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Hannah Baker

ParentsApril 18, 2017

A teenager on what 13 Reasons Why gets dangerously wrong about teen suicide

Guest writer
Hannah Baker

It’s the TV show that every teenager is watching – and it features graphic scenes of rape and suicide. We asked an Auckland teenager to share her views on controversial new series 13 Reasons Why and what she wants parents to know about its content.

Content warning: This post contains discussions of mental health and suicide.

The content warning that is shown at the start of each episode of 13 Reasons Why

The Netflix show 13 Reasons Why, based on the 2007 book of the same name, is very upsetting to watch. Of course it’s never easy to watch scenes of rape and sexual assault, nor is suicide pleasant, but what was the most upsetting for me was the takeaway message of the show.

The show features the suicide of teenager Hannah Baker. Before she dies she records 13 tapes, blaming 12 people for her death. The show follows the fallout as those who are on her tapes hear what they did to “cause” her suicide.

The main failing of this show is that it continues to perpetuate the idea that suicide is a direct result of a person or an event. For years, experts have emphasised that suicide is always a culmination of many causes, and almost always those who suicide have severe mental health issues. Having someone suicide and then make tapes blaming other people for her death makes it seem like suicide is caused by one specific thing.

The issue of suicide as revenge is also a very worrying theme of the show. For Hannah, it’s as if she died just so that she could get the last word on those she felt did wrong by her when she was alive. This sends a message to the show’s very young and easily-influenced audience that this is the only way to confront those who have hurt you. It suggests it is an understandable, even fair, response to being hurt by someone.

The show depicts Hannah as a teen seeking revenge, not someone in a lot of mental pain. It is never acknowledged that Hannah is mentally ill, nor does the show explore Hannah’s mental state and the pain she must have been feeling. Instead, the focus is entirely on the retelling of events for her revenge tapes. All the episodes are dedicated to Hannah planning the best way to hurt people.

Even the title “13 Reasons Why” is a word choice that directly attacks the recipients of the tapes. The sexual assault aside, bullying is viewed as a “cause” for Hannah’s suicide. When she was bullied, instead of finding a way to recover or address it, she turns the bullying back on the bullies. She threatens to expose them and ruin their lives. A comforting narrative for the bullied – but at what cost?

Bullying is always a difficult issue to educate teenagers about, and it’s hard to demonstrate the best way to deal with it. But this isn’t addressed in 13 Reasons Why. There’s no takeaway for teens who might be going through the same thing as Hannah. As the victim, Hannah has no idea how to handle the bullying or to find any kind of support. The message is – there’s no way out. There’s no way to address bullying. Is that the message teens should be sent?

We do see Hannah going to a counsellor – which doesn’t work for her – but other than that she tells no one of her suicidal thoughts. The show seems to be telling audiences that there is no help available when you need it.

That’s a horrible and potentially devastating message for teenagers who are often struggling with their own suicidal or self harming thoughts and may need help themselves.

Hannah’s counsellor is incapable of helping her. He only makes her feel worse. The idea that this is what counsellors are like is dangerous. When you are not coping there is always someone you can talk to. This is something that 13 Reasons Why never touches on. There are a number of national services in New Zealand to support people who are thinking about hurting themselves – their numbers are at the end of this article. Many of them are free and available 24 hours.

While I admire the show for attempting to tackle such an important issue, especially in our country where we have one of the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world, I am concerned about what might happen as a result of the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JebwYGn5Z3E

13 Reasons Why glorifies suicide and mental illness, and that’s a huge risk given what we know about the suicide contagion phenomenon. This isn’t something you can afford to get wrong when your audience is young people who are at risk of suicide.

As a student and teenager who does, at times, struggle with my own thoughts, I want young people to know that there are so many ways of finding support. You don’t have to talk exclusively to your friends.

Teens need to see how many places they can go to feel safe and how many ways they can feel safer if they just ask for help. There are so many organisations like Youthline, RainbowYOUTH, Lifeline, and Sticks n Stones – they are all dedicated to helping young adults through the same situations that Hannah went through.

Counsellors, in reality, are far more caring than the one in the show.

The isolation that Hannah feels can be avoided if you open up and ask for help – even when that’s really hard to do.

I hope that parents understand that while 13 Reasons Why is accurate in some respects (it does portray life as a teenager well, for example) there’s a lot about it that is just wrong. Due to the graphic rape scenes I don’t think parents should watch the show with their teenager. But they should offer to talk about it with them afterwards. I think self-harm survivors and teenagers who have felt suicidal shouldn’t watch it at all, as it will put them at risk given the suicide scenes and what we know about suicide ideation.

The parents of 13 Reasons Why‘s main protagonist, Clay, think they are protecting him by watching his every move. As a teenager, I want parents to know that taking time to talk to your child and making sure they know you’ll always be supportive is a far better way to keep them safe than keeping the door open at all times or forcing them to eat breakfast as a family.

Read more: 13 Conversations to have about 13 Reasons Why – a mental health professional on how to start a discussion with your kids about the issues raised in the show.

Teenagers don’t know who we can talk to – sometimes we don’t know if we can talk to our parents. Being open about how we feel can be difficult and if there’s doubt in our minds about how our parents might react, we won’t talk to them.

So make sure your teenager knows that you are there for them and can support them. Let them know you want to know what’s going on with them, not so you can punish them but so they can open up safely.

If you really feel that your child is struggling, ask them. Ask them who they could go to for help if they don’t want to talk to you. Forcing your teenager to talk to you will only make them feel controlled. A subtle word to their school counsellor could also help.

The main thing is that they always have somebody to talk to.

If any good comes from 13 Reasons Why it will be that parents are encouraged to let their teenagers know they can talk to them – anytime, but especially if they need help or want to hurt themselves.

The author, Bree Brown

Bree Brown is a 17-year-old Auckland student with a love for music, literature, and new experiences. She wants to spark important discussions about issues that aren’t talked about enough.

Where to get help:

Lifeline – 0800 543 354

Suicide Crisis Helpline (open 24/7) – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)

Depression Helpline  – 0800 111 757 – this service is staffed 24/7 by trained counsellors

Samaritans  – 0800 726 666

Youthline (open 24/7) – 0800 376 633. Text 234 for free between 8am and midnight, or email talk@youthline.co.nz.

0800 WHATSUP (0800 9428 787) – Open between 1pm and 10pm on weekdays and from 3pm to 10pm on weekends. Online chat is available from 7pm to 10pm every day at www.whatsup.co.nz.

Healthline – 0800 611 116

For more information about support and services available to you, contact the Mental Health Foundation’s free Resource and Information Service on 09 623 4812 during office hours or email info@mentalhealth.org.nz

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Notspecialneeds (1)

ParentsApril 13, 2017

‘Special needs’ or basic human needs? On #NotSpecialNeeds and ableist language

Contributing writer
Notspecialneeds (1)

Should we stop using the term ‘special needs’? Spinoff Parents columnist and advocate for children with disabilities Tessa Prebble looks at a new campaign to retire the phrase, launched to mark World Down Syndrome Day.

In the world of social justice, language is important. I consider myself fairly woke, or if I’m honest, in a continuous process of waking up, and almost daily I learn something about the language I’m using in reference to disability, mental health and ableism.

I thought I had the disability language down. I thought I knew which words to avoid, and which to use, but I also know that language in these contexts evolves. What once was a common term or phrase, is now outdated and offensive. Through use, over time, these words collect negative connotations, and become derogatory, and a new word needs to be found and claimed and owned. The words themselves are meaningless by themselves, but we imbue them with meaning because our society views the people behind these labels in negative ways. We do that to those words.

As someone writing in the disability advocacy space from the perspective of a parent, and as someone who is not disabled myself, I pay close attention to what disability activists are saying and how they want to be represented. I try to keep up, because getting the language right is the least I can do. Being told to change my vocabulary is not the equivalent of oppression. I am being asked to respect people’s choices and I put conscious effort into this. This doesn’t deserve applause or a medal, this is common human decency. I expect to be corrected when I get it wrong. I am not the expert, the self advocates are, and I welcome their advice.

Tessa Prebble and her daughter Eva

I will be the first to admit it does get confusing. There’s the people-first language which sees the person to come before the diagnosis. In this case Eva, my daughter, was a person who had CHARGE Syndrome, she was not a CHARGEr, an affectionate term commonly used in CHARGE community circles. In this movement someone with Autism is not an Autistic person but a person with Autism. But that’s where the confusion starts, because in many Autistic groups, the reverse is true, they want to be called Autistic, they see people-first language as inherently negative because it sees Autism as something negative. They are proud of their Autism, it makes them who they are and they wear that label with pride.

In those circumstances, as with gender identities and anything else in the world, we just need to ask. We need to eat some humble pie and understand that we do not understand what it is like to be Autistic, or to have CHARGE Syndrome or to have Down Syndrome, and we need to assume we don’t know what is best in terms of those labels. Ask, and be prepared to be schooled.

While I like to think I am woke, I know I am still waking up, because while I claim to always respect these labels and language boundaries, when I like a term or phrase, or I’m attached to it, I still bristle when I’m told it’s not OK anymore.

This happened very recently with World Down Syndrome Day. There’s a movement happening at the moment called #notspecialneeds. It’s centred around Down Syndrome Awareness Day and on first glance, I got defensive. I thought of Eva and how I had happily attached that language to her, she did have special needs, that’s not a bad thing in my mind. Special is not a bad word. She was special. I told myself it made no sense. Had special needs already worn out its welcome already?

I have grown quite fond of the label special needs, and saw it as a positive. My daughter, Eva, was special. There was no doubt about that. And she had extra needs, no one would argue that either.

Then I found out more about the #notspecialneeds movement, my defenses dropped and it clicked. The video doing the rounds shows a number of adults with Down Syndrome who talk about what a “special” need might look like. They talk about how a genuine special need might involve having to eat dinosaur eggs for breakfast, or wear a full suit of armour, or needing to get massaged by a cat. The video concludes with the people telling the camera that their needs aren’t special, they are like anyone else, they want to have opportunities and community, the chance to work and be accepted.

They are telling us they don’t want to be called special needs, and we should listen, but it goes further than that. They are telling us that while their needs might be considered special to many who aren’t familiar with disability, they shouldn’t be, because any needs they have are in order for them to live inclusive and safe lives like their abled counterparts. The needs they have aren’t extraordinary or special, they are basic human needs, to live and work and be accepted. We see them as special because we have set up society so they don’t fit, so their needs feel so far above and beyond what you or I might need. So their needs feel special and exceptional and more than what is normal.

But what if every person, abled or disabled, was given the supports they needed to be happy and healthy and succeed in whatever way success meant for them? Those needs wouldn’t be special then – individual sure, tailored to each person definitely, but not special. What if we didn’t have to label someone as special needs, because their needs were seen as having the same value as anyone else’s, and therefore didn’t have to be parcelled out and labelled differently?

Unfortunately we don’t live in that world. And because of this, while we should always  respect and honour the terms and language a group wishes to be labeled as, we can’t get rid of the labels altogether. Not yet. We still need those labels. We still need that language, even though it divides us. We still need to have a term to classify those special needs under, because without the terms, the supports and the assistance and the funding disappears. Without the terms, the need disappears from people’s vision, and when we don’t see something, we can pretend it doesn’t exist. We have to be able to highlight this need for this particular and specific group, whatever name they get filed under, because otherwise they fall into the vat of mainstream, where everything is treated “equally” but “equity” is ignored, and people fail in this environment because they aren’t given the help they need to thrive.

We don’t live in a world where special needs or disability are always easy to live with. We live in a world where everything has to be fought for. We need to have that label, so that those fighting have an identity and a face to fight for and with. But if we have to have the label, and it’s going to be used to represent an entire group, the least we should be doing is using the terminology that group wants it to be. Updating your language is the absolute least we can do.

Tessa Prebble is the writer/producer/creator behind The One in a Million Baby. Her podcast began in September 2015 and features interviews with different families living with special and medically fragile kids. It aims to tell the stories of those families so that those who are going through something similar can feel less alone, and those not in their shoes can learn about their lives. Follow the podcast through iTunes, Stitcher Radio or her blog. You can find Tessa on Facebook and Twitter.

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