A New Texture of Normal

I want to write a hundred books. No, maybe a thousand. Or just worm my way into books that are already on the shelves, dropping seeds like Hansel and Gretel wandering through the library.

The plot of these books wouldn’t matter. The protagonists? They can be anyone. What I’m interested in are the characters in the background, on the sidelines, minor characters who provide texture and contrast. I have a mission for these characters.

Right now when I read books, especially those for young adults, these side characters do a lot of things casually. They go to basketball practice. They stand at their lockers. They text their girlfriends. They drive beat-up cars. Whether a vampire or a witch or a high school student or all three, the side characters do what they do and blend into the background. They give us a backdrop of “normal” against which the protagonist shines.

So here’s my mission for these side characters. I want them to create a new “normal.” I want to see the side characters take their antidepressants with lunch. I want them to drive in their beat-up cars to their therapists’ offices. Text their social workers, go to their IEP meetings, name their anxiety.

I don’t want these routines to be the focus of these books. There are already books about struggles and hardships, about being an exception to the rule. Let the protagonists speak to the pain and drama of anxiety, depression, substance use, mental illness. They have something powerful to say.

What I want with the background characters is to create a new kind of a texture, a texture that goes unremarked and unexamined, one that creates a new “normal” backdrop for the stories our teens read. In this backdrop, it’s normal to talk about your depression meds, to go to an alternative school, and to work through difficult emotions with support from adults. If I wrote a thousand books with this new normal as a background, maybe a thousand readers would see a glimmer of their own lives and feel validated and heard. Maybe they would tell a thousand friends, and then a thousand more.

Every one of my students is different and faces different challenges. I think, though, that they would all be served by a community that accepted mental health challenges rather than shied away, by a society that embraced open dialogue about emotions rather than discouraged real conversations. How many lives would be saved if young people everywhere felt like it was okay to share what feels heavy and dark, to bring their thoughts and feelings out into the light?

The good news is that I don’t need to write a million books to get my message across. Maybe it would help, but I can save a lot of time (and paper) if you’ll help do your part. It’s not enough to tell the young people in your life that it’s okay to ask for and receive help. Model it. Show them it is. Express yourself in authentic ways to show young people that they can do it too. Hold your judgement when you hear celebrity or local gossip around someone’s mental and emotional health. Carry yourself with an accepting stance and make time to hear young people’s thoughts. It’s not always easy, but it’s essential.

So will we rise to the challenge? Will we create a new texture of normal? What stands in our way? How do you already do this in your life? I’d love to hear…let’s open the conversation.