I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya (2018)
Kate Ellis (Culture)
content warning: gender dysphoria, transphobia, homophobia, sexual harassment

Raw, real, and refreshing, this 2018 creative nonfiction piece tackles gender and how we view femininity and masculinity. It is a breath of fresh air in the world of cis authors writing sappy “wrong-body” narratives and just plain-old getting it wrong. I’m Afraid of Men perfectly articulates those feelings of not “doing” gender in a way that cis people approve of and the frustrations that come with it. It’ll hurt, make you uncomfortable, and make you go “ah, someone finally gets it,” all in one sitting. At 85 pages, you really have no reason not to read it.

Aye, and Gomorrah, and Other Stories by Samuel R. Delany (2003)
Phoebe Pannier (Illustrations)
content warning: suicide

Every story in Aye, and Gomorrah is unified by the idea of displacement – no matter how many galaxies may exist between its settings. Samuel R. Delany’s collection features protagonists who are, in one way or another, part of a diaspora. First published in 2003, the stories were mostly written in the 1960s and 70s. When reading it, though, it doesn’t feel like your typical 1960s sci-fi. In many ways, even today this collection pushes the envelope with its questions about sexuality and relationships. Other themes include communication (both in terms of linguistics and in terms of interpersonal connection), mythology, and complex epistemologies (it sounds pretentious, but I swear it isn’t). Aye, and Gomorrah, and Other Stories is a good way to dip your toes into Delany’s challenging but ultimately worth it, prose.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)
Cadence Thakur (Staff Writer)
content warning: genocide, anti-semitism

Published by Jonathan Safran Foer in 2002, Everything is Illuminated is a historical fiction novel written from autobiographical and epistolary points of view. It chronicles three narratives detailing the author’s own fictionalized journey to Ukraine accompanied by a quirky translator, an old chauffeur, and a one-eyed dog. As they search for Augustine, a woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis, Safran Foer spins a tale that’s brilliant, hilarious, and all too real (despite the hints of magical realism which pepper the text). This novel takes you on a wild ride that’ll have you screaming with mirth, laughter, and tears until the very end.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)
Willa Holt (Sci+Tech)
content warning: abuse, sexual assault, gendered violence

Through a new take on an old fable and a series of other short stories, Machado expresses the struggle of existing in the systems of womanhood. Her razor-sharp prose cuts to the heart of indescribable aspects of moving through the world as not only a woman, but as a gay woman. If you’re looking for lesbian art, beautiful writing, or an author who seems to just get it, look no further. Anything I write about this book would do it an injustice. Go read it.

Evicted: Property and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (2016)
Rosa Sundar-Maccagno (Contributor)
content warning: racism, classism

Evicted discusses the reality of the housing market, with a specific focus on the lives of low-income tenants and their landlords, using Milwaukee as a model for other major metropolitan areas in North America. It reads like fiction, as it follows different individuals and families through their experiences. This book is brutally revealing and packed with statistics; because of the accessible way in which it’s written, you don’t realize how much you’re learning until you put it down. This book will remind you of the necessity of ending capitalism, but it will also make you smile and maybe even tear up.

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For people that experience these things as part of our lived realities, it can begin to feel like we will never see ourselves on television or listen to a song that says what’s in our heads. A lack of realistic representation of mental illness in media can make us feel isolated when we seek help from others with similar struggles. Fortunately, there are some people who are doing it right. We decided to write this article to give you a list of media that we feel represent mental illness properly. Of course, we can’t speak for all experiences, and invite readers to share their favourite media with us as well.

Depression and Other Magic Tricks by Sabrina Benaim
Book

Sabrina Benaim is a Canadian poet, most well-known for her poem “Explaining My Depression to My Mother,” which went viral on YouTube in 2018. In Depression and Other Magic Tricks, she explains the feelings that come with depression and anxiety accurately, in a way that will make you think ah, someone gets it.

In her poem “The Loneliest Sweet Potato,” Benaim articulates a feeling that rings close to home for individuals who experience clinical depression. “In my lonely at the grocery store I practice trying to make myself feel good by pretending I’m a regular person, buying her groceries, not a very sad person trying not to cry,” it reads. The crushing feeling of trying to feel real, to be better, to just exist like everyone else, is one that isn’t often articulated in popular media.

In “So I’m Talking to Depression…” she describes depression as “this invisible bone that I caught and I can’t stop writing poems about, I mean living.” She truly hits the feeling that your mental illness can not be escaped head-on.

Dodie
Musical Artist

Dodie is a British musical artist who got her start on YouTube as Doddleoddle. As she gained popularity, Dodie began a vlog channel called Doddlevloggle and used her platform to discuss derealization/depersonalization, anxiety, depression, and other aspects of mental health.

This comes through within her songs as well. In “I Won’t Be Done,” Dodie sings “a woman with a teenage brain/Attempts to play the grownup game,” and in “When,” she sings “I’m sick of faking diary entries,/Got to get it in my head; I’ll never be sixteen again.” Dodie embodies how adulthood can feel daunting to those who feel as though they never truly lived out their teenage years due to trauma or mental illness. She also articulates how, for many people who have been suicidal in their youth, it can be terrifying to reach adulthood and realize you never made a plan to be at that point.

Dodie’s songs express how it feels to be growing up, recovering, and just surviving in a way rivalled by few other artists.

She has also released a memoir titled Secrets for the Mad, which further explores her experiences with depersonalization/derealization, depression, anxiety, and disordered eating.

Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow
Book

Traumatized by her past, Charlie Davis laboriously learns to cope with her mental health issues in Kathleen Glasgow’s first novel. Tackling harsh realities such as self-harm, living on the streets, hospitalization, disassociation, drug abuse, suicide, and sexual abuse, Glasgow has no qualms portraying mental illness as it really is – painful, unstable, and longstanding.

Self-harm, the most prominent of Charlie’s struggles, is an issue often misrepresented and even glorified by mainstream media. Describing Charlie’s battle with cutting from
the beginning to her recovery, Glasgow not only forces the reader to understand her psyche but offers coping skills through the voice of resident doctor Casper. Through 400 pages of raw truths, Girl in Pieces portrays a unique and compelling coming-of-age story. As Charlie’s friend Louisa writes in her journal: “People should know about us. Girls who write their pain on their bodies.”

The Road Within
Movie

Director Glen Wells creates a satirical yet authentic portrait of three young people suffering from life-altering mental illnesses in his 2014 movie The Road Within. The story of the escapist road trip of a young man with Tourette’s syndrome, his unwilling roommate with OCD, and a woman with anorexia is imbued with dark humour. Trying to outrun their parents and doctors from a recovery center while simultaneously running towards the ocean, all three protagonists grapple with their mental illness while both overcoming and being defeated by their struggles.

A fresh and raw approach to portraying mental illness in media, Wells moves away from the typical “struggle-recovery” story to show that many people still have a long way to go on the road to recovery.

Elwing Su’o’ng Gonzalez
Visual Artist

A popular Instagram artist known as @elwingbling, Gonzalez addresses the intersections of mental illness, generational trauma, and colonialism. In the culture of whitewashed “self-care” art on Instagram, her work fills an important void: art that decolonizes mental health care and awareness.

“Drug and alcohol addiction are treated as health issues for some/But as criminal issues for others”

Through her work, Gonzalez addresses the reality of how POC experience mental health care. “Drug and alcohol addiction are treated as health issues for some/But as criminal issues for others,” one of her pieces states. She calls her followers to action in the caption: “rethink who you have sympathy for and why.” In another piece, she says “fact: you cannot have or treat an illness unless it is government approved,” continuing to address the rampant racism that is present in the North American healthcare system.

In another piece, she explores the links between colonialism and trauma. “The village/That raised me/ Was damaged/Damaged me/So I must work/To heal/My village/To heal/Myself,” it reads. In another caption, she explains “war and dislocation and loss were a central part of the family narrative, with abuse and resentment and violence always just below the surface […] it made me a very angry and deeply sad teenager and adult […] until I saw my family as simply made up of people – injured people who were denied many of the tools and opportunities they needed to break away from the shadows of their multiple traumas and be free to live and love.” Her art addresses how the mental health care system in North America consistently disadvantages marginalized groups, as well as how institutional discrimination is deeply intertwined with mental illness and trauma.

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