Obsessed by Allison Britz
Obsessed by Allison Britz
Diana Ho, Emily Holden, Lucas Hohn, Nathan Guerrero, and Yamilet HerbertReview:
Image above: Obsessed Book Cover
In the young adult nonfiction novel Obsessed: A Memoir of My Life with OCD by Allison Britz, readers follow the retelling of Allison’s teen experience as she struggles with OCD. Allison was a typical sophomore in high school dealing with boys, football games, sports, and homework before her struggle with OCD started. As Allison suffers from OCD, readers are given an insight into how much of a struggle it is to live with a mental illness. We start to see how Allison’s mental illness escalates and affects her life as a student-athlete, her well-being, and close relationships. Though it is saddening to read of Allison’s change in personality and loss of health, Allison’s story is one of many to capture how much of a struggle mental illness is and how important it is for a person to have support.
The novel's prologue sets up what readers should expect to happen as they continue to read. The beginning of Allison’s experience with OCD starts when she wakes up from a vivid dream where she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and considers it as a warning. With that in mind, her way to remain safe and cure herself is to avoid cracks on the floor, it later progresses to reaching her destination with a certain number of steps and if she can’t she gives up parts of her meal to make up for it. The novel shines a light on different forms of OCD besides the one that is most well-known which is germs and contamination. Allison experiences dealing with the obsessions of losing control, religious obsessions, being responsible for someone else’s harm, unwanted thoughts, and urges. Allison begins to experience these obsessions as her OCD worsens. As Allison’s condition worsens and goes down into a deep rabbit hole, her family and friends know something is wrong but do not know how to help. At a moment when Allison realizes her state, she reaches out to her mom, and they go through a couple of doctor visits and are referred to a psychiatrist. As Allison enters the building to meet her psychiatrist, the pamphlets in the office help her realize she has OCD as she goes down the list of the forms mentioned. When she is diagnosed, Allison makes the decision to not go on medication. Here both Allison and readers become familiar with Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) which is a form of treatment for OCD. As a professional guides her, Allison begins to make improvements and is able to reduce her anxiety.
Although, the book progresses at a slow pace and can be rather annoying when reading it adds to how annoying and exhausting it is for the person who suffers from it. The memoir is great piece to introduce to students because the novel broadens the meaning of OCD and captures how mental illness cannot be fixed overnight. As students encounter these topics, it gives them the exposure to have a greater understanding of mental illness and its effects. The novel is a great representation of how consuming OCD is and of a person’s fight to live life with a new normal. Towards the end, the novel provides available mental health resources.
Trigger Warning: OCD, eating disorder, and weight loss
Biography:
Image above: Photograph by Amanda Castle Photography
Writers have the incredible ability and talent to connect to their readers through the content that they create. Often, these types of connections between author and readers can be healing, because these connections often validate certain experiences or feelings that are otherwise lacking in terms of representation, or rather, normalization. Such is the case with American author, Allison Britz. Britz is the author behind Obsessed, which delves into her experiences as she grew up dealing with OCD. Britz’s OCD first appeared when she was just fifteen years old, during which she had a nightmare about having terminal brain cancer. Her book follows her journey through her teenage years as she learns to live with her OCD, and also learning how to live without being considered “normal.”
Allison Britz is an American writer who graduated from Wake Forest University with both her BA and MA. Britz majored in Spanish while her minor was sociology. Britz then went on to get an MA in Management. Before Britz went on to write Obsessed, she worked various sales and marketing jobs that required constant travel. Britz notes that these travel jobs often caused her mental health to severely deteriorate, and so alongside her writing, she now works as a senior marketing specialist at Deloitte LLP. Britz explains that she had originally not intended to even write Obsessed in the first place. Rather, her book began as a Google document in which she regularly wrote about her experience with OCD, and it began to accumulate over time. Her husband noticed how long the document had grown and encouraged her to publish it. Britz wrote the first outline, and then it was bought and published by Simon & Schuster. Nowadays, Britz lives in Manhattan with her family and writes on her blog titled “obsessed and the city” on Tumblr. When Britz is not working or writing, she enjoys cooking and having Netflix marathons.
Instructional Resources:
This interview-type article talks about Allison Britz and her book Obsessed. It first explains the background of the book and why Allison was essentially qualified to write it. Then it goes into an interview where the interviewer asks her about OCD and how she has been able to get diagnosed, helped, and how she uses her platform as a writer to raise awareness for mental health disorders. This gives a feel of the author as a person and why she wrote her book.
This interview was for mental awareness month and so it is more focused on her journey with OCD and how it affected her learning and jobs, especially when she was younger. She also talks about the importance of having support from people around her and how she was able to get help over time which in turn is what led to her writing Obsessed. This interview is personal and gives a larger background on her life and experience and how she was able to overcome many struggles.
This article looks at Young Adult Nonfiction novels and how they benefit teens. One thing that this focuses on is how nonfiction books are not just about gaining information, but rather about feeling experiences and emotions through reading others' lives. It also explains directly to educators the importance of nonfiction so they can possibly intertwine young adult nonfiction stories within their curriculums.
This PDF released by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), talks about getting diagnosed as well as treated for OCD and it provides a list of sources to gain more support if one feels like they are in need of it with their disorder. This can help educators provide a short and well explained document to young adults that talks about the treatment side of the disorder
The International OCD Foundation posted this article which teaches everything that one needs to know about obsessions and compulsions, as well as the most common obsessions that come with OCD. This article also has links that branch out into other articles from the IOCDF that relate to who gets it, what causes it, how it is diagnosed, how it is treated, and some resources for help with OCD and other similar disorders. For teaching purposes, this could be important to better understand the disorder, to relate more to the protagonist.
This is an article specifically about childrens and teens for parents and teachers about OCD in youth. It talks further about ways that parents and teachers can go about helping kids and teens with this disorder as well as what to look out for. This one is very educational and informative, and it could be used as a helping guide for teachers who would want to teach Britz’ book, with how to go about talking about such a serious condition to begin with.
This YouTube video dives into 4 different common types of OCD. They talk about intrusive thoughts and ruminations, checking, mental contamination, and symmetry and orderliness; and then it gives examples for each type. This educational video can be more easily understood for younger learners, over an article, for example.
This YouTube video compares and contrasts the truths and the myths of OCD. As with all TED-Ed videos, the video focuses on one specific subject and educates with very general but meaningful information. The video also validates this as a serious condition, over something that is claimed by many without a diagnosis. This is important to share unbiased information where the student can learn the facts of the disorder.
Instructional Activity: Have students, in groups, select first-hand accounts of different mental illnesses/disabilities across various media and analyze the impact that first-hand narrative has on how the disability is presented and received, relating it back to the novel and how narrative aids in Brits’s telling of her story.
Preview:
Mental health while being extremely important to everyone’s well-being has historically been underrepresented and misrepresented. In recent years the topic of mental health has been widely accepted to be a healthy conversation and as a result novels such as Obsessed by Allison Britz have been made to help create further conversations. By focusing on her own experience with OCD growing up Allison Britz gives reader’s an in-depth look at what it looks like to live with a mental illness and just how much of an impact it can have on their daily life. By having students read this novel they can now begin joining in on the conversation about mental health by developing an introductory level of understanding.
The goal of this activity is not that students to understand what life with a mental health condition would be like but to give students a foundation that they can build from. Students will be researching mental health conditions like OCD and many others and find narratives/stories similar to the ones found in the book and create connections between them. With each student finding a different narrative for a different condition, they will create projects that they share with the rest of the class. By sharing what they find they can all educate each other on how each condition can have different effects on a person’s life. Finding and sharing real accounts means students are hearing this information straight from the source and can help dispel many stigmas and misinterpretations. Now having learned about mental health conditions/illnesses and their narratives they can apply their knowledge by analyzing how Allison Britz developed her own narrative and its effects.
This activity provides an opportunity for students to learn the importance of mental health and gives students a lot of freedom to show off their skills acquired from both research and the English Classroom.
California Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3 Analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
Resources and Preparation:
Google Slides is the perfect platform for students to collaboratively work on a group slide presentation.
Potentially even have poster paper and markers just in case students would like to present their findings that way.
Resources for methods of presentation could really vary as a result of the freedom given to students in their method of presentation, so adaptations might be necessary based on student ideas.
Instructional Plan:
Introduce the interview with author Allison Britz with Wake Forest Magazine and discuss her intentions with writing Obsessed and analyze how those intentions can be seen in the narrative of the novel.
Propose this question to students: How does Britz use the power of her narrative and using her own voice to achieve her mission of shifting “perceptions of mental illness, and OCD, in particular. Even if only by a few inches” (Britz, Wake Forest Magazine)?
Have a group discussion of how first-person narrative can allow outsiders to gain insight into the experiences of the narrator
Divide students up into small groups and have them select a mental illness or disability that they will be exploring in detail with a strong focus on using personal narrative to learn more about.
In these small groups, students will first select a mental illness to focus on.
After having the mental illness approved by the instructor, students will then find scholarly articles describing the mental illness that they selected to create foundational knowledge on the mental illness.
Following their research from a scientific lens, the students will then search for narratives from individuals who live with said mental illness.
After researching both the scientific and narrative elements of this mental illness or disability, students will then compile their thoughts into a form of presentation that they feel best suits their information.
Students can do a PowerPoint presentation, a video essay, anything really as long as they are able to successfully capture the facts, as well as some insight into what it is like to live with the condition successfully, clearly, and respectfully.
It is important that their method of presentation, however, can stand alone given the gallery walk-style presentation format
After composing a presentation, one class period will be spent going around viewing all the presentations in a gallery wall-style presentation.
Groups will rotate around the room, viewing each presentation, and taking notes on their thoughts and what they have learned.
Finally, students will submit a reflection on their experience on how their perspective changed after listening to first-hand experiences, returning back to the question we presented before: How does Britz use the power of her narrative and using her own voice to achieve her mission of shifting “perceptions of mental illness, and OCD, in particular. Even if only by a few inches” (Britz, Wake Forest Magazine)? All while also focusing on the general importance of personal narrative in the telling of stories like this.
