My Friend Dahmer

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Consider how public discourse around accessing mental health support has changed. How has this discourse changed over time? Do you know of the appropriate phone numbers for mental health support in your community or how to find them?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question invites students to consider the role of mental health support systems in their communities. In recent years, accessing mental health resources has become more socially acceptable; however, during the graphic novel’s setting of the late 1970s, mental health support was stigmatized and associated with words like “crazy” that resulted in a Lack of Social Support for Vulnerable Individuals. In the late 19th and early 20th century, people who experienced hallucinations or acted in “unusual” ways were often placed in “asylums” or “mental institutions.” Often, these spaces were poorly funded, patients were mistreated, and experiments were performed on them. There was an association between receiving mental health support and being labeled as “crazy.” During Dahmer’s childhood and adolescence, the people in his life would have most likely held some of these associations.