Over 3,449,000 minors in the United States alone reported having had at least one major depressive episode last year, according to Mental Health America. Holden Caulfield is the main character in the classic novel, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. This book has been banned and challenged since its publication, so we can already assume Holden is not an average teenager. He is very immature sometimes and then flips immediately to suicide. He is judgemental, loaded with self-hatred, and an egomaniac. But most importantly, Holden shows many signs of mental illnesses, including, but not limited to, depression and anxiety. 

To begin, Holden shows many different symptoms of depression throughout the novel. One symptom of depression in adolescents is “a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest in activities,” says Mayo Clinic. Many times throughout the novel, Holden says that he would have called Jane up, would have gone and talked to Jane, would have, should have, could have, but he was not in the mood. Holden says, “I started toying with the idea, while I kept standing there, of giving old Jane a buzz--I mean calling her long distance at B.M., where she went, instead of calling up her mother to find out when she was coming home... The only reason I didn't do it was because I wasn't in the mood. If you're not in the mood, you can't do that stuff right..” Another sign Holden shows of depression is that he “felt like jumping out the window,” and then again, “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too.” The National Institute of Mental Health tells us that “Suicide attempts or thoughts of death or suicide” are one of the main symptoms of depression. “Depression can cause low energy and concentration difficulties. At school, this may lead to poor attendance, a drop in grades,” according to Help Guide. In chapter one, Holden goes through just that. “They kicked me out. I wasn't supposed to come back after Christmas vacation on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself--especially around midterms, when my parents came up for a conference with old Thurmer--but I didn't do it. So I got the ax.” Holden's behavior and words in the book indicate that he is depressed.

Pursuing this further, throughout the book, Holden exhibits a lot of anxiety symptoms. The National Institute of Mental Health lists being “irritable or feel[ing] ‘on edge’” as such a symptom. Holden is continually mad at almost everything in the novel, like actors, here, “In the first place, I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that's fun to watch. And if any actor's really good, you can always tell he knows he's good, and that spoils it” Another trait of anxiety that Holden embodies is that he is “often highly nervous about everyday circumstances, such as: Job security or performance, Health . . . The health and well-being of. . . children.” Holden is both concerned about his health (“I looked exactly like the guy in the article with lousy hormones. So I started getting worried about my hormones. Then I read this other article about how you can tell if you have cancer or not. It said if you had any sores in your mouth that didn't heal pretty quickly, it was a sign that you probably had cancer. I'd had this sore on the inside of my lip for about two weeks. So figured I was getting cancer.”) and concerned about children’s wellbeing (“Somebody'd written "F*ck you" on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them--all cockeyed, naturally--what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever'd written it.”) In addition to this, Holden has “feelings of impending doom, [and] feelings of being out of control,” another sign of anxiety. This comes up in chapter 25 when Holden tells us, “Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again. Boy, did it scare me. You can't imagine. I started sweating like a bastard--my whole shirt and underwear and everything. Then I started doing something else. Every time I'd get to the end of a block I'd make believe I was talking to my brother Allie. I'd say to him, "Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Please, Allie." And then when I'd reach the other side of the street without disappearing, I'd thank him. Then it would start all over again as soon as I got to the next corner.” Holden's actions and thoughts in the story demonstrate that he suffers from anxiety.

However, there are some points made to try to prove Holden is not mentally ill, and just a normal teen. The first point is to consider that Holden is just looking for attention. In the chapter, we see Holden directly disagree with that. He says, “She was blocking up the whole goddam traffic in the aisle. You could tell she liked to block up a lot of traffic… And I didn't like her much. Nobody did… You could tell she was just trying to get in good with me. So that I'd tell old D.B. about it.” When he is speaking in regards to Lillian Simmons, you can see how much he hates it when people look for attention. Next, some might think that mental illness is too normalized, and Holden is just a “quirky” teen. But Holden hates people who try to be different, and he does his best to fit in, as shown when he says, “I was probably the only normal bastard in the whole place--and that isn't saying much.” The most common excuse for Holden is that there were fewer people with depression and anxiety in the 50s. This is not necessarily true, people just did not talk about it as much because “In the 1950s, ignorance in regards to mental health meant that there was extreme stigma and fear surrounding it. People with mental health problems were considered ‘lunatics’ and ‘defective’ and were sent off to asylums.” Holden himself seems to have been in an asylum at the end of the novel, which only proves that he is mentally ill. 

To wrap it all up, Holden has multiple symptoms of mental illness, including but not limited to depression and anxiety. He shows many signs, such as feeling sad a lot, not being interested in doing anything, feeling out of control, and feeling like everything is going to go badly. These things show quite clearly that Holden is not just a normal teen, and is mentally ill.