Yesterday was one of the best days of my entire life. I got to meet my favorite author and one of my biggest role models, John Green. He was extremely kind and thoughtful, and the whole experience has a dreamlike quality because I was so excited that I felt like I was not entirely in my body. And now I’m going to tell you about it, because I want to remember this day for the rest of my life.
I’m going to talk openly about my experience with mental illness, including OCD and depression. Nothing will be graphic, but it’s important for me to be honest.
You have probably read at least one of John Green’s books, or seen one of his movies, most likely The Fault in Our Stars, which is what introduced me to his work back when I was 15 years old. One of my tentmates at camp was reading it and I was curious. I was immediately hooked and read the rest of his books. Then I discovered his online presence as one half of the YouTube channel Vlogbrothers, where John and his brother Hank post videos every week. Their community of fans are called Nerdfighters, whose motto is to “decrease world suck.” This was a cause I could get behind. I have now been a Nerdfighter for 11 years. It is my biggest fandom, even outpacing The Hunger Games.
I had a very anxious childhood growing up with severe anxiety. Unbeknownst to me, I also had severe OCD that plagued me probably from the moment I first opened my eyes. I don’t have any memories that aren’t filtered through the lens of anxiety. Even though I’ve always had OCD, it’s pretty common for it to kick into higher gear when you hit adolescence and young adulthood. When I was 15, the same time I discovered John Green’s books, my OCD hit me like a train, only I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I only felt like I was spiraling out of control and I didn’t know how to, or want to, exist in my own head. I didn’t see a future for myself. I couldn’t even imagine it. Every night I fell asleep not wanting to wake up. Why should I? There was no point. I would always be alone and miserable, trapped in my own head.
A few years later, I got diagnosed with OCD. Now I had a name for this Thing that was wrong with me. At the same time, John Green announced his new book, Turtles All the Way Down, which was about a teenage girl with OCD based on his own experience with the disorder. He started talking about his lived experience with OCD. Meanwhile I was starting treatment for my own OCD and realizing that there might be a path to a future for myself. I started counting down the days until Turtles released. On the day it did, I walked down to my local bookstore and picked up my preordered copy, which I then attempted to read while walking back home. I read it in one or two sittings with many tears along the way. It was hard to read because it was so accurate. Those were my thoughts on the page. Not my exact intrusive thoughts, but it doesn’t matter the exact content, because all intrusive thoughts are the same: the sickening, twisting spiral; the inability to break free.
And the end wasn’t picture-perfect. It was open-ended. You don’t know exactly what happens to the main character Aza, but you have hope for her future. That’s all I needed: just a little bit of hope. Hope that if I kept pushing through this terrifying, emotional, exhausting ERP therapy that it would all be worth it.
In the book, Aza was unable to have a romantic relationship because of her OCD. Same with me. We both felt like we were destined to be alone forever. While we don’t see exactly what happens to her, because I kept pushing and working hard in therapy, I can tell you what happened to me. Fast forward about seven years. Turtles All the Way Down got adapted into a movie. The day I saw the trailer for the first time I cried for a long time and then I posted this comment:
“I’m not crying, you’re crying. When this book came out I was a teenager newly diagnosed with OCD, afraid I would feel this way forever. I thought I would always be sad and anxious and alone. That I would never be capable of having a meaningful romantic relationship. Well just last week I was having a panic attack and my husband rested his head against mine just like Davis does to Aza at the end of this trailer and told me, “Your now is not your forever.” (He has heard a LOT about John Green from me.) It’s going to be so weird to watch this movie knowing how far I’ve come and that I started out just like Aza. Everybody told me it would get better but I didn’t really believe them. Turtles All the Way Down, and John Green in general, was one of the things that gave me hope. It’s my An Imperial Affliction.”
(I’ll explain about An Imperial Affliction in a minute.) This comment went over well with fellow Nerdfighters. (In fact, it got 700 likes.) I have dreamed for a long time of being able to tell this to John Green in person and say thank you.
So John Green is more than just the author of my favorite books. He’s somebody who lives with the same debilitating, hellish disease that I do and who has a fulfilling life nonetheless. He gave me hope at a time when I felt like my life and my self were falling apart. He helped me feel like my life could be worth living even with a faulty brain.
Below is a picture from my honeymoon in Paris. I’d always dreamed of going to a French bookstore, and this is the book I picked out: Tortues à l’infini. I felt like I had come full circle, but in a good spiral this time.
In college we had to do this presentation on “possibility models.” Basically this is just somebody who shows you a way of being in the world that you hadn’t previously known about or considered. If I were to do that presentation again now, I would choose John Green. He is a kind-hearted, curious person who perseveres despite personal hardship. That’s the kind of person I want to be.
In addition to being an example of the kind of fulfilling and creative life I hope to have (and have begun to!), I’ve learned a lot about literary interpretation and the craft of writing from him. He interacts with readers in generous and thoughtful ways on his website. One of the things I like most about his work is that he treats teenagers like real people and not just younger and dumber adults. Being a teenager is hard. Being a teenager was the worst time of my life and I am so glad it’s over. He treats them seriously and answers their questions about his books thoughtfully. I learned a lot about his writing process and about the various ways to interpret books from the extensive blog on his website. There’s a tendency to dismiss YA books as being not as serious or important or well-written as adult books, and that YA can’t be literary fiction. I think this is utter nonsense. I think his books are both YA and literary fiction. They stand up to rereading and dissection, both of which I have done extensively in the last 11 years.
One thing John discusses in detail on his blog is the “death of the author,” or as he puts it, “Books Belong To Their Readers” (which he says so many times that he begins to abbreviate it as just BBTTR). People want to know what happens after the end of the book because they care so much about the characters. Or they want the author’s take on an ambiguous thing that happens in the book (Looking For Alaska is the biggest offender here, and if you’ve read it then you know exactly what I’m talking about). But he asserts that he wrote the book to be ambiguous and he doesn’t have any extra knowledge about things outside the text. He wants readers to feel empowered to interpret the text for themselves. He did his part creating the book and now it belongs to us, the readers. This was a super trippy concept when I first discovered his books. I thought about it so long and hard that it followed me into my English major in college, and it helped me start developing my own theories about books instead of relying solely on what the author intended.
John Green says it better than I can on his blog: “I think what happens when you read a book…is much more complicated and beautiful and collaborative. My intent as an author matters some, but you as the reader get some agency, too. You get to discover meaning within the story, and sometimes the meaning you discover will be meaning I hoped you would discover, and sometimes it will be meaning I could never have imagined you discovering. But together, we get to build something that matters to you (hopefully), and that brings you pleasure and consolation and a feeling of unaloneness.”
That last line, the feeling of unaloneness, is what sticks with me from his books. In The Fault in Our Stars, main character Hazel wants to meet her favorite (fictional) author Peter van Houten who wrote her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction. Hazel has cancer and the book is about a teenage girl who has cancer, and she feels like the book gets it in a way that nobody else does. She says:
“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal. …the author, Peter van Houten, seemed to understand me in weird impossible ways. An Imperial Affliction was my book, in the way my body was my body and my thoughts were my thoughts.”
–The Fault in Our Stars, p. 33, John Green
(By the way, here’s a screenshot from his website where someone asks him a relevant question, and I found this funny.)
Anyway, how do you express all this to a person who you feel like you know but who has never met you before? I get that it’s a parasocial relationship and I am one of many millions of fans. But I wanted to sincerely thank him for the difference he has made in my life.
I didn’t think I would ever get the chance, because he is a very famous person, and I do not like crowds. Plus, he has pivoted from writing books to tuberculosis advocacy (yes, you read that right), so he hasn’t been doing book events for a while. And when he does events, there are so many people attending that it’s not always possible to actually speak to him. I thought it would remain a dream for many years if it ever happened at all. Then, last week, the Nerdfighteria newsletter mentioned that John Green would be doing a talk for World Oregon at Revolution Hall.
Wait…that’s where I live. What???
I told my husband, “John Green’s going to be in Portland. I have to go see him. I absolutely have to try to meet him.”
He agreed. He bought me a ticket for the talk and the reception afterward. I didn’t know for sure that there would even be an opportunity at the reception to meet John Green, but I knew I would regret it if I didn’t try. Even when I got super nervous and thought maybe I would change my mind, my husband reminded me that this was possibly a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing and I had to do it. So I did.
And the day before the event, I learned that there would be a photo line to meet the presenter.
I got about three hours of sleep the night before, so I started my journey with my favorite drink: an iced caramel macchiato.
I traveled for two hours to get to Revolution Hall. I have agoraphobia (it’s in my therapy notes and everything) on top of all my anxiety disorders, so it’s a big deal for me to get out of the house, let alone go somewhere unfamiliar and busy. I also have Long Covid and ME/CFS, which have caused me to walk with a cane. I rested for days leading up to this event.
I love taking public transit though so it was actually a fun journey. (Buses are great for brainstorming.) I saw this super cute Pride-themed bus on the way.
Because this is Portland, I got some vegan chicken tenders (even came with vegan ranch!) for dinner. It’s a great place to be vegetarian. I was so excited I could barely eat.
I got to the event so early that even the early admission wouldn’t let me in. They sent me away to “check out the rooftop bar” and told me to come back at six. The rooftop bar was so crowded that I immediately turned around and took the elevator back to the ground floor, where, in a caricature of myself, I sat with an ebook for the next half-hour. I came back at 5:59. I got a front-row seat.
I am not particularly interested in tuberculosis. But I will listen to whatever John Green feels like talking about. He’s a great speaker and I learned a lot. It was absolutely unbelievable to be only about ten feet away from him. I chatted with the Nerdfighter woman in the seat next to mine and bonded over our love of bagpipe music, followed by her giving me a recommendation for a Gaelic band. (Do you see why I love this community?)
Then the talk ended (with a standing ovation, although my knees almost gave out when I tried to participate). “I bet not many people get a standing ovation for a talk about tuberculosis,” said my new friend. That’s just John Green for you though.
Then I went downstairs to the reception. They checked my ticket, and then I spotted him: Straight ahead. On the other side of the room. Chatting with a few people with a friendly smile on his face. OH MY GOD. HE’S RIGHT THERE. I think I said it out loud, because the woman checking my ticket laughed. She gave me a slip of paper to exchange for a drink. I didn’t care about drinks. I didn’t even care about the cheese platters at the side of the room. My knees didn’t hurt anymore. I think I teleported to the other side of the room.
When I got to the front of the line (which was alarmingly fast and much sooner than I was ready for), I nervously shuffled up to John Green, clutching my now quite sweaty piece of paper, and he laughed and said, “I like your sweater!”
I pointed to the Pizza John embroidered on the front and exclaimed, “It’s you!” (I am not going to attempt to explain Pizzamas to you. It’s a yearly Nerdfighter tradition and you can explore it at your own peril.)
“My name is Claire and I’m a Nerdfighter!” I said with a huge smile. Then I looked down at my piece of paper, which I actually didn’t need to do because I had practiced this so many times, and said, “Turtles All the Way Down is like An Imperial Affliction to me.”
He was listening very intently despite the dozens of people crowded in the room. “Really?” he said like he genuinely couldn’t believe me, as if he hasn’t heard things like this hundreds of times before. “Thank you for saying that.”
“Thank you for writing it,” I said. “I got diagnosed with OCD about the same time the book came out, and it helped me so much,” I thought I was going to cry but I was too focused on delivering my message. “It helped me explain to my family what OCD was like. I just had them read the book.”
He said something about how important it was to understand and how glad he was that it helped me. I don’t remember exactly what I said at that point because it was all very overwhelming to be talking to someone I had admired for so long, and I was just watching his YouTube videos that morning and now he was literally right in front of me and it was extremely strange and cool and crazy.
I do remember that I said I was grateful for him talking about his experience and writing TATWD and that I liked the interview he did with NOCD (an OCD therapy provider that I’ve actually used before). “Oh, thank you,” he said to that, “I thought they did a really nice job, very respectful.”
“I’m glad you thought so,” I said. “I know how hard it is to talk about and it was really helpful to hear.”
Then I asked, “I wondered if you could please write a quote for me?”
“Absolutely,” he said, accepting my piece of paper that they had given me to write questions for the speaker. “Which one?”
“Your now is not your forever.” How many times had I repeated that line to myself during the worst bits of intrusive thought spirals? My husband had even said it to me when he saw me really struggling. As he nodded and started writing, I said, “I’ve had a poster with that quote taped to my wall until it got so torn I had to take it down. It’s helped me so much. It means a lot to me. You give me hope that I can have a worthwhile life even with severe OCD.”
He handed the piece of paper back to me and said very seriously, “And you will!”
Then I asked if we could take a picture and he put his arm around me and my ridiculous Pizzamas sweater and I hoped I wasn’t dripping with sweat or had something stuck in my teeth. I stumbled off to where people were mingling with charcuterie boards and gulped down a glass of lemonade, positive I looked like a drowning rat. But unfortunately, despite the sweat it accumulated throughout this exciting evening, my Pizzamas sweater can never be washed again.
I present the best photo I possess:
He’s very tall (I’m 5’6″), but not intimidating. He has a kind and welcoming aura, if you believe in that sort of thing. He was extremely kind to me and gave off a dad energy (which makes sense because he does have kids and I’ve been told I give off a “please protect me” sort of vibe).
Then I dragged my walking stick over to a table in the corner of the room, slumped into a fancy leather booth, looked at the dozens of people waiting to speak to John Green, put my hands over my face, and burst into tears.
I admire John Green because he writes about real people with tough emotions and vulnerability. What’s more, he shares that side of himself with the Nerdfighter community. It’s scary to be vulnerable, but only through that vulnerability can we form authentic and meaningful connections. I think that’s the path forward to a life worth living, and it’s what I’m trying to emulate. On his blog he says that “people in dying often become weaker and more human, but that this humanness is what is actually heroic, not grand gestures of sacrificial suffering. In my opinion, actual heroism, like actual love, is a messy, painful, vulnerable business—and I wanted to try to reflect that.”
People like John Green make it easier for me to keep being a person, with all the messy, painful, vulnerable things that come along with it. I hope you have someone in your life that you admire like I do this guy.