Openness

John Green's Turtles All the Way Down centers around a young girl named Aza. The story dives deep into Aza and she even present herself as being "fictional" as she questions if people are their life's authors or if they are characters. She also suffers from mental illness as she has OCD. The story centers around Aza and her best friend Daisy investigating the disappearance of a fugitive billionaire with the hope of getting some kind of reward. Their friendship is tested during the course of the story as the experience of various road bumps along the way. The story also reveals the depths to which Aza struggles with anxiety and mental illness as a whole. She is constantly in fear of possibly getting an infection and deals with this by obsessing over a cut on her finger that she fears will cause her to get the C. diff virus. She questions how much in control she is and if things like her thoughts are truly hers.  

Today’s society has begun to do a better job of accepting mental illness. For me, I have seen this in sports with the growing support and willingness for athletes to discuss their struggles. The continued openness of athletes in today’s society really helps humanize players that seem so far removed from society. People might not feel like they have a lot in common with someone like Tom Brady or Cristiano Ronaldo outside of hair and eye colors. But when these athletes talk about their problems it allows people to connect more to their idols and are able to deal with their most difficult problems. Some of the athletes that I know of that have been more publicly open are Michael Phelps, Kevin Love, and C.C. Sabathia. They opened up on their struggles and allowed people to see them as more than athletes and in a sense just like them. During the story Aza’s therapist tells her how her thoughts aren’t uncommon, Green’s way of alluding to the many struggles that people go through (particularly young people). The story does a great job at being honest with Aza’s struggles and societies continued acceptance of mental health will hopefully lead to a more healthy society.