I think there’s no better topic that proves graphic literature’s potential than memoirs about mental illness. Through art, graphic memoirists can illustrate with immediate impact symptoms and experiences that are often hard to convey through words alone. In this post, I highlight ten of the best graphic novels about mental illness. Whether you’re new to mental health comics or are looking for more mental health memoirs, we’ve got you covered with ten great graphic novels about mental illness.
Everything Is An Emergency by Jason Adam Katzenstein
I have obsessive compulsive disorder along with schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, but it’s only in the last few years that I’m really starting to learn how my OCD contributes to my mental health problems. Jason Adam Katzenstein’s Everything Is An Emergency has been a welcome companion on that journey. Through Katzenstein’s OCD memoir, I came to see myself reflected in his life with this illness. Frequently funny, Everything Is An Emergency is an eye-opening trip to anyone looking to better understand obsessive compulsive disorder.
How to Read It: Purchase Everything Is An Emergency on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
The Fire Never Goes Out by N.D. Stevenson
You might recognize N.D. Stevenson for his young adult graphic novel Nimona. In The Fire Never Goes Out, Stevenson pulls back the curtain on his mental health history, with symptoms exasperated by his meteoric rise to prominence as an artist and writer. Stevenson explores the “brilliant mad artist” stereotype alongside his lived experience with bipolar disorder and anxiety. Stevenson’s thoughtful reflections and gift for illustrating symptoms that are hard to describe in words rise to a crescendo in this exhilarating graphic memoir about mental illness.
How to Read It: Purchase The Fire Never Goes Out on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s Hey, Kiddo is a powerful young adult graphic memoir about how addiction shapes a family. When he was just a kid, Krosoczka was taken to live with his grandparents while his mother struggled with drugs and alcohol. Hey, Kiddo traces the impact of his mother’s battle with addiction on Krosoczka’s childhood and adolescence is in this searing, emotional mental illness graphic memoir.
How to Read It: Purchase Hey, Kiddo on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
How to Be Ace by Rebecca Burgess
This queer graphic memoir brings some much-needed visibility to asexuality. In How to Be Ace, Rebecca Burgess recounts her life growing up and feeling insecure about sexuality on her way to the realization that she was asexual. Along the way, Burgess depicts how her OCD, anxiety, and panic attacks intersected with her mental health. How to Be Ace is the asexual memoir members of the ace community have been waiting for.
How to read it: Purchase How to Be Ace on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green
Katie Green’s graphic memoir about her eating disorder is an unmissable read. Intensely emotional and scaldingly honest, Lighter Than My Shadow is a visceral look inside life alongside disordered eating with co-occurring depression and self-harm tendencies. I absolutely loved the way Green visualized internal experiences to make them translatable to everyone who gets lucky enough to read Lighter Than My Shadow.
How to Read It: Purchase Lighter Than My Shadow on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me by Ellen Forney
In 2018, I was honored by the opportunity to interview Ellen Forney on Book Riot about her new book, Rock Steady. I got the chance to ask her about her graphic memoir about bipolar disorder, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me. I can’t shut up about how good this memoir is and recommend it especially for people new to a bipolar diagnosis or the diagnosis of a friend or family. I’ve never seen my bipolar symptoms so accurately depicted in a way that is instantly graspable because visual narratives transcend mere words.
How to Read It: Purchase Marbles on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Psst: If you want more books about bipolar disorder, be sure to check out my list of the top 20 best books about bipolar here on Broke by Books.
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi
When I first opened the popular queer graphic memoir My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, I didn’t realize that the book would also cover Nagata Kabi’s mental health issues with depression, anxiety, and disordered eating. However, the two go hand in hand as Nagata finds her way to happiness and self-acceptance as a lesbian woman. Irreverent, quirky, and and confessional, My Lesbian Experiene with Loneliness is essential reading in the graphic novels about anxiety canon.
How to Read It: Purchase My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Psychiatric Tales by Darryl Cunningham
Darryl Cunningham worked as a psychiatric and care nurse at a mental institute and here memorializes that time in chapters that cover, among others, dementia, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, and more. Cunningham’s Psychiatric Tales brings a necessary perspective of mental illnesses from the view of the medical personnel who treat them.
How to Read It: Purchase Psychiatric Tales on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Rx by Rachel Lindsay
Rachel Lindsay’s compelling mental health memoir Rx details the author’s unique point of view as someone living with bipolar disorder while working in the psycho-pharmaceutical industry for part of her journey. Lindsay’s Rx offers an inside look into how psycho-pharmaceuticals are manufactured and marketed but also shines as a memoir on its own.
How to Read It: Purchase Rx on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh
You’ve probably seen cartoonist Allie Brosh’s work even if you haven’t read her books, first Hyperbole and a Half and her latest, Solutions and Other Problems. Like in Hyperbole and a Half, Brosh’s newest book expands on her coverage of life with mental illness, discussing topics like grief, suicide, depression, and dealing with big topics like mortality and existential angst. If that sounds bleak, you should know that this is also a hilarious book with Brosh’s dark sense of humor there to lift you up.
