13 Reasons Why

So it has been a while and to be honest my interest in writing has kind of disappeared at the moment, mostly because I spend at least 8 hours everyday in front of a computer expressing myself via code. For me that has been a way to express myself because I haven’t been able to get my feelings out in any other way. Maybe that’s just me swallowing everything that I’ve experienced or it’s simply my cope mechanism. Anyway, I can go on about what’s been going on in my life for sentences, well essays, but that’s not why I’ve started this post. 

Moving swiftly on, the topic I want to discuss in this post and that has given me a tiny bit of will to write is the TV-show: 13 Reasons Why. After hearing about it for about a month I decided it was my turn to take a look into the mind of a 17 year old girl who committed suicide. I am not going to tell you the story because I think it’s something that can’t properly be expressed with my words but for the ones that haven’t seen it, the show is about a girl that has committed suicide and why she did it. This show has created a lot of debates, especially among parents and schools, since it involves a lot of scenes that are inappropriate for kids. Some may even say that it glorifies suicide and this could lead to more people committing suicide. 

I have to admit, I cried through the whole show. I also have to admit that I have been feeling suicidal at some parts of my life. Did this show make me think suicide was something good or that it is a good solution? No, absolutely not. It did the opposite in fact. The show very clearly show that suicide isn’t a solution to the problem, it will only make it worse. The people around you will suffer and usually they aren’t even aware of how much they might have affected your life.

I do believe that this show is extremely inappropriate for kids to watch but then it’s not made for children. It’s for young adults who actually should be aware of this issue. Blaming a show for not being appropriate for kids is just shooting the messenger. What the show is doing is showing exactly what the problem is, no one takes mental health seriously. There’s this constant talk about how mental health should be talked about and the second something shows the real struggle with it and actually catches something as close to reality as it can get we suddenly shouldn’t see it. It’s adults’ responsibility to make sure their kids don’t watch it when they are too young but where do we draw the line for when people are ready to hear about suicide? I strongly believe that there is a phase in your life when you are turning into an adult. For some people this could be a really hard time because you are trying to find out who you are whilst also trying to fit in. During this time we might be receptive to things like 13 reasons why but the solution to the problem isn’t to not talk about the subject, it’s to approach it in a way that shows that it’s ok to feel like Hannah Baker is feeling and unfortunately if the people around us don’t realise this it can go as far as suicide. 

I personally thought the show was very well made. Yes, there were some scenes that made my body tense up and feel like I shouldn’t have to see things like that but without those scenes I wouldn’t have been affected the same way as I was. I didn’t finish watching the show wanting to commit suicide or think that suicide is the right way forward for anyway. I finished the show with a disgust towards society and people that should step up and take responsibility for kids’ mental health but don’t. It encouraged me to not just stand by and watch but to speak up, which I have done before and will probably do again, because I’ve seen it too many times before; someone screaming for help and instead of being helped they get treated like the wrong ones. That needs to stop and I hope that 13 reasons why will encourage that, that’s the message I got out of it at least.