Mental health is one of the most discussed topics of our generation. When scrolling through social media one frequently comes across a post or inspirational poem meant to ease the burden on people struggling with their mental health and help them feel heard, understood, and accepted. The stigma around mental health is slowly decreasing thanks to the number of courageous souls sharing their mental health stories. Mental health disorders are transforming from being a taboo topic to one that is the focus of advocacy and awareness. There has been a shift in the perception of mental health, in which people are beginning to see mental health struggles as conditions to be treated, not to be feared.
One of the greatest struggles people suffering from mental health disorders face is the feeling of unacceptance and lack of support from those around them. This often leads to such people failing to seek help for their conditions and feeling isolated and unaccepted. One of the best ways someone struggling with their mental health can be comforted and feel understood is by reading a good book with a protagonist struggling with a similar mental health condition. Hopefully for those of you who feel like you are alone in your struggle, these books geared toward mental health can help you cope and feel understood.
- Obsessed: A Memoir of My Life with OCD
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A brave teen recounts her debilitating struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder—and brings readers through every painful step as she finds her way to the other side—in this powerful and inspiring memoir.
Find it here.
- Every Last Word
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Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can’t turn off.
Find it here.
- Wintergirls
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Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.
Find it here.
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
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The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.
Find it here.
- Speak
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The first ten lies they tell you in high school.
“Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say.”
In Laurie Halse Anderson’s powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.
Find it here.
- Starfish
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A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and her narcissist mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school in this debut novel.
Find it here.
- The Place Between Breaths
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From master storyteller and Printz Award–winning author An Na comes a dark, intensely moving story of a girl desperately determined to find a cure for the illness that swept her mother away, and could possibly destroy her own life as well.
Find it here.
- Brave Face: A Memoir
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Critically acclaimed author of We Are the Ants—described as having “hints of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five” (School Library Journal)—opens up about what led to an attempted suicide in his teens, and his path back from the experience.
Find it here.
- Life Inside My Mind: 31 Authors Share Their Personal Struggles
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Your favorite YA authors including Ellen Hopkins, Maureen Johnson, and more recount their own experiences with mental illness in this raw, real, and powerful collection of essays that explores everything from ADD to PTSD.
Find it here.
- Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
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Challenging both the idea of the addict’s “broken brain” and the notion of a simple “addictive personality,” The New York Times Bestseller, Unbroken Brain, offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective, arguing that addictions are learning disorders and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention and policy.
Find it here.
Hopefully, these books offer an escape to anyone struggling with their mental health and help you feel heard. To those of you who are not currently dealing with mental health struggles, I hope these books will give you an insight into the mind of someone who is. One very important point to keep in mind is that mental illness is on a scale. Many of these books describe severe mental health struggles, but one person’s mental struggle should not be overlooked on the idea that another person or character “has it worse”. Every single person’s fight is different and valid, and everyone deserves sympathy and understanding.
An important takeaway from many of these books is that nothing will change unless you make an effort to change. No mental health struggle will magically disappear, but you can learn to live and love life without giving in to your mental illness. You are not your mental health, no matter how much it feels like you are. Stay strong, be brave, and remember that you are never alone.