The Perks Of Being A Wallflower By Stephen Chbosky

High school is a challenging time for most teenagers and their experiences are often overlooked by adults. Exposure to intimidating topics such as drug and alcohol use, sexual activity, bullying, depression, peer pressure, and more can severely damage mental health and have a serious negative impact on a teenager's life. It is crucial that adults are aware of these experiences and understand them in order to help teenagers to seek and receive the treatment needed. In order for people to acknowledge these experiences, many authors try to spread this message through their writing. Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower attempts to raise awareness to these issues. Through the use of letters written by the main character Charlie, the

Anxiety can become a disorder when feelings of stress become excessive. They can consume a person until they can no longer function and their daily life is seriously interrupted. Depression is also a serious mental illness that negatively impacts all aspects of a person’s life. An individual will begin to behave, think, and feel differently. Charlie exemplifies symptoms of anxiety and depression within a majority of his letters throughout the story. He is often interrupted during daily activities by panic attacks and intrusive thoughts. Even when he was feeling okay just a few minutes beforehand, these thoughts could completely ruin the rest of his day. Charlie often worries excessively and persistently and is afraid to take risks. His worry often reaches the point where he cannot change perspective and begins to hyperfixate. One of his most prominent anxiety attacks occurs the day after he was touched by Sam. In his letter, he rambles on and on saying, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I know other people have it a lot worse. I do know that, but it’s crashing in anyway, and I just can’t stop thinking that the little kid eating french fries with his mom in the shopping mall is going to grow up and hit my sister. I’d do anything not to think that. I know I’m thinking too fast again, and it’s all in my head like a trance, but it’s there, and it won’t go away. I just keep seeing him…” (Chbosky 205). Anxiety is a very invasive illness that affects many people. It impacts aspects of everyday life in ways that people do not even realize. After finding out what happened with Aunt Helen and Charlie, it is obvious that Charlie suffers from not only anxiety, but more specifically post traumatic stress disorder. Research completed by Am J Psychiatry shows that PTSD had the most pronounced negative effects across all factors of life among other anxiety