"If you haven't read to escape your reality, then you shouldn't be here." That's what a speaker in my Theory of Creative Writing class offered as advice to a student asking if they have what it takes to be a writer. She brings up as one of many points about literature—reading certainly has a lot of merits to it. It provides you with a fertile imagination, sparks your curiosity, improves your intellectual skills. But the main reason avid book lovers read is because they can escape their world for what they believe is a better one.

I remember the book that started it all for me; it was Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham." I was in rapture with the catchy rhyme schemes and delightful illustrations that drove the story forward. I was five at the time and my parents had recently separated. My dad moved back to Chicago, which started the estrangement between him and my family that still exists today. I didn't know how to comprehend the separation; from what I remember, I had a good relationship with him despite his mental health issues.

Over the years, he became worse. He would call my family late at night and either yell or call us his sweet bambinas and wish we were with him. It scared me to see such a drastic shift and so quickly. Throughout these tumultuous years, I would read to find that safety and comfort a father figure provides. Then, in middle school, I started to write fan fiction as a way to craft a reality different than mine of feeling left out. These two things became my whole identity because I knew it would protect me from my inner demons. In my adulthood, when I would become diagnosed with a mental illness like my father, I would read to forget about my sexual assault and my paranoia and delusions.

Of course, you could argue that books and writing can be deceitful. That cliffhanging ending could make you upset; the author could kill off your favorite character. But books are comfortable because they give you an idea of what is in the beginning, middle, and end without needing to venture far to look for it. Reading is like being given the gift of prophecy in a time where you feel stuck with bad emotions.

It can be difficult to read and write though when you are in a depressive or triggered episode. Emotions overwhelm you so much that you feel like you have no control over yourself. It's the worst feeling—you want to move on, but the depression, anxiety, or trigger makes it so that you are stuck with that feeling. Good luck trying to perform any daily activity when you're in this mood, much less read. But when you do overcome the episode, sometimes the best feeling comes when you open the pages of a book.

In essence, a book is a friend. Maybe even a best friend because they understand what you go through without acknowledging it. Just by being itself, a book allows you to understand yourself and the world better so that you can feel that you're not alone in your best and worst moments.