Observations After "Watching 13 Reasons Why"

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE SERIES, POSSIBLE SPOILERS!


I can understand the reasons why many people are overwhelmed while watching this popular Netflix series. This is the most intense fictional series I have ever watched. It pulls on all of your heart strings at once. It plays on your thoughts, doubts and criticisms of what you may think of depression and of what you might think loneliness is. Of course it explores of what we think we know and don't know what a person is feeling. to often we think we know, but we don't know anything of what a person is experiencing.

While I watch this show and let might self get immersed in the story, Why did Hannah not lean on her parents more? Or where they to involved in the failing family business to notice she was hurting? They series really speaks volumes about the statement that suicide is a permeate solution to a temporary situation. She was so desperate to fit into that part of the world for the time that she was in high school.

I am 54, and I have to admit growing up I wanted to fit in, but to what point? I hated school because at times it seemed to be more about social circles then education. The reward for a good education was fitting in with the crowd. But not for Hannah, she wanted good strong friends that she could lean on. My grades where below average, Did I try to do better? No! I just wanted to survive  that day at school and get home. That was my goal.

Watching Hannah surrender to suicide just hurt.  But nothing was more hurtful then the last 3 episodes. Don't get me wrong, the first 10 episodes where dramatically important, It was the foundation of what happened in the final 3 episodes.

When Clay was listening to his tape and understanding how he missed Hannah's call for help. He refused to tell her he loved her. When he was day dreaming about what he should of done and Hannah said "Clay why did you not tell me this when I was alive", it was a direct punch to the gut.

I can not bring myself to understand why Hannah killed herself, but that is me looking at a fictional TV character. That is me not understanding what it is to be truly alone. Hannah had loving parents, I was not clear what happen in that relationship, Why did she not talk to them more, or was it they did not talk to her?

This series should be a lesson for school systems not to micro manage what a young adolescent or teenager is feeling. This should be a wake up call for what happens in our schools and why so many kids drop out because of the daily depressing war kids fight everyday. For the kids left behind in the system it's more about surviving the school week then good grades, Put bad grades on top of that it's like a impossible situation to survive.

You can debate and discuss this series on so many levels. The series is the blue print of what we don't understand of what a person is experiencing or hell that the may be going through. And what are we suppose to do when we see a person that we believe is trouble? How much space do we give them or not give them? At what point do we intervene, and how do we know they are on the edge? In 2014 Robin Williams committed suicide, just recently it was reported that lead singer for the popular rock band sound garden Chris Cornell killed himself. what signs did they show before they died.

I only scratched the surface of what the series says about the human condition. I know I have repeated myself in this blog post, but this series forces us as humans to ask ourselves why?

Suicide is the Permeate Solution to a Temporary Problem