I know I am a little late to the party in making this post, but I would just like to vocalize my issues with this show since it is a topic very near and dear to my heart. I have been dealing with suicide for a long time. I have seen depression come into the lives of many people including my own. I have seen some defeat it, and I have seen some fall to it. It is a hard subject for anyone to deal with no matter who you are and what you feel inside.
When I was in 4th grade my best friend's brother committed suicide. Eventually that best friend became my boyfriend and I watched him struggle with depression and thoughts of suicide. Then my senior year of high school I went through that same struggle. There was a darkness that came over me and I could not express that feeling to anyone. I stayed in, closed myself off and almost did not graduate high school.
See depression and suicide are more than just someone saying mean things about you. It is a mental disease that needs to be treated which the show did not touch upon enough. This show turned suicide into a dramatic love story that young people are watching and fantasizing about. This show glorified suicide and made it seem like suicide is a way of getting people to talk about you and feel sorry for you. While external factors do contribute to depression a lot of the work is done internally. It is a chemical imbalance that messes with how you think and how you function. It is not just simply because Jimmy did not text you back.
Now, I read this book when I was in 7th grade and I do not remember a lot of it, but I know it did not cause this much of an uproar. I do not know if times are changing or what but the TV show just did not do a good job.
The TV show turned the message into a love story that little middle schoolers are now begging to have. A relationship ending in suicide is not ideal ladies and gents. And Clay then goes on and on about how he was afraid to love her and that is why she did it and then saying that he is going to try to love her back to life. Do not make this about yourself. This is someones internal struggle so do not put the blame just because you did not say hi to her in the hallway. They are all sitting there thinking that they are the reason for her killing herself, but she had issues and she had a problem. If someone does not share those feelings with you how could you know that they were going to kill themselves. Just because she did not get coffee with you does not mean that is the reason why she killed herself. She needed to see a doctor and get some type of help.
The show also turned this into one big court case and you have these 13 teenagers withholding evidence which is a crime already! They might get in trouble if they give the police the tapes, so lets just keep passing them on and playing this little game and actually commit a crime.
Additionally, the fact that they showed Hannah killing herself in such detail. I could not watch any part of that scene. Not her mother finding her. None of that. To show her actually committing suicide was unbelievable. I had a physical panic attack after watching just part of it. That just seemed to take it too far.
I just did not like the show. It glorified suicide and made so that suicide was talked about in the wrong way. As if it is a dramatic experience instead of a medical issue that needs treatment.
Lee Chand
If you or someone you know is struggling, please use one of these hotlines.
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