Skip to content

mental disorder

concept · in 69 videos (2011–2026)

Mental illness as a general topic; Hank notes a condition is classified as a disorder by clinically significant distress or impairment in functioning. John speaks openly about his obsessive-compulsive disorder, which at times has taken over his life, and says he owes his life to effective treatment. He says talking about it has helped many people see one can live a rich life with a serious mental illness.

Videos by year: 2011: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2017: 9 · 2018: 5 · 2019: 8 · 2020: 9 · 2021: 13 · 2022: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2025: 4 · 2026: 3

Also known as: mental illness, brain chemistry problems

Threads

Also named in the threads: John: how Looking for Alaska was written, revised and won the Printz Award (2006) · John's depression at 24 in Chicago: leave from Booklist, home to Orlando, and watching Harvey · John's weeks of severe illness while changing his medication regimen (2015) · NerdCon: Stories 2016 edition · Turtles All the Way Down: announcement and publication of John's novel (2017) · Turtles All the Way Down tour: John and Hank's US book tour (2017) · John writes his first nonfiction book, The Anthropocene Reviewed (2020)

Questions

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

Turtles All the Way Down (10) · occupational burnout (2) · Sierra Leone (6) · attention economy (3) · Partners In Health (5) · Instagram (3) · Koidu Government Hospital (2) · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book) (3) · COVID-19 pandemic (3) · hope (3)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2011

  • 2011-10-24 · Signing Psychosis Takes Over — John says he knows many Nerdfighters, himself included, have struggled or are struggling with mental illness. — 00:03:04
    • Though he is using words like 'crazy' and 'psychosis', John says he does not want to make fun of mental illness but of himself. — 00:03:09

2015

  • 2015-08-03 · I Love You, Hank. Esther Day 2015 — John says that in hard times, from his brain's bad wiring or physical illness, pain, fear and obsessiveness consume him so that he struggles to empathize or listen. — 00:00:42
  • 2015-11-20 · On Mental Illness (and the end of Pizzamas) — John: Following Hank's personal video, John says he has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is often associated with anxiety and depression. — 00:00:57
    • John talks about his mental illness sometimes because nothing about it should be embarrassing, but rarely, because it is personal and chronic illness is hard to talk about. (hedged) — 00:01:06
    • John has advantages that make it easier (supportive family, total job flexibility, an excellent therapist and psychiatrist, money for medication); most people lack these, which worsens any illness. — 00:02:32
    • John tells people living with mental illness that there is hope, that it is almost always treatable, and that how they feel at their sickest is not how they will always feel. — 00:02:46
    • John points to resources in the description that he and people he knows have found helpful; the description lists suicide-prevention and mental-health helplines. — 00:02:57

2016

  • 2016-08-30 · My Body Is a Broken Temple — announcement: John will be at NerdCon: Stories in Minneapolis on October 14-15, speaking on panels, recording a live podcast and talking about mental illness and creativity. — 00:02:45
  • 2016-12-06 · Exactly Like the Human Sternum — recommendation: John recommends Michael Chabon's Moonglow: a proper genius risks having another nearly perfect novel taken for granted, but this is an amazing book about war, memory and mental illness. — 00:01:38

2017

  • 2017-03-10 · Do I Have ADHD? — Hank says disorders are only classified as disorders when they are ongoing, frustrating impairments. — 00:01:43
  • 2017-06-22 · My New Book — announcement: John says the novel is about a young woman trying to solve a mystery while also trying to live with mental illness. — 00:00:22
    • John says the story, though made up, is personal, because he has a mental illness that at times has taken over his life. — 00:00:29
  • 2017-07-25 · What OCD Is Like (for Me) — John says mental illness is highly stigmatized in our culture but also sometimes romanticized, as in TV shows where a mentally ill person goes off their meds to catch a terrorist, or obsessive detectives. — 00:02:26
    • John says that may fit some people's experience but not his: his illness has no superpower side effects, and inside a thought spiral he can hardly observe anything outside himself. (hedged) — 00:02:40
    • John asks anyone concerned about their mental health to seek help, pointing to resources in the description. — 00:03:28
  • 2017-08-08 · What You Make of It: Thoughts from Venice, Italy — John says that besides the physical illness his mental health was near an all-time low; in 2011 he hated the Piazza San Marco, its smell, tourists, pigeons and flying lions, and was sick and scared. — 00:02:15
    • John says he was reminded that how you feel at your worst is not how you are always going to feel. — 00:02:56
  • 2017-09-29 · What's This Video About? — Hank: Asked what Turtles All the Way Down is about, Hank thinks of its themes: relationships with people whose brains have problems, understanding people who experience the world differently, amid dramatic inequality. — 00:02:55
  • 2017-10-17 · Look at Tiny Baby Hank — John says it has also been a difficult week: his mental health is not where he would like it, partly because he is so far outside his routine; he loves touring but it is a bit overwhelming. — 00:01:40
  • 2017-11-09 · The New Zealand Five Cent Coin — John: The months before Turtles All the Way Down came out were difficult for John: overwhelmed by worry about its reception, the tour and publicity, and how to talk about his own mental illness. — 00:00:04
  • 2017-12-19 · History Is Happening — John: His mental illness often makes John feel a passenger in his own consciousness; scrolling the social internet makes him feel a passenger in history, as if it happens to us. (hedged) — 00:00:33
  • …and 3 statements more in 2017 — all statements of 2017

2018

  • 2018-02-27 · Ode to a Dog — John says one of the challenging things about his mental illness is how isolating it can be. — 00:02:10
  • 2018-04-20 · This Video is About Marijuana — Hank: Long-term marijuana use, especially by young people, has been shown to have negative effects: it can increase symptoms of depression and other mental health problems, and is a risk factor for schizophrenia. — 00:02:54
  • 2018-08-07 · How I Made Friends — John says he gets anxious in situations with lots of new people, not primarily because of his mental illness but because many people find social engagements nervous-making, especially alone. (hedged) — 00:00:18
  • 2018-10-09 · How Big a Problem is Mental Illness? — John says one of the biggest shifts under DALYs is mental health: mental illness and substance use disorders become the single biggest category of disease burden in the United States. — 00:00:58
    • John says that, at least by that measure, what is still dismissed as 'all in your head' is in fact our biggest health problem. — 00:01:27
    • John says in Brazil mental illness causes more lost DALYs than any other single cause, including heart disease, and the same is true in France and the UK. — 00:01:27
    • John says in Sierra Leone communicable diseases are overwhelmingly the leading cause of lost life years, but mental illness causes more burden than almost any other non-communicable disease. — 00:01:56
    • John says measuring health in DALYs makes clear that better mental illness treatment, and access to it, should be a priority for every country's healthcare system. — 00:02:26
    • John says this matters to him personally: he couldn't function without his daily medication, which lets him live with his thoughts rather than be controlled by them. — 00:02:55
    • John says everyone should understand that mental illness is common everywhere and serious, one of the world's leading health problems. (hedged) — 00:02:55
    • John says the good news is that the vast majority of mental illness is treatable. — 00:02:55
  • 2018-11-06 · Taking a Year Off — John doesn't call the platforms bad; his brain is unusually susceptible to being hacked, not least because a mental health disorder predisposes him to repetitive checking and circular thought. (hedged) — 00:00:58
  • …and 6 statements more in 2018 — all statements of 2018

2019

  • 2019-02-19 · Battling Apathy and Searching for Meaning on Question Tuesday — ask: John doesn't think the questioner's isolation comes from a lack of courage, and encourages them to talk today to someone they trust in real life and say they are struggling and need support. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-04-09 · The Only Psychiatric Hospital in Sierra Leone — ask: The description asks viewers concerned about their mental health to contact their local crisis center, and links resources. — video description
    • John says the visit was personal: he has been, at one level or another, a psychiatric patient for most of his life. — 00:00:16
    • John feels kinship with the patients because he owes his life to effective mental health treatment, the kind they are at last beginning to receive. — 00:04:22
  • 2019-08-06 · Uncertain and Afraid — John: US life expectancy is going down for the first time in decades, primarily due to substance abuse disorders and mental health conditions. — 00:01:56
  • 2019-09-17 · 'end the stigma' — John: Amid talk of ending the stigma of mental and other illnesses, Dr. Bailor Barrie told John in Sierra Leone that we can't know how to end stigma until we grapple with its causes. — 00:00:00
    • John says it is easier for him to live openly with a mental illness because he doesn't have to apply for jobs where an employer might be concerned by it. — 00:00:58
    • To end stigma we must resist seeing illness as a moral narrative: how you got sick shouldn't decide whether you can get well, nor should isolation compound illness's pain. — 00:03:24
  • 2019-10-15 · I'm Having a Lot of Feelings — John now usually understands his anxiety as part of a brain disorder he has, which isn't his fault. — 00:02:55
  • 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John: Watching it took John back to writing the first draft of Looking for Alaska alone in a small furnished Chicago apartment, recovering from what would now be called a mental health crisis. (hedged) — 00:01:41
  • 2019-12-10 · On Loneliness — ask: The description urges viewers concerned about their mental health to reach out: text the Crisis Text Line, call the SAMHSA helpline in the US, or someone they trust. — video description
    • Both times the cycles were broken by treating his chronic health problem like a chronic health problem: for John, medication and regular therapy. — 00:02:31
  • …and 9 statements more in 2019 — all statements of 2019

2020

  • 2020-01-28 · Looking Away (Again) — John says access to mental health care in Kono has dramatically increased, and people with cancer or type 1 diabetes, until recently death sentences, are now treated there. — 00:03:48
  • 2020-02-11 · 1,100 Days: A Mental and Physical Health Update — John: In 2017, after exercising five or six days a week for 100 days, John could run seven or eight miles, slept better, his mental illness had improved dramatically, and he wrote much of Turtles All the Way Down. — 00:00:00
    • John's mental health is probably the best it's ever been: still mentally ill and on daily medication, but his rolling 90-day average is much better than 5, 10 or 15 years ago. (hedged) — 00:01:27
  • 2020-03-24 · Mental Health Tips from People Who've Been There — ask: In a comment John urges viewers concerned about their mental health to reach out for help, to a friend or a mental health professional, many offering e-therapy. — creator comment
  • 2020-05-12 · We Could All Use a Little Change — John says that, like many people, his brain problems have been dramatically amplified by the wider problems, making it hard at times to think straight. — 00:01:56
  • 2020-05-26 · you'll never know — John says uncontrolled mental illness feels like going through the day fearing the floor might collapse at every step, like the Emily Dickinson poem where a plank in reason broke. — 00:01:56
  • 2020-06-09 · i could use a little fuel myself — John: As a college junior John took a semester off for mental health problems, so he graduated late and watched his classmates graduate, happy for them but hurt and feeling like a disappointment. — 00:00:29
  • 2020-07-14 · The ice we skate is getting pretty thin. — John: The mental health problems John brought into this weigh on him: OCD's endless thought loops and compulsions are monotonous, and thinking the same thoughts over and over is soul-destroying. — 00:00:29
  • 2020-07-21 · Somebody Once Asked . . . — John: There is encouraging news but it is very difficult; any effective healthcare response must include mental health care and real listening and reassurance. — 00:02:26
  • 2020-08-11 · never get bored — John says he is not holding up okay: like many people he knows with chronic mental health problems, he is having a hard time. — 00:00:02

2021

  • 2021-01-26 · The Sycamore Tree: The Anthropocene Reviewed — recommendation: John lists how you keep going: therapy, a different medication, meditation even if you dislike it, exercise, waiting, and refusing to give in, with philosophy, self-help and religion. — 00:07:33
  • 2021-03-30 · I did it! — John has had a very rough period finishing the book, mostly from things more important than books (family health, managing his brain disorder), but partly from the book. — 00:02:25
  • 2021-04-13 · My Truly Mortifying Self-Talk — John has been fortunate to have a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy for his mental illness; he uses its positive self-talk technique many times a day to reduce stress and break cycles of self-loathing and despair. — 00:00:58
  • 2021-04-27 · What is my new book about? — announcement: John: The book is meant as a memoir, from seeing Halley's Comet as a child, through his internet-fascinated adolescence and his 20s at a children's hospital and a mental health crisis, to parenthood. — 00:01:56
  • 2021-05-11 · I am a small boat. It's Question Tuesday. — John says he sometimes doesn't function well; he doesn't push through his anxiety but tries to treat it and, when necessary, accommodate it like any other chronic health problem. — 00:01:08
  • 2021-05-25 · The Anthropocene Reviewed, Animated — John: Tempting as it is to make labyrinthitis a metaphor for a life lacking balance, John wrote against such symbolization of disease in his novels: OCD and cancer are illnesses to live with as well as one can, not battles or character flaws. — 00:05:41
  • 2021-07-13 · The Vlogbrothers Videos I Didn't Make — John sees meaning and power in talking openly about mental health and ways to improve it, but thinks it's also okay to write something raw and personal not for public consumption. — 00:01:46
  • 2021-08-10 · My Physicalmental Illness — John says we profoundly stigmatize mental illness. — 00:00:27
    • Mental illness is also really real and often has a physiological cause: the brains of many people with OCD, John included, look different in fMRI scans, though the differences are not yet well understood. — 00:00:48
    • In a footnote John says mental illness is just a category, with uses and limitations; remembering that categories are often useful but almost always limited seems one of life's big challenges right now. — 00:01:17
    • The mind-body dichotomy is as insufficient as the category of sandwiches: our minds are made of body, our bodies think, and whether mental or physical, other people's pain is as real as our own. — 00:03:34
  • 2021-11-23 (said on 2021-10-28, implied) · I have been playing a small trick on you. — John: After years of mostly stable, good mental health, John's has lately been unstable, with worry invading from every direction like clouding vision before fainting; it has improved in the last couple of weeks. — 00:01:27
  • …and 6 statements more in 2021 — all statements of 2021

2022

  • 2022-01-11 · The Fault in Our Stars - Ten Years Later — John continued the theme in Turtles All the Way Down, writing about what happens when we misunderstand mental illness. — 00:02:55
  • 2022-04-26 · An Amazing Day — John says everyone is committed to a film expressing the book's ideas: people's pain is real and deserves attention and validation, and there is hope even when your brain says it isn't. — 00:03:10
  • 2022-05-03 · My Religion and My Banned Books — John says he kind of understands book banning: books threaten power structures that want marginalized people, by race, sexuality, gender identity or mental illness, seen as less than fully human. — 00:02:27
  • 2022-05-24 · Hello! Meet Daisy! — Cree Cicchino: Cree says everyone has a relationship with mental health struggles, even if they are not their own, and she certainly does. — 00:02:54
    • Cree Cicchino: Cree says she saw a lot of herself and her own mental health journey in Aza. — 00:03:24

2023

  • 2023-02-07 · Mid-Morning Existential Crisis: The Format Returns — John says 19th-century tuberculosis, like some mental health conditions today, was both heavily stigmatized and heavily romanticized, and these are not opposites. — 00:00:33
    • John says OCD does not make you a brilliant detective like Sherlock Holmes, and tuberculosis does not make you a great writer. — 00:01:03
  • 2023-02-28 · Empathy and its Limits — John says we blame illness on people's heads, smoking or diet, but illness is not a moral narrative, and seeing it that way is another barrier to empathy. — 00:02:47
  • 2023-04-18 · goodbye to my friend — John says Bill wanted him to see Harvey for a reason: it is about someone living with serious mental illness who is nonetheless valuable, important and worthy. — 00:01:27
  • 2023-11-21 · Minus Its Charms — John says he has had a rough couple of months: his OCD and anxiety have been very high and he has had a lengthy bout of depression. — 00:00:05
    • John says in his 20s a naive part of him thought reaching middle age would put all this behind him, and that has not turned out to be the case. — 00:00:57
    • John says he knows that if he keeps pursuing treatment, working with his doctor, taking his medicine and moving his body, he will eventually feel different. — 00:01:18

2024

  • 2024-02-06 · The Truth of How Books Become Movies — John calls the Turtles movie truly brilliant: about class, friendship, free will and mental illness, raw and honest without feeling sensationalized. — 00:02:55
  • 2024-04-16 · I Already Got Paid — recommendation: John thinks the film is important especially for people who struggle with mental health or love someone who does, which is why he will promote it heavily. — 00:01:46
  • 2024-04-30 · Not Doing That Great — John says it is really hard for him to talk so much about his mental health and living with OCD and depression. — 00:00:58
    • John wants to be clear that people living with serious mental illness can also have full, wonderful lives. — 00:00:58
    • John thinks it is important for him to talk about it, because one way we destigmatize mental illness is by talking about it in public. — 00:00:58
  • 2024-09-06 · I feel like I can't talk about this… — Hank says many creators are honest about burnout and mental health, but simply working a lot and enjoying it feels countercultural in his spaces. — 00:00:00
  • 2024-09-20 · Do I Regret TikTok? — Hank says algorithms, media and creators work together to keep us on websites at any cost, and the cost seems real: worse mental health, a more antisocial society, more divisive arguments. (hedged) — 00:01:56

2025

  • 2025-05-30 · My Rare 'Disorder' — Hank says his natural inclination can become an impairment, and so be classified a disorder, because society has to function for other purposes. — 00:06:11
    • Hank says a disorder need not be a mechanical failure: psychiatry's diagnostic manual (quoted by name) defines it by clinically significant distress or impairment in functioning, without asking whether the impairment would exist in a different world. — 00:06:40
  • 2025-08-12 · On Balance — John says he notices the balance of his brain chemicals only when they are imbalanced and cause his OCD or depression. — 00:03:05
  • 2025-09-09 · Sorry, Hank, but Coffee Is Just Better — John says he no longer takes Remeron but different medications for his mental health, so it is a fine time to switch to decaf. — 00:03:24
  • 2025-09-23 · Why Can't I Take My Meds? — John says this is especially true of medicines for heavily stigmatized conditions such as type 2 diabetes or certain mental health conditions. — 00:03:24
    • John concludes that he does need to take his medication every day to become himself, and that is okay. — 00:04:22

2026

  • 2026-04-07 · I've Been Pooping All Wrong — John finds it a relief that his bacteria are not having thoughts for him, though his microbiome and gut do inform his brain. — 00:04:09
  • 2026-06-05 · The Things We Don't Discuss — John says talking about his OCD has helped many people feel comfortable being themselves and see that one can live a rich life with a serious mental illness. — 00:08:45
  • 2026-08-18 · My Nemeses — John: Instead of denying his anxiety, John manages it with the tools he has, medicine being one: he has been trying hard to take it every day. — 00:00:58