About a year ago, I wrote a
piece the culmination of a bout of depression. My hope was that reading it
might encourage others to seek help, as I did. In publishing the piece, I was
trying to reach out to other people in positions like mine. I wrote for myself,
and for the people who struggle like me.
13 Reasons Why
writes for the loved ones, friends, and acquaintances around us.
It seems to me that Netflix’s new binge-driven show is
incredibly polarizing. There doesn’t seem to be anyone who’s on the fence about
their opinion. Either you love it, or you hate it.
I’m certainly one of the former, one of the people who “gets
it,” I guess.
I’m not going to get into defending the show against allegations
of unnecessarily graphic rape scenes, glorified suicide, or misrepresented
depression. Some of these criticisms are founded, some are plain absurd, but
they aren’t what I want to talk about.
I want to talk about why I think this show is one of the
most poignantly honest portrayals of depression, teenaged angst, and the cruelties
we inflict on one another every day. I’m sure I’ll address some criticisms
indirectly.
As I said, the show is not written primarily for those going
through depression. It is written for the people around those who are
struggling. One thing I was consistently struck with while watching the show is
how well it conveyed one simple fact about depression: nobody – and I mean nobody – can truly understand what is going
on inside of another person’s head.
Of course, the show’s central conceit revolves around Hannah’s
posthumous attempts to illustrate this fact to her classmates. Through recorded
tapes sent to everyone who bullied her and everyone who stood by while she was
bullied, Hannah sets the record straight, explaining in agonizing detail to her
classmates and to her audience how their seemingly small actions can have
massive consequences.
Of course, as many have pointed out, there’s a severe degree
of implausibility in the story. Would the narrative unfold this way in real
life? No, probably not. But that’s not the point. 13 Reasons Why is a show about severe angst, the feeling that the
entire world is against you. Such angst does not allow for reality to prevail.
Such angst, by its very nature, makes our perception of the world unrealistic.
One thing 13 Reasons
Why does so effectively is portray this angst for adults. I’m sure many teens
who watch the show are familiar with having their struggles dismissed or
ignored: “just try to focus on school;” “it doesn’t last forever;” “we all went
through it.”
While these voices generally mean well, such attitudes are
dangerously dismissive. For adults – specifically parents and teachers – to portray
these attitudes to their kids is to devalue the struggles those kids are going
through. When you are a teen, when you’re in high school, surrounded by
hundreds of other insecure, confused, and struggling individuals in a microcosm
of raging hormones, that angst is real for you. Sure, we can all say that we went
through it. But if you find that this is your attitude, ask yourself: was there
ever a point where it didn’t feel real? Was there ever a point where those
struggles weren’t your entire world?
I found myself thinking a lot about my own high school experience
while watching the show. When I was seventeen, I was more a Clay than a Hannah,
but I empathize with both characters. Off the top of my head, I can list a
dozen names, people who probably don’t even remember my name yet invariably
left marks on me through their words or their actions. I hope that in watching
the show people like that might come to realize that words and actions that
might seem inconsequential to them almost always have consequences: if I, as
someone who was innocuous and socially awkward but never bullied harshly, felt
the sting of individuals’ words, how must the Hannahs of my school felt?
When I was in high school, I didn’t consider myself
depressed. It is only in retrospect that I can apply that label, and understand
the reasons I felt like I did.
A lot has been written about the show’s failure to qualify
Hannah’s mental illness. While I understand this criticism, I feel it is misplaced.
Indeed, I think the fact that Hannah is never defined as clinically depressed
is part of what makes the show so effective. In the end, the term “depression”
is a somewhat arbitrary and incredibly broad label. 13 Reasons Why focusses on the manifestation of that depression,
and how those around us can recognize the signs.
As much as I hate to admit it, there remains a stigma around
mental illness. It’s a hot phrase that is often easily dismissed. The result of
this is that directly explaining Hannah’s mental illness would have been either
unnecessary or alienating. As I’ve said, this is not a show primarily written
for those who suffer from mental illness, but one written for those around the
sufferer. The jocks of Hannah’s school would have easily dismissed her
depression, just as the bullies of my high school would have.
Of course Hannah’s mental illness influenced her reaction to
these things, but we already know that. Obviously
Hannah was depressed, but directly labelling her as such would have made it far
too easy to dismiss the actions of those around her: the bullies who
objectified her, the parents who didn’t pay enough attention, or the man who
raped her because he thought she “wanted it.” The show is written for the real
life people like this.
13 Reasons Why is
not a show primarily about the experience of mental illness, but about how we
all need to be better at recognizing and understanding the effects our actions
have on one another. We simply don’t know what another person is going through.
In real life, nobody wears a badge or goes around proclaiming “I’m depressed.” Indeed,
many teens probably don’t realize that they are depressed. 13 Reasons Why does not shirk away from the fact that there is
often a thin line between clinical depression and general angst, and that
drawing a sharp line between these two things should not be our purpose.
There is nothing this show shirks away from. It addresses a
wide array of issues with brutal honesty, harnessing its young adult milieu to
speak to teens and adults alike. 13
Reasons Why is not a show for the Hannahs of the world, but a show for the
Clays and the parents of the world; it is a show for all the guidance
counsellors who might dismiss their students and for all the kids who think it’s
just a joke, or who think that silence means consent. For this reason, it
should be required viewing.
If you think you or someone around you might be consider
hurting themselves, there are resources you can reach out to. I know it isn’t
easy sometimes. Trust me, I know. But please do it, if not for yourself then
for those who love you. Reach out to a friend or family member, a teacher or a
co-worker, or call one of these numbers.
KidsHelpPhone
Ages 20 Years and Under in Canada 1-800-668-6868
First Nations and Inuit Hope for Wellness 24/7 Help Line 1-855-242-3310
Trans LifeLine – All Ages 1-877-330-6366
First Nations and Inuit Hope for Wellness 24/7 Help Line 1-855-242-3310
Trans LifeLine – All Ages 1-877-330-6366
24 Crisis
Line – 1-403-266-4357
Finally, here are a few resources for further reading:
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