’s anxiety issues. Also, the fact that she lives in a lonely broken home contributes to her mental illness.

After some experiences that she has with her fellow inmates, including her interactions with Amanda, the anorexics, and Daphne, the girl who is obese and is a compulsive eater, she finds healing within the centre and in the end; she decides that it is time to speak and narrates her experiences to her unnamed counsellor.

The book was the shortest of the bunch and whilst I was used to the lack of suspense and much action that is associated with books that deal with this topic, I have to say that, compared to another book that had descriptions on cutting that I had read, ‘Scars’ by title, the description of the cutting and the reasons behind the cutting were a bit lacking.

I did like the book, especially the inner drama between the patients, but it was not comprehensive enough and did not go deep into the inner workings of the girl’s mind or give a very satisfactory ending.

The four other books that I read on the topic include:

1. MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES

2. GET WELL SOON

3. THE MANIFESTO ON HOW TO BE INTERESTING

4. CRANK

They will be analysed in another post (link will be attached to this one once it is published).

In all, I have to say that the novels really opened my eyes to all the intricacies of living with chronic depression. As an author that intends to write a lot of stories dealing with victims of abuse and mentally ill persons, to bring light to the issues that they face, they have provided me with a blueprint on how to go about writing the books.

And also, I believe that we all should read some sort of literature relating to mental illnesses. Not only will doing such broaden our minds, but it could potentially lessen the prejudice that people with mental disorders face.

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