SA inquiry question #1

The novel It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini is about Craig Gilner, a 15-year-old boy with clinical depression.  Craig has a hard time sleeping, eating, doing his schoolwork, and has a lot of difficulty just doing everyday things. He thinks the reason he became depressed was because in his high school, Executive Pre Professional, he was surrounded by high achieving and extremely smart peers.  Craig was never able to focus as well as everyone else in his school, and never got as high grades. One early Saturday morning, Craig is going to bike to the Brooklyn Bridge to commit suicide. However, before he walks out the door, he finds one of his mom’s books which directs him to the suicide hotline. They direct him to go to the nearest hospital to get help. He goes to the hospital, and then he has to stay at an adult psychiatric ward.
The story follows Craig through his struggle with depression. No one who reads it will be able to exactly connect with Craig unless they have clinical depression, and have the exact same symptoms as he does. However, every teen is able to connect with a lot of the problems Craig experiences. For example, Craig isn’t quite sure of what he wants to do with his life; he has no idea what his talents are, or even if he has any. In many ways this is a complex idea in the book, because it’s not just about him feeling unsure of his talents or what he wants to do with his life, it’s about him feeling completely lost. Craig feels like he’s useless, and feels like his life has no meaning. This is a result of stress from his school, and feeling like he’s inferior to the other students. However, the schoolwork is more than just homework and class work; it represents how inanimate objects such as pieces of paper can put so much pressure on one person. In school, we are made to feel like a grade is more important than learning something; I think this is mainly why people cheat on tests and quizzes. If we were made to feel like it is more important to fully comprehend what we are learning than get a good grade, maybe we wouldn’t feel so much stress on us at all times.
Ever since he was a little kid, Craig drew maps. At first, he tried tracing real maps, but found that was too hard, so he began making his own. For a long time, Craig stopped making maps. When he was in the psychiatry, he began making them. However, this time, he made the maps inside a head, so that they were brain maps. The brain maps represent how complex and layered human’s minds are. Maps can vary a lot; they can big or small, have lots of bridges, roads, lakes, etc. That’s just like how our minds are, because no minds are exactly the same. Craig especially knows this, because he always feels as though his mind is really different from everyone else’s. He can’t focus as well as everyone else, he can’t eat without puking, and he has a hard time doing almost everything. Making different brain maps is a way he can feel like he isn’t the only one with a brain that’s so different from everyone else. In a way, it’s an opportunity to escape the things that society has put on him about him being so different from everyone because he has depression.
Craig’s mind is a very complex thing. He has to learn how to deal with different people, how to do his work, and has to go through his struggle of having clinical depression. He knows that he will never be “cured”, because depression isn’t something curable. He can take meds to make himself feel “normal” for periods of time, but the depression will always be inside of him and he knows he can’t change that. Craig is such a unique person, with a unique mindset; because of his depression, and how he sees the world.