Dark Humour in Depression

It's Kind of a Funny Story

I can’t eat and I can’t sleep. I’m not doing well in terms of being a functional human, you know?
Author: Ned Vizzini

Publisher: Topeka Bindery
Date: 2006

Craig Gilner thought that getting into Executive Pre-Professional High School was difficult, but it turns out staying in is a whole lot harder. The pressure he puts on himself to succeed and fear of failure spiral into extreme anxiety and clinical depression, until he decides to commit suicide. After calling a suicide helpline he admits himself into a psychiatric hospital instead, where he has to spend five days in the Adult Psychiatric Unit with people who will change his life. Honest and hopeful with a number of believable, relatable characters, It’s Kind of a Funny Story is really quite a funny story.

Recommended for: 14-20 years

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Source: LibraryThing

It’s Kind of a Funny Story has also been made into a film starring Keir Gilchrist, Emma Roberts and Zach Galifianakis.

Unstable Parenting

A Blue So Dark

Sanity is a sonnet with a strict meter and rhyme scheme - and my mind is free verse.

Author: Holly Schindler

Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Date: 2010

When talented artist Grace Ambrose decides to stop taking her medication, it falls to her fifteen year old daughter Aura to care for her as schizophrenia takes hold of her mind. A promise to keep the illness secret, an absent father and that the fear that creativity equals crazy – therefore her own art could someday drive her mad – all complicate Aura’s situation further in this tightly wound novel. With a short time frame, fast pace and almost overpowering atmosphere, A Blue So Dark shows the deterioration of an unwell, unmedicated mind and the fears held by the children of a mentally ill parent.

Recommended for: 14-18 years

If you like this, try: Breathless by Jessica Warman

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Source: NoveList

Lasting Effects of Love & Grief

Skinny

Heart lesson #4: The unrequited heart. You can’t make anyone love you back.

Author: Ibi Kaslik
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date: 2004

Giselle and Holly, the two narrators of Skinny, are sisters still haunted by the death of their father. Giselle believes he never loved her as much as he did Holly, and this helps to fuel her deterioration from beautiful med student to struggling anorexic. Teenage Holly is a track and field star with demons of her own. With a non-linear style and two distinct voices, Skinny follows the sisters as they attempt to deal with their grief and save each other – and themselves – from self-destruction.

Recommended for: 14-17 years

If you liked this book, try: Perfect by Natasha Friend

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Source: NoveList

A Survivor's Story

Scars

I’m the one who wants to run screaming from my own head.

Author: Cheryl Rainfield
Publisher: WestSide Books
Date: 2010

Kendra is defined by her secrets – one: the identity of the person who sexually abused her as a child, and two: the fact that she cuts herself to cope with the trauma of her past. A deeply emotional book dealing with complex themes, Scars mixes psychological drama with mystery. Semi-autobiographical with a realistic portrayal of therapy, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the compulsive, destructive nature of self-injury, Scars is a harrowing read with a handful of supportive characters to give light and hope.

Recommended for: 18+ years

If you like this book, try: Willow by Julia Hoban

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Source: FictonConnection

Consumed by a Disorder

Kissing Doorknobs

Author: Terry Spencer Hesser

Publisher: Laurel-Leaf Books

Date: 1998

I felt like roadkill that was still alive. A human car wreck.

When Tara Sullivan was eleven, she heard the rhyme ‘Step on a crack, break your mother’s back’. It invaded her mind, filling her with the fear and certainty that if she didn’t step over and count every crack in the sidewalk, she would break her mother’s back. Tara knows it isn’t rational, but she can’t control it, and as time goes on her “quirks” multiply and begin to take over her life. Told from now 14 year old Tara’s viewpoint, Kissing Doorknobs shows the effects Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has on both the sufferer and their family.

Recommended for: 12-15 years
If you like this book, try: Total Constant Order by Chrissa-Jean Chappell

Image Source: LibraryThing
Source: LibraryThing