Does anyone know of any resources available online with regards to mental health in teenagers as this particular issue is one that i need to get right in my book?
There's the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), an authoritative source on "all things mental illness." They offer support groups for all ages and social dynamics (families, single folks, couples, etc.), and consequently know their stuff when it comes to teenagers with mental illness. I'd also recommend you read anything written by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) is a must for your research as well (it should be at your local library). Most anything from the American Psychiatry Association (APA) is something I'd trust...mostly. That being said, there's a lot of misinformation out there. Depending on the mental illness involved, I might be able to help you out. I'm familiar with bipolar disorder, depression, and PTSD from personal experience. I've had a multitude of friends deal with suicidal issues and psychosis (I've also been there myself). I've seen what schizophrenia looks like in one or two shades, but I'm not as knowledgeable about that one.
Do you have a specific mental health question or are you wondering about general adolescent MH issues? If you have a specific question, ask it here and I'll answer it if I can (retired MH professional). You might want to find a reader (friend, relative) in the MH business to read a draft for accuracy.
I would suggest reading as much as you can, read diagnostic manuals (DSM-V, ICD-11), read journal articles, read biographies... and also if possible meet people with similar difficulties and even interview them. Mental health issues are one thing that if you're going to include them in fiction, you really absolutely must get them right.
My main character is a fourteen year old cross-dresser school boy who struggled to find his place in society and because he's ostracized by his peers suffers from social anxiety issues
That’s a very complex character, and a controversial topic at the moment. My advice would be to research very carefully, as there seems to be a bit of a trans backlash going on at the moment.
Do you have any personal experience, or do you know anyone who does? You can do this either way, but it changes the kind of research you can do. When it comes to teenage sexual health and education, you can't do any better than Scarleteen. This is a great place to start: http://www.scarleteen.com/tags/transgender If this is your first foray into reading/writing about this subject, neat! You're about to learn a whole lot of cool stuff! But there have been a lot of people before you who have written about this sort of thing, some very well, most very poorly. It probably won't hurt to read up on the history of trans* issues in pop culture, specifically what the pitfalls and tropes are (turns out public bathrooms aren't the end-all, be-all of trans existence! Who knew!) Laverne Cox is someone you should be paying attention to, even if you don't watch her show. Google her name and see what comes up on Youtube. It'll be a good starting point to delve into issues of stereotyping and tropes. This blog is run by someone who I know from experience has a lot of knowledge about trans* pop culture and literature. If you've got specific questions, they can help! An easily digestible but very heartfelt look at the daily life and youth of a transgender man is Teenie Weenies. I think it'd be ideal for your purposes. Matt has a lot of smart thing to say. Look into his stuff. And if you're super observant and very sensitive you may have noticed that I have some personal experience here. Feel free to PM me should you feel the need. And thanks for setting out to treat this subject with sensitivity and intelligence. Many will thank you.
It is a good thing of course that you want to handle your character accurately and sensitively. I will say, though, that the characteristics that you mention may not rise to the level of diagnosable mental health conditions. Crossdressing behavior in young teens goes across a wide spectrum from experimentation to fetishistic behavior to gender dysphoria. When the last version of the diagnostic manual came out (the DSM-V) keeping gender dysphoria in as a diagnosable condition was extremely controversial and (this is an over generalization for brevity) was largely done in order to allow medical treatment for trans people needing hormones and GCS (gender confirmation surgery). As far as social anxiety, this is a tough diagnosis to make in a 14 y.o. since most teenagers are highly socially anxious (14 y.o.'s who are not may actually be more uncommon ). In order to qualify for this diagnosis (and you can google Social Anxiety Disorder for the specific criteria) the primary factor would be that the symptoms interfere with his day-to-day functioning in a significant and distressing way--i.e., that he is unable to go to school or that he is so distressed at school that he can not do his schoolwork. That being said, I'm not sure if your story will involve this boy in the context of his family and/or peer group. A boy who is gender-nonconforming (or is it just in the secrecy of his bedroom?) and socially awkward is likely to be teased and the target of bullying. When I worked as a therapist with teenagers, their parents were as much my clients as the teenager. Are his parents part of the story? Is there a therapist in the story? Sounds like your character (interesting to me) is a socially awkward, anxious, gender-questioning, maybe gender dysphoric kid. Those aren't severe mental health issues, but may certainly lead to some interesting dilemmas for your MC (and his family). There are ample resources about youth and teen transgender issues (GLADD is one), and there is ample literature on social anxiety disorder (although, again, your character may not technically qualify for that diagnosis). Have you been watching Mr. Robot? The character Elliot is definitely socially anxious, but that is only one manifestation of what is a more serious disorder--PTSD on the more "mild" end and schizophrenia on the more severe side. Social anxiety can be a symptom of a more serious disorder--or, it can be a phase that many teenagers go through. I know many socially confident adults who were very shy teenagers. You can PM me if you have more specific questions as you get to writing your character--maybe just write him and let him develop without worrying so much about labels. After all, diagnosis are simply names for lists of symptoms. They don't define people. I like your character already!!!!
The DSM would be my first go to. There are also articles online that you can build from. Depending on what type of mental illness, documentaries can be useful as well. I often use documentaries, if I am looking how to build my character
I can't speak on the issue of crossdressing, transsexuality, etc. because I've just never had much interaction in those circles. However, for generic information on anxiety disorders, this might get you started: https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Anxiety-Disorders.aspx
General research tip: googling "misconceptions about [X]" generally gets you better results than just googling "[X]" When you just google the subject in general, you might get a lot of people who talk about the subject without knowing what they're talking about, but when you look at misconceptions, you get people who've looked at multiple viewpoints explicitly to distinguish between which ones are valid and which ones are not.
I have social anxiety, and I'm a teen, so.... I understand it would differ for everybody, the experience, but here's mine, hopefully it will help (P.S anybody can use this as a reference. But not like, copy and paste, as in the wording and such - the experience you can copy, yes, but not the way I describe it, use your own words. ^^ - you can't talk to cashiers or shop till people. it's so scary, and you spend ages counting out your money beforehand so you don't have to deal with the dread of counting out all your money at the till and making the cashier wait. you tremble as you ask a friend to check the stuff out for you and nearly burst into tears when they start questioning why. - hear laughter? they're laughing at you. even if they have no idea who you are whatsoever and they didn't even look at you.. they're laughing at you, sunshine. - if the phone rings, you'll stand there feeling paralyzed, panicking, what do I do, what do I do? Eventually you just hang up the call, bc you know if you'd ever pick up it would just be you screaming into the phone, unsure of what to say, voice wobbling as you're damn near crying even if you're just talking to a family member. - everybody is talking about you. everybody. I know they aren't, logically, I know. But my brain screams at me - they're talking about you. - when you see that you have to move out the way of someone, you slow down so that you can stretch out the time before you have to make way for them. don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact... and if they talk to you, it startles the heck out of you, you manage to stutter something out before running far, far away, and then berating yourself because you think people will laugh at you for running. - sometimes, everything can feel like a mistake. maybe some people can let that time they messed up their words that one day, but I will dwell on it for days - why did I say that? Stupid, stupid, stupid! - contrary to what some may think, I need a buddy. If I don't have a small group with me that I love and trust, conversations will become 1000 x harder. on the other hand, if I'm left alone with someone I know and love, conversation halts to a dead stop and I can't think of anything to say and just really want out. Plus, if I'm in a really big group, I can feel really inferior because everybody is talking to everyone but not me. I'm invisible. Nobody cares about what I have to say. - needing headphones to stop people from talking to you, but then spending ages fretting over whether the sound is leaking out and everybody is judging you for being that person that blasts the music so loud that everyone can hear it. - taking different routes if you see someone coming down a street bc you don't want to suffer the agony of being near them - hiding even from your friends if you see them in a place where you don't expect to, or weren't planning to. - keeping your eyes on the ground and not looking at anyone when walking down a busy street, praying that noone will recognize you. hugging your hands to your chest and trying to make yourself as small as possible so you're not noticed. - feeling like the world is ending when you accidentally make eye contact with someone - ignoring answering the door like the plague. literally hiding when you hear it ring, sometimes going as far as holding your breath in case the people at your door miraculously have super-hearing and can detect even your shallow breathing. - Halting yourself when you go to tell someone about something you really like in case they laugh or berate you. - Going into full-blown panic when you can't find your friends in the school cafeteria or smth of the like. Consequently sitting alone and trying not to look at anyone so that they don't think you're weird or a loner. - Constantly being asked: "Why don't you talk?" "Say something!" and then people acting overly shocked when you do say something to them. Side note, if you do stuff like this, you're rude, and I want you to stop. - On the flip side, if you give me the right thing to talk about and I trust you enough, I will blab for hours about it. But usually only over text message. - Never having a legitimate social media. Uh, Jane Doe who? I'm... Mary Gingivitis, thankyou (in other words, I don't use my real name online, I don't have facebook, I'm terrified of irl people finding me online, including my friends, except the super close ones.) I also don't use all the social media that one might, and I don't keep people updated with my life or post pictures much (again, fear of being judged), I do talk frequently to a select few friends on snapchat though. - Seeing you got a message by text or social media. Staring at the notification for days, dreading how to form some kind of reply. Eventually, it gets too embarrassing to reply after the time you spent not answering the message (I don't hate you, I love you to pieces, but I'm just terrible at communication.) - Screaming when there isn't an anonymous option on tumblr. I'm not gonna send you hate mail or anything, I just want you to know I appreciate the posts you make, but even that can be too scary for me. - Same for liking things online or loving them. - Crying and feeling like breaking down if you gotta do video chat, no matter if it's with your friends or not, it's still incredibly terrifying. - I'm actually good at acting, and enjoy it. So don't think your socially anxious characters can't act or do public speaking. I get really bad butterflies and super jittery before said things, though, but I can enjoy them. - being instantly conscious about how you look as soon as you walk out the door. I think it looks good on me, but what do they think? - having to ask your friends for reassurance that they don't hate you and you're not a burden. and just asking a lot of questions in general, checking you're getting everything right so people can't make fun of you for doing anything wrong. - mad scary to put up your hand in class, can never ask for help, even if you adore the subject. - can't knock on doors without getting scared about it (to get a teacher's attention, etc.) I think that's about it? Feel free to use this as a kind of guideline but understand that not everybody socially anxious teen will be the same as me.
