John Green on OCD, Writing, and Loving Middle-Age

*This episode originally aired in 2018, and contains a description of  suicidal ideation. If you find yourself in a moment of crisis like John did and need to talk with someone, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 988. They're open 24/7—please ask for help.

Writer John Green is a master at connecting with young people. His YA novels and the popular YouTube channel he runs with his younger brother, Hank, have created massive communities of teenage fans all over the world. But when he was growing up, John himself often felt isolated from his peers. Anxiety and obsessive thoughts plagued him, starting when he was a kid, and in his 20s, he was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. 

When John talked to Anna back in 2018, he told her about how he suffered a period of severe mental health crisis in his 20s, and then again in his adulthood after publishing his best-selling novel, The Fault in Our Stars. "It felt like there was a lot of attention on that story and, by proxy, on me," he told Anna. "And I had always wanted that, I always sought that out, but when it happened it was overwhelming at first." This week, John talks about getting healthy again after that period, and why he's learned that so many things about adulthood—including having comfortable shoes—are really great.

 

John talked to us again back in 2021 about how he was managing his OCD in the first months of the coronavirus epidemic. John and his brother Hank also host three of their own podcasts, which were part of the WNYC Studios family from 2018-2020. Listen to Dear Hank and John, The Anthropocene Reviewed, and SciShow Tangents wherever you get your podcasts.