The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, By Sherman Alexie

I would say that this book definitely changed my perspective a little on mental illness. I think it’s clear that at some points throughout his life that Junior struggled with depression. For example, after the deaths of his Grandma and Eugene he said “I was joyless. I mean, I can’t even tell you how I found the strength to get up every morning. And yet, every morning, I did get up and go to school. Well, no, that’s not exactly true. I was so depressed that I thought about dropping out of Reardan.” (Alexie, 173) I would say it was completely normal for him to be depressed given the circumstances.

One thing that I did see throughout the book was Junior always talking about how everyone he knew was an alcoholic he said “I know only, like, five Indians in our tribe who have never drunk alcohol. And my grandmother was one of them.” (Alexie, 158) I never saw alcohol as possibly a mental illness so I wanted to know a little more about it and did some research. The article Why is Alcoholism Classified As a Mental Illness? (http://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/articles/why-is-alcoholism-classified-as-a-mental-illness) Says “Alcoholism is classified as a substance abuse disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). Mental and emotional symptoms of alcoholism exist long before the grave physical complications of the disease appear.” I guess I’ve always felt the way that Juniors grandma did when she said “Why would I want to be in the world if I couldn’t touch the world with all of my senses intact?” (Alexie, 158). I still kind of view Alcoholism as a coping method for some other kind of mental illnesses like say depression, if you are “numb” to the pain and you can get it without having to talk about your feelings, then why not?