By Ty Phillips

There are many types of books that try to display what mental illness is truly like. Most of them do not do it justice, but there are a few who do. 

     From depression, to schizophrenia and anxiety, these books do an amazing job at showing the nitty gritty of it all. 

      “We Were Liars,” by E. lockhart the sequel to “Family of Liars.” The book walks us through the summer of Cadence at her family’s Island. 

       Lockhart shows the dark part of generational trauma and how it deeply affects everyone for years and years to come, from how the family interacts with each other and how they refuse to talk about certain things. 

     As the book progresses we see Cadence struggle with a very bad drug addiction due to a terrible accident that haunts her. 

     While Cadence fights to recover, we see how she struggles with deep depression and anxiety. Just like Cadence, many people tend to lean on unhealthy coping mechanisms. While Cadence thinks her drugs are helping her with the pain, the readers see how the real her starts to quickly disappear. 

     Depression takes and takes away from a person until there is nothing left inside of them, as seen in the book.  With the flashbacks, readers learn more of why she is the way she is, it is revealed just how hurt her family has become. 

     Cadence believes she will never get better, and thinks everything will always hurt as much as it does in the present. While someone struggles with depression they think that there is never a bright side to life, which is perfectly depicted through the way Cadence thinks and operates. 

     The trauma her family has faced, and the trauma she faced in years before lingers in life, similarly displaying exactly how trauma works in real life. With the book showing the beautiful and the sad, it is a parallel to real life for many. The book’s ending is not one that is happy.. 

     Even though it may make sense, even though you know why things happen, you do not feel any sense of comfort at the end. 

     “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson follows the dark story of thirteen-year-old Melinda while she struggles with depression, anxiety and trauma of being raped. 

     The book starts off with no real opening, and sadness is the first thing we see about Melinda: Her depression starts, but she cannot tell when, which seems to happen often in today’s world.

     Readers see that Melinda has just started high school, utterly alone after all of her friends dropped her. After a party where Melinda was raped by an upperclassman, a fast spiral of despair follows her. The book is haunted by the narrative of something traumatic and horrific–just like life can be in reality. 

     Melinda stays quiet throughout the book, never telling anyone what truly happened to her. The shame of being taken advantage of is something many people refuse to talk about. Melinda repeatedly tries but cannot bring herself to speak. 

     Melinda starts to fail in school, with her depression taking advantage of every aspect of her life. We see how Melinda fails in every aspect: in school, in her mind and even at home. Even though her school life is terrible with bullying, amplifying her already terrible depression. While most people have the escape of home, Melinda does not. 

     Her home life is no better, with her parents having a very strained relationship. Melinda is too terrified to say anything of what happened to her. People with mental illness will often make excuses as to why they should not ask for help. 

     Melinda starts to get deeper into her depression, being taken advantage of by girls above her grade just to feel accepted by someone. The feeling of depression leaves people desperate for any connection, no matter how bad it may hurt them. 

     At the end we see as Melinda is once again attacked and assaulted by the same boy who raped her the first time. This time Melinda is able to speak, finding her voice so she attacks him back while screaming. 

     Many survivors can relate to the way Melinda loses herself from the trauma she goes through and how she loses everyone around her because of her depression. She is often told she is “too sad.” Even with that, she is able to finally take her stand.

     The book ends in a bitter question, with more questions than answers. The ending shows how it feels to make a breakthrough in depression–once you get to the point to know you need help, all you can ask is “What now?” 

     “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky follows the freshman year of Charlie. The readers learn he is struggling with the death of two very close people in his life. 

     Charlie is in deep grief and depression. He talks about all the perks of being a quiet, lonely person. Individuals who struggle with depression will talk of all the good things about being alone instead of accepting all the bad things like Charlie does. 

       He makes new friends and slowly comes out of his shell, and as the school year progresses, he grows a large crush on one of them named Sam. 

     As the holidays come closer, Charlie begins to struggle more. The reminder of his aunt Hellen haunts what should be a happy time. Grief often makes depression worse, amplifying all the sad, hurtful thoughts are already there. The readers see that first hand in Charlie’s life. 

     While the book progresses, we see that there is something off about the memory of his aunt. 

     When all of Charlie’s senior friends are about to graduate, Charlie starts to struggle once again, being unsure of how he will be okay without them there. 

     Charlie accepts the fact that his friends will be leaving him, and he gets into a sexually intimate relationship with Sam–Charlie freaks out. The repressed memories of what happened to him in his childhood are resurfacing. 

     In real life one small thing can bring out the repressed memories the brain worked so hard to push down, exactly like Charlie.

     The book ends with a letter to his friend, now in a psych ward to help with the trauma of being molested by his aunt as he grew up. 

     The book does an amazing job at showing how complex mental illness can be and how someone can go back and forth with their healing process. 

     Properly showing what it is like to have a mental illness is extremely important for the community. Making sure there is not a glorified or wrong perspective of what it is like to live with an illness has a large part in how people will actually treat people in real life with the same illness. 

     Authors who represent the bad pieces of mental illness are very important: They allow people to not feel alone. Connecting with something can help people in their darkest moments, and if they can find that in a book, it can be an amazing feeling.