I often find myself prey to emotions and impulses I cannot control. When I feel overwhelmed, I feel like the walls are closing in and I need to claw my way out of my skin. Sometimes I will be sitting with my family and all I can think about is what a disappointment I am. For many years I have thought this meant that I am troubled in a way that one else is, and that is the most daunting experience: believing that you go through your entire life alone and misunderstood. John Green has a way of stringing words together to make me feel understood and accepted regardless of who the characters are or the context under which they operate. The empathy I felt when reading John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down left me feeling recognized and comforted.
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She describes pretending that she is the author of her own life when, in reality “your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell” (Green 1). Aza describes feeling like her thoughts are taking control of her life as “the thoughts kept coming, unbidden and unwanted” (Green 8). She later states, “If you can’t pick what you do or think about, then maybe you aren’t real, you know? Maybe I’m just a lie that I am whispering to myself” (Green 105). I easily empathize feeling like things always happen to you and not because of you. No matter the circumstance, if it could go wrong in my life, it does; and I can do nothing except trail behind and scavenge whatever remnants I can. My cat will unplug my alarm so I over sleep, then I’ll trip over my backpack in my rush to get ready and must stop and make sure my toe isn’t broken, then I’ll go apologize to my brother for waking him up late, and then when I arrive at school, I’ll realize that I left my notebook on my dresser and my pen on the bathroom counter and my laptop—that was plugged into a cord that wasn’t plugged into the wall—will have 2% battery and I’ll stumble through my entire day that way. Regular occurrences like this create a perpetual feeling of inferiority, forcing me to obsess over maintaining …show more content…
. . because, like weeds, these thoughts seem to arrive . . . from some far away land, and then they spread out of control” (Green 45). In the case of Aza, her thoughts are overly aware of the bacteria in her body and obsess over making sure she does not contract new bacteria within her body. Her thoughts push check for infection, check for infection, check for infection . . . until she yields and obeys the impulse. Aza then digs her thumbnail into her middle finger, reopening an ever healing wound to check for infection. But yielding provides only momentary relief, “and then two, or five, or six hundred minutes pass before you start to wonder [am I sure it is not infected? And] the spiral tightens, like that, forever” (Green 46, 47). I have an anxiety towards imperfection and losing control of my life. I obsess over my grades, fine tuning the details down to the wire. The work I do is always wrong—even though I have verified it through three credible sources already. Or I’ve said the wrong words and now they are never going to talk to me again—even though I said those thoughtless phrases three weeks ago and no one never addressed it. You aren’t smart enough. You did something wrong. You’ll never come back from this; this is what you’ll be remembered for. You are a disappointment . . . I have no control of these thoughts and I can’t stop them from coming, or lingering, for
She describes pretending that she is the author of her own life when, in reality “your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell” (Green 1). Aza describes feeling like her thoughts are taking control of her life as “the thoughts kept coming, unbidden and unwanted” (Green 8). She later states, “If you can’t pick what you do or think about, then maybe you aren’t real, you know? Maybe I’m just a lie that I am whispering to myself” (Green 105). I easily empathize feeling like things always happen to you and not because of you. No matter the circumstance, if it could go wrong in my life, it does; and I can do nothing except trail behind and scavenge whatever remnants I can. My cat will unplug my alarm so I over sleep, then I’ll trip over my backpack in my rush to get ready and must stop and make sure my toe isn’t broken, then I’ll go apologize to my brother for waking him up late, and then when I arrive at school, I’ll realize that I left my notebook on my dresser and my pen on the bathroom counter and my laptop—that was plugged into a cord that wasn’t plugged into the wall—will have 2% battery and I’ll stumble through my entire day that way. Regular occurrences like this create a perpetual feeling of inferiority, forcing me to obsess over maintaining …show more content…
. . because, like weeds, these thoughts seem to arrive . . . from some far away land, and then they spread out of control” (Green 45). In the case of Aza, her thoughts are overly aware of the bacteria in her body and obsess over making sure she does not contract new bacteria within her body. Her thoughts push check for infection, check for infection, check for infection . . . until she yields and obeys the impulse. Aza then digs her thumbnail into her middle finger, reopening an ever healing wound to check for infection. But yielding provides only momentary relief, “and then two, or five, or six hundred minutes pass before you start to wonder [am I sure it is not infected? And] the spiral tightens, like that, forever” (Green 46, 47). I have an anxiety towards imperfection and losing control of my life. I obsess over my grades, fine tuning the details down to the wire. The work I do is always wrong—even though I have verified it through three credible sources already. Or I’ve said the wrong words and now they are never going to talk to me again—even though I said those thoughtless phrases three weeks ago and no one never addressed it. You aren’t smart enough. You did something wrong. You’ll never come back from this; this is what you’ll be remembered for. You are a disappointment . . . I have no control of these thoughts and I can’t stop them from coming, or lingering, for