"13 Reasons Why" - A Series About The Loneliness Of A Teenager - Reviews

The word "angular" is a common epithet when talking about teenagers. And first of all, of course, you think about some external clumsiness. Well, which of us was a handsome man at a transitional age? But in many cases this word is an ideal characteristic of a psychological state. A boy or a girl with all their problems, irregularities and sharp corners does not fit into the world where they have to live and grow up

The topic is painful and always attracts attention when someone decides to show it as it is. That is what the creators of the American TV series "13 Reasons Why" did a couple of years ago. The script is based on the book of the same name by Jay Asher.

Why the show got so much attention

A movie about the life of a teenager is always interesting. But in this case, the directors and screenwriters went further, showing us what happens after his death. Schoolgirl Hannah commits suicide by leaving a box of audiotapes to her classmates. Each side of the cassette is a story about one of the reasons for its decision. Each reason is a story associated with one of the guys listening to the recordings.

Each of Hannah's notes makes the situation more and more voluminous. Already the first episodes let the viewer understand that there seem to be no goodies here at all. The teenagers in the series constantly lie to adults and to each other, live for their own pleasure, mock outsiders and do not care about those around them. They are quite cruel and think exclusively of themselves. Until tragedy strikes.

Reading reviews of 13 Reasons Why is just as fun as watching the show itself. Every second viewer writes about the fact that the main character is to blame for everything herself. Every third says that the paints are generally thickened and this does not happen. The popularity of the series is such that it was extended for a second season, although the events of the first completely exhausted the plot of Escher's book. The separately written script continues the story of the schoolchildren who became the unwitting culprits in Hannah's death. The third season will be released in 2019.

"Thinks only of himself": annoying behavior of a teenager

She behaves stupidly, inconsistently, thinks only of herself and always inflates an elephant out of a fly - all this is said by the audience about the main character Hannah Baker, who committed suicide. And she recorded on seven cassettes a detailed story about why and how she came to this. The last fact is incredibly annoying: not just commit suicide, but put its reasons on public display, describing each one to the smallest detail! Is this what a person about to die does?

Thinking that a person cannot scrupulously plan suicide is a mistake. And there is no big trouble when we do it in relation to a movie hero, but what if in relation to a close, really existing person? This, unfortunately, happens. A common stereotype is that they don't warn about suicide, all the talk about it is just an attempt to attract attention and arouse pity. However, the facts are stubborn things: it happens that an attempt to attract attention is followed by a real suicide attempt.

Indeed, any hint of a possible departure from life is an attempt to attract attention. The teenager hopes until the last moment that the all-powerful adults will fix everything. And even doing the irreparable, he probably hopes. And this is understandable, because all of us, while growing up, for a long time do not stop believing, at least subconsciously, in the superpowers of parents or other significant adults: to feel, to understand everything without words, to be there at the right moment, to solve any problem.

Conversations about suicide, even implicit hints of it, are a signal that a person is bad. Believe me, a contented teenager will have more interesting things to do than frighten you with his own death with nothing to do.

Adults don't understand?

The second accusation presented to Hannah: the reasons why she decided to die are insignificant, ridiculous, they are not worth a damn. Indeed, for an adult and more or less mentally stable person, school bullying, or the betrayal of a friend, or violence do not seem to be grounds for suicide. “Everything can be lived through while you are alive,” we say. But we say this from our relatively prosperous reality. And it is extremely rare that these words come to the address - to a teenager who is in a completely different reality. Where he is completely alone and it seems that nothing can be done with what is happening.

A teenager may be silent about his problems for a variety of reasons. "Adults still won't understand, they are too busy with their own affairs, they won't believe, they will blame me." The idea of "how it will be if I tell you" is almost entirely based on how the parents communicated with the teenager before: did they help, support, defend, did they take his side in controversial situations. A basic sense of security always comes from family relationships. Resistance to some external adversity, and, ultimately, the desire to live depends on this feeling.

Why is the show so popular? Why does it make many people angry, annoying, but they still watch it and then write about it? He's true. We may not believe that yesterday's children are so cruel, that a teenager is capable of committing suicide because of some offense. The human psyche, if he is more or less healthy, applies protective mechanisms in time. And when we are afraid, when we feel powerless in front of something, this is often a mechanism of denial.

“It doesn't happen like that,” we say. And thus we leave the person who is already on the verge, alone with his problems. In this case, this person is a child. Yes, a teenager is a child learning to be an adult. And usually he really wants it, but he has neither the resources nor the experience for this. Not easy, right?

What to do?

1. The same as with any other person about whom you are worried - offer to talk. If there is trust in your relationship, it will work. If there is no trust, it's time to restore it.

2. Take seriously the teenager himself and the fact that he may have problems and these problems are really significant.

We often perceive problem adolescents as selfish, spoiled, etc. It's hard to believe, but true: these are the same people in whom certain feelings and processes are pushed to the limit due to the age period they are experiencing. For some reason, we are able to understand young children who do not hold back crying or tell the "inappropriate" truth, but get angry with the teenager when he behaves the way he does.

3. If a child is bullied or bullied at school, offer help. In the event that a son or daughter refuses to help, observe whether he can cope on his own. Unfortunately, this is not always possible. At school, first of all, it is worth talking with those who are responsible for order: this is the class teacher, the head teacher, the director.

What not to do:

• spy, access social networks and diaries, read correspondence on the phone;
• press, persuade, convince that his problems are nonsense;
• brush aside your own intuition and hope that everything will somehow be solved by itself.

If this teenager is yourself

• Firstly, if you have read this article, you probably already can see: someone cares. There are more people like that than you think, and perhaps some of them are with you now.

• Secondly, before making a decision, it makes sense to find out how someone dealt with similar problems before you. Here is a site where you can get useful information:

  Here - read the stories of those who were going to commit suicide:

  And here - get free help:

• Third - and this is perhaps the most important - most likely, the situation in which you find yourself is really difficult. Maybe even unbearable. And if you say that there is a way out of any situation, you may not believe it. It is understandable. Therefore, you will have to find out whether there is a way out and whether it is possible to cope with your problem on your own experience. With someone's help, if you agree to accept it, well, or on your own.

But to find out if there is a way out, you can only on one condition - if you are alive. Therefore, to begin with, please be alive. This is the only key to success.