More Than Just Stories: How Books Reflect and Respect Our Mental Health Struggles

Mental health. It’s a huge topic. So many things to discuss, so many to advocate for. 

And when I first sat down to write this article, I wasn’t 100% where it would go, or how it would flow. So, we are going to just go with rambling. 

In today’s day and age, we have a lot more available resources for mental health. 

Some do medication, some do therapy, some do both, some don’t medicate, some meditate, and some of us use different outlets to help. Music. Tattoos. Time with friends. Etc. 

But another outlet … books. 

Books not only allow us a way to escape into another world, but sometimes, we find a book with amazing mental health representation in it. 

We get to take that journey with the FMC or MMC as they navigate their own struggles, we cry with them, we scream with them, and we find healing with them. 

When the words “mental health representation” come into play, we are talking about correctly portraying the actual illness. 

We aren’t vilifying someone with the illness. We aren’t booing the character with it. We aren’t just ignoring it either - because sometimes, to read and relate to someone with the illness, helps us. 

This is why, we look at triggers, we look at content warnings, we pay attention to the authors note; because as almost all of my books say, “Your mental health matters”. 

I get asked for recommendations a lot, and honestly, a good portion are for mental health recommendations and I try to deliver. I always start with a book that is near and dear to me, CHAOS by Luna Mason. It focuses on the MMC who is drowning in grief and dealing with his own demons. I then go to Willow McQuerry, who has some of the BEST mental health representation I have ever seen, from her FMCs to her MMCs; she writes with actual real life knowledge. Recently, I have even recommended Rina Kent, Carian Cole, Nicole Fiorina, K Webster, and Alexia Onyx. (Plus so many more—it truly just depends on the genre you want to read)

As someone who has been diagnosed with depression and anxiety since her teen years, I know when reading a good book, with good mental health representation, it makes me feel seen. Now do I also have other outlets? Yes. But reading has always been the constant. Even when I was younger, and reading books such as The Giver or Catcher in the Rye, to as I grew up and started reading Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Anne Rice, etc…even if they didn’t have mental health representation, they still helped me to escape into another world. 

While May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I feel mental health needs to always be at the front of our minds. Regardless if we struggle, or someone we know and loves struggles, mental health matters. And mental illness does not discriminate. It doesn’t care what gender you are, what your sexuality is, what race you are. 

Now don’t come away from this article thinking I’m saying books are a cure. They aren’t. They just can help sometimes. Everyone deals with things differently. 

It could be a gab session with your friends. It could be a concert where you scream your lungs out. It could be a tattoo or new piercing. It could be doing yoga, or meditating. It could be a quick session with your therapist. 

However you handle it, know you are handling it the best you can, and you are seen. You are never alone. And you can always reach out a hand.