🎧 13 Reasons Why 🎧

 

I'd avoided this show for a while because I was afraid it'd portray suicide as "sexy," "edgy," or "powerful," when in reality, it's pointless and heartbreaking. After watching the entire first season, I'm pleasantly surprised that it's fairly realistic and treats the subject with respect.

 

The main critique I've seen online from Mental Health Awareness groups is that the show doesn't examine the mental illness often found in suicidal individuals. But 13 Reasons Why is just a TV show (based on a book), and it presents a different perspective. What I like most about the show is that on paper, the main character, Hannah Baker, is someone you'd never expect to take her own life: a smart, upbeat, well-educated, popular girl with loving parents. 

 

This especially hits home because in my senior year of high school, one of our classmates committed suicide. He was only 17 years old, well-liked, was on the Varsity Football team, and yet, he killed himself. Since his best friend had been murdered earlier in the school year, the school just wrote his suicide off as "grief" and we never had an official dialogue about it (probably because the school already had one national scandal to deal with). There is one picture of us together in the junior yearbook and for years, I'd come back to it, looking for any sign of depression or something I could've prevented. But suicide is never a decision based on logic; it's driven by emotion. His death always left me dumbstruck because my biggest fear has always been not living up to my full potential and achieving at least some of my dreams.

 

I also like that Hannah's untimely death isn't pinned on one single event, as you'd probably see in a LifeTime Movie of the Week about cyber bullying (seriously, where's the outrage about THAT?). We get 13 HOURS of insight into her final moments and the events leading up to her death. She dies 13 little deaths before ultimately being pushed off the cliff.

When Hannah commits the final act of self-mutilation, I'm glad that the show doesn't glamorize or romanticize it. It's brutal, it's painful, it's VERY bloody, it's loud, and I was literally sick to my stomach. And I pray that it prevents any child who watches it from ever considering suicide as a viable option. You won't be around to see the reactions of your 13 tormentors, you won't be awarded Clever Points for your suicide mixtapes... but your family will be devastated.