It's Kind of a Funny Story (3-122)

SUMMARY:

The main Character Craig Gilner is a teen aged boy with a best friend Aaron, a secret crush Nia and a battle with depression. During his last year of middle school he spent it studying every second to get into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School to path out his way to his future perfect life. But the night he found out he got into the school, his life was beginning to go downhill night Aaron had a "gathering" that turned into a party. He offered Craig marijuana and drinks were offered too (he took both), and by the end of the night he was completely out of it. Aaron walked him to the Brooklyn Bridge and there he got out on the ledge and thought that if a person wanted to commit suicide, this is the perfect spot.

Now he's at the school and the work seems to be something he was not prepared for. He was suppose to do reading and look at current events over the summer and he did not do either. He started to call his problems tentacles and the things that he does to keep his mind busy anchors. He had many tentacles but not enough anchors. He tried to sleep but his mind kept thinking of the tentacles in his life. He tried to eat but a man at the back of his throat kept tugging on a string that would close the entry of his stomach, as he described it, so he couldn't eat. It got so bad that one time while out with his parents he ran to the bathroom to throw up all the food he forced himself to eat. He told this to his parents and they supplied him with all the love, encouragement and shrinks he needed.

After visiting a couple of offices, they put him on Zoloft to ease his depression. One morning after hanging out with Aaron and Nia, Nia asked how he was, and he divulged that he was depressed and the doctors have him taking medicine to help with it. Then he heard something he did not expect, Nia is too; but she's taking Prozac. She told him to call her if she was ever feeling too down and this gave him enough happiness to last for a while because he thought that maybe there's hope for a better him.

QUOTE

"I was better. Okay, maybe I wasn't better but I was okay -- it was a weird feeling, a lack of weight in my head. I had caught up in my classes. I had found Dr. Minerva -- the sixth one that Dr. Barney and I tried -- and found her quiet, no-nonsense attitude amendable to my issues. I was getting 93's but what the hell, someone had to get them," (Vizzini, 122).

REACTION

It seems like Craig is making himself stress out and that is causing his depression. He was concerned with being perfect, because that's what he was use to, but at this new competitive school he was making grades in the high 90s, which is not bad at all. However, it seems like maybe he can have control of his emotions. It seems like it is more of a situation of mind over matter for him. I'm almost certain he is going to break his depression.