Dear Evan Hansen

[LibraryLove]

So I don't know if everyone has heard about Dear Evan Hansen, but it's an amazing musical about teen Evan Hansen who has anxiety and depression and suffers from loneliness and because of a misunderstanding, he gets recognition for being the friend of another student who had recently passed away. The musical is so beautiful and sweet and heartbreaking and I love it. They just came out with a novelization of it and I am reading through it and I'm finding that I can only handle a couple chapters at a time. The stream of anxious thoughts resonate a lot with ones that I've had when I was in high school, and his loneliness reminds me of when I was going through a really bad bout of loneliness and depression. I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else can feel like this when reading about someone's else's experience, even if its fictional?

[HelpWanted92]

I’ve honestly never heard of this before but I’m very interested in seeing this. Thank you for bringing it up. Unfortunately I don’t feel that way about things I read but definitely for things I watch

[MariaLove123]

I feel intensely when I read, watch or see anyone suffering. I get overly sensitive. My heart breaks for people with this illness. Because I relate even if it’s a fictional story. The musical sounds amazing but I know I’d feel the way you did watching it. It gets emotional. I find it really hard to watch mental illness movies or shows. Like, 13 Reasons Why broke my heart so much. I couldn’t watch season two. So I know how you feel. Probably 95% of everyone on here does too. If it gets to be too much, you can stop reading it. But it’s also okay to read it and get some good cries out. Thanks for sharing 🤗

[LibraryLove in reply to MariaLove123]

Thank you! And 100% agree about 13 Reasons Why, season 2 gets super intense and I didn't think it was going to affect me as much as it did. I'm glad that you agree with me also, cause I've always had the thought in my mind that unless it was a particularly bad experience, it wasn't a "trigger." Like, I didn't realize that reading about some else's anxious thoughts could make me think about my own like that. I want to read the book, but I also think I can't sit there and read it in one sitting either.

[MariaLove123 in reply to LibraryLove]

It is SO common to think about our own stuff when we watch something that relates to that stuff. They are triggers. It’s like if I had a terrible car accident and I saw a movie about a car accident, I’d feel “triggered.” It’s completely normal. It’s trauma. Things that happen on tv or in real life that has happened to us is triggering. We all of a sudden feel the pain or sadness that we once felt. There’s trauma therapy for it. I know I have trauma and have triggers when I come across things that relate to it.

Read what you can. Don’t push yourself to struggle with it. If it’s too triggering you don’t have to continue you know?

[LibraryLove in reply to MariaLove123]

Thank you. I’ve always thought triggers were more of a result from a physical, traumatic event, like as you just described a car accident. And thinking reading about someone else’s anxiety, especially one that resembles mine so closely, I didn’t realize how much it could upset me

[MariaLove123 in reply to LibraryLove]

If you can relate to someone else’s feelings like anxiety or depression, the easiest explanation is that you have that in common with the other person. You have empathy towards them because you know how they feel. Trauma these days can be anything. It depends on the person. Like for me, when someone yells at me, it’s extremely traumatic. So if someone told me they got yelled at, I’d feel their pain and empathize with them. Mental illness is very grey. It’s not black and white. Yes, we all relate to most of our feelings, but we have different stories, different lifestyles, different experiences, different levels of depression or anxiety and different traumas. Do you think you have trauma? Maybe you are just empathizing with the people in the book because you understand how they feel.

[LibraryLove in reply to MariaLove123]

It is possible. I had a lot of social anxiety in high school. I thought I had moved past it but I’m starting to think maybe I really haven’t

[MariaLove123 in reply to LibraryLove]

You just have to take note of things when they bother you. Like social events, do you avoid them, do you suck it up and go but feel anxious being there or do you go and have a nice time?

Have you seen a psychiatrist? You should get a proper diagnosis. See what is wrong.

Do you feel depressed? If so, how often? Do you isolate more now? Do you cry more?

How often do you get anxiety? Is it so bad you find it hard to leave the house or even get out of bed? Can you work or is it too hard?

And finally, when did any of this start?

[LibraryLove]

So I just finished reading it and I found myself racing to the end. I couldn't put it down.

As I was reading through the book, I was waiting for that big secret of how to move past your own anxieties, fears, and grief. I've always sort of subconsciously believed that there was some secret answer of how you move forward that no one shares. I think what I've found in it is the moral that help begins when you decide to be honest with yourself. Evan accidentally carried on with a lie that started out with a misunderstanding, and by the end of it when it all came crashing down around him, he realized he needed to be honest with his mom and therapist. It's so much harder to do that, but I hope over time, I learn how to.