Caged: The Society’s Untold Story

Reading supposedly makes a bookworm or just a reader enter a whole new world
as soon as one indulges in the flick of the first page.
It is a bizarre experience for even avid readers to be able to encounter a book
that is made for them: a character that has made specific readers feel more of
themselves and less of the actual fiction or non-fiction one and a plot that is speaking of
their past experiences and concerns – soliloquy.
Aza Holmes of Turtles All the Way Down is an eccentric and a special type of
teen. To be able to relate to most of her characteristics and experiences throughout her
mishaps and adventures, makes one special too.
Who is the relatable Aza Holmes?
“Felt myself slipping, but even that's a metaphor. Descending, but that is, too.
Forged in the smithy of someone else's soul. Please just let me out whoever is authoring
me, let me up out of this. Anything to be out of this.”
The above statement by Aza Holmes is a characteristic that does not fit any of the
standards of the society of being included in a circle of friends. Nonetheless, despite
being socially awkward because of overthinking in the most random moments, the
character still has friends.
It is not out of the ordinary that some teens have this kind of characteristic in
them. They might have been trying to conceal their socially awkward moments due to
many unpronounced reasons still, they cannot deny it.
Being trap in a situation wherein she herself sharpens that maw is a hard thing
because, in this, one has to solve her own pieces of the missing puzzle. It may be
strange, but still, having friends despite being in the said situation is a treasure for those
who are experiencing it because one is at the worst point of their life during this time
and one cannot be able to really function well and stop being stuck in a situation they
cannot get out of.
“Thoughts are just a different kind of bacteria, colonizing you… His bacteria would
be in me forever, eighty million of them, breeding and growing and joining
my bacteria and producing God knows what.”
Aza Holmes has always been afraid and anxious about being infected with a
bacterium, specifically the C. diff bacteria. With that, upon checking herself whether she
is real or not, she cuts herself. But it does not stop there, she often reopens her wounds
just to clean it again and again, and drink sanitizer just to “prevent” bacteria from
entering her anxious body.
Everyone and anyone could be afraid of bacteria. It is not new to be cautious of
having infected with bacteria because it causes a lot of diseases and may even lead to
death. Still, measures used to prevent and treat it should be administered by doctors or
other professional medical workers.
But, has one been imprisoned by her own thought?
Forced in following a neverending spiral that keeps on tightening as an overthinker
follow through? Bacteria are normal and oftentimes customary but reaching to the point
wherein the only satisfaction needed is to reopen the wounds and reapply sanitizers for
countless of times a day, and even drink sanitizer to “cleanse” the inner environment is
uncanny and wrong. But if it is the only way for an overthinker to satisfy herself, no
doubt she will do it in just a split second.
“You'd think solving mysteries would bring you closure, that closing the loop
would comfort and quiet your mind. But it never does. The truth always disappoints.”
Aza Holmes is an adventurous person. No doubt that she will go to every place
that will help her find the answer to her mountainous question even though her anxiety
oftentimes keeps in her way of having fun and being close to her own riposte.
Sally, serene, sally, serene – that is how it feels like to be anxious yet
adventurous at the same time. When one cannot stand themselves anymore, repetitive
rituals are not helpful anymore – going on an adventure does.
Sometimes, the only way to find oneself is to lose it at the same time and
adventures keep that outcome in check because, in traveling, discovery is a must and
healing is essential.
Aza Holmes as a representative of society.
“You're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You're the narrator, the
protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and the story told. You are
somebody's something, but you are also your you.”
Aza Holmes experiences obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It makes people
with this kind of disease trap in a spiral of thought and behavior that is ever-tightening
and ever-tiring.
Having OCD alone is like having a hot pot as twin requiring one to caress every
single time with the body being controlled by an invisible machine, what more for its
symptoms? Disinfecting every single time, fear of going out of hand, and having trouble
sleeping is just one of the many symptoms OCD patients have to deal with.
It is not an easy task to spend every single day doing unnecessary routines that
interfere in doing workloads and everyday essential routines. It makes a patient restless,
self-directed, neurotic, impulsive, etc. To be in this kind of situation is like living half-
dead.
“I don’t like the feeling of something else determining who I am and who I
behave.”
 Aza Holmes refuses to take the prescribed medicines given to her by her doctor
to ease her OCD because she does not want to be dependent on her medicine and does
not like the feeling of someone manipulating what her emotions should be and she
should act.
Aza may have known that OCD does not have a known cure. Both psychotherapy
and proper medications just function to calm the symptoms but when both are stopped,
everything will go back to what it was. Many have been experiencing the symptoms that
OCD manifest, they may not have been clinically diagnosed but they know themselves
that they have it. It is much worse than those that were diagnosed already because they
are being guided by professionals.
In this characteristic, Aza Holmes is highly relatable to those who have to
maintain medications at a very young age. Thoughts that make them too dependent on
their medications arise that often leads them to experiment and stop taking it because
they do not want themselves to be driven only by Science. Also, they long for the feeling
of wanting to experience how to live a life free from synthetic discoveries.
“I wanted to tell her that I was getting better because that was supposed to be
the narrative of illness: it was a hurdle you jumped over or a battle you won. Illness is a
story told in the past tense.”
At the end of the story, Aza Holmes was prescribed by Dr. Singh, her psychiatrist,
to start a journal and write her experiences in encountering the symptoms of her disease
to serve as her friend and medicine at the same time.
Writing has a lot of benefits. It acts as a friend for patients with OCD since what
they are experiencing is funny, weird, and pathetic to someone at every stage of life. It
is a friend wherein patients are free to open without the fear of receiving judgments
because what they write is always kept between the patient and the journal.
Just like what Sun Tzu said, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
The act of writing is also the act of using the said disease to the patient's advantage. If
one cannot beat it, love it.
Stepping out of one’s own head.
Through reading, society stops being shallow and openminded about the most
surprising fact that it uncovers. Readers learn, grow, and become a whole new person
with every turn of the page.
Turtles All the Way Down’s Aza Holmes is the keen representative of the
uncovered, unmasked society, per se. She is the proof that most people, not just teens,
is at war with itself. Being a slave and prisoner of the conscious self is like attending to
an everyday war wherein the results do not matter because the patients are and always
will be joining the war no matter what happens. Ironically, she is also the proof that
fighting is the best decision despite the feeling of loss because for Aza Holmes, one can
only fix oneself and it is still not the end if it is not happy.
References
https://www.hypable.com/turtles-all-the-way-down-quotes/
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/21576687-turtles-all-the-way-down