Essay The Pursuit of Happy-ish
What it feels like when all
your parental nightmares
are rolled into one TVseries
By Susanna SchrobsdorfF
NOBODY TELLS YOU HOW MANY TIMES YOUR HEART WILL
stop when you have kids. If you knew how terrifying even the
almost-tragedies are, you might not have children in the first
place. The time your newborn rolled offthe bed and there
was a harrowing silence before she started to cry. Or when
you grabbed her just before she walked into traffic. And the
ballooning panic of not being able to find her in a crowd.
When they become teenagers, the mission becomes more
complicated. Their bodies are their own. But the thought of
them getting hurt, really hurt, is still unbearable. And the
thought of them injuring themselves deliberately is painful on
a level for which there are no measurements.
That's probably why there's been such an outpouring of
emotion about the new Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, about a
teenage girl's suicide and its aftermath. It's truly graphic. We
see the lead character, Hannah, lie in a tub and slice into her
forearms with a razor. We watch her die slowly. We see her
mother cry out as she tries to pulí her daughter's water-soaked
body. There's no looking away.
And if that weren't enough, leading up to that scene, there's
cyberbullying, self-harm, rape, sexual harassment, a fatal car
crash—just about everything awful that can happen to a teen.
Hannah nárrales her story posthumously as a sort of crime
drama via seven audio cassettes that sequentially reveal the
ñames of 13 people whose behavior contributed to the "reasons
why" she killed herself.
For parents, this is a drawn-out horror movie, one that feels
all too possible. Earlier this month, a new study of 32 children's
hospitals across the country showed that admissions for
suicidal behavior and serious self-harm among 5-to-i7-year-
olds more than doubled between 2008 and '15. That's just
a tiny percentage of the kids who are experiencing major
depression or anxiety or are hurting themselves in various
ways, like cutting. Nationally, 17.7% of teens reported seriously
considering attempting suicide in 2015, according to the CDC.
Not surprisingly, the show that premiered on March 31 has
become a binge-watching obsession among teens and tweens.
Netflix doesn't publish ratings, but by social-media metrics,
13 Reasons Why, based on the best-selling 2007 young-adult
book by Jay Asher, is one of the network's biggest hits.
LOTS OF KIDS WATCHED THE SERIES before adults had even
heard of it. Schools were forced to play catch-up with notices
warning parents of the explicit depictions of suicide and
rape. And clinicians like Dr. Megan Moreno, who heads the
Social Media and Adolescent Health Research Team at Seattle
Children's Hospital, says her team is concerned about
kids already struggling with depression because the
series "presents suicide as a logical solution."
IN RESPONSE TO THE CONTROVERSY, Netflix added
a warning at the start of the series. And there are extra
features with help-line info and psychologists and
producers (including Selena Gómez) encouraging
discussion of the issues raised: "We had a number of
people ask us along the way why we had Hannah kill
herself in the way we did and why we showed it," said
creator Brian Yorkey." We did want it to be painful to
watch. Because we wanted to be very clear that there is
nothing in any way worthwhile about suicide."
Nonetheless, Jim Steyer, the CEO of Common Sense
Media, a nonprofit that provides reviews for parents,
has written to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings asking the
network to do more to inform parents about mature
content targeted to kids. The current "lack of policy,"
writes Steyer, is "highly irresponsible."
The most troubling thing about the series might not
be how graphic it is, but the portrayal of depression.
"Suicide is not a revenge game," says Dr. Fadi
Haddad, co-founder of the Children's Comprehensive
Psychiatric Emergency Program at Bellevue Hospital
in New York City. "It's the act of someone in agony,
and we don't see that kind of depression in the lead
character. She remains functional until the end."
Of course, the hopelessness and isolation that many
teens face doesn't make for a fast-paced plot. And the
causes of depression can't be summed up on a list of
incidents or people to blame. It'd be simpler if that
were true. Treatment for depression is slow. Progress
comes with heartbreaking setbacks. And you realize
that after shielding your kids from danger since birth,
you can't always protect them from themselves. All you
can do is stay cióse, get help and don't ever give up. D