Anchors

Right now I am almost finished with the book “It’s Kind Of A Funny Story” by Ned Vizzini. Throughout the whole book Vizzini, who is a depressed teenager in a mental hospital, talks about things called anchors. They function the same way regular anchors function (holding ships in place in the water) except these anchors are not physical by mental. What the anchors do is hold on to the happy things and the things that don’t get him depressed and the depressed just flow away because they are not anchored in his mind.

One day he is talking to Dr. Minerva ad she asked him what some of his anchors were. He replied, “The people in the mental hospital are anchors.” He is saying this because he has made many friends with the people here and finds everyone interesting and non-stressful. She responds by saying, “people don’t make could anchors, though, Craig. They change. The people here are going to change.” At 1^st he doesn’t really understand why they can’t be anchors but then soon after an encounter with his old friends from before he was in the hospital, who he though were anchors, were mean and made fun of him for his medical condition. This is when he knew that anchors must be things that never change. Not like people. For example one of Craig’s anchors that I have established by my self to be an anchor was him drawing maps since he was little because it always brought him to another world and he felt good.

There are some things in my life that I love to do and I hold onto them because they make happy and I want to keep them for the rest of my life. This is why I understand Craig’s “anchors”. For example I love this Chinese place and I go there all the time. I like it because it makes me happy and I love going there. I would consider this an anchor for me. However I understand what Dr. Minerva is saying because if you have an anchor that can change then being so attached to something and then having to let it go can really hurt you. When I read this I pictured my Chinese restaurant going out of business. This would make me terribly sad because I would never get to eat there again. I would have to find a new Chinese place and it would never be the same. This is why now, after reading this part of the book, I know not to consider or be so attached to my restaurant because one day they may go out of business and that would leave me how Craig is feeling.