Is The Theme Of Turtles All The Way Down By John Green Ocd

Whether it's a diagnosis by a doctor or just a slow day mentally, everyone can have struggles in their day-to-day life. Many people in the world struggle with mental illnesses such as OCD and anxiety. John Green happens to be one of those people, as well as many of the characters he writes about in his novels. An example of one of these characters is Aza from his book, Turtles All the Way Down. She suffers from anxiety and OCD, which causes her daily tasks to become more difficult than they should be. The way John Green writes about his characters is extremely personal because he has gone through all these experiences himself. Adding this type of personality to novels can make the readers connect with the author, through feeling the emotions

These feelings come from the challenges she constantly has to face with anxiety and OCD. When we look deeper into John Green’s personal history, we find out why he might have included these traits. When he first started in the workforce, he wanted to be an episcopal priest, but after he spent time among children with terminal illnesses, he decide that he wanted to become a writer. From these experiences, he realized that everyone has struggles in their own life and he wanted to put these thoughts into words and show the world. He started writing books such as The Fault in our Stars, Looking for Alaska, and Turtles All the Way Down. These books, more or less, are a reflection of him, his mind, and his experiences. The novels showed the hardships he experienced in his life, just like how Aza pushed through her daily troubles. He revealed what his life was like having to deal with problems like these, by telling a story of a young girl going through her high school

Aza and Green both experienced struggles that made their daily life more difficult compared to others. While their life was still able to go on, they didn't want their own life to pass by them as they stood in the corner watching it. Aza’s life still continued on as she tried to solve mysteries with her friends, but her anxiety almost never let up, it was always there lurking in the dark shadow. Even if she were sitting in the lunchroom talking with her friends, she would still have these feelings and experiences. She acknowledges, “I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and tried to control my breathing” (Green 3). These were some of the actions that Aza would take to lower her anxiety that she had learned from her therapist. These feelings could have been how Green was feeling, and instead of keeping all the emotions and wonders locked up in his head, he decide to write a story showing the