Dear Hannah

Dear Hannah,

I never thought that I would end up writing to you, but I am deeply concerned about my daughter and don’t know who else I can ask.

We live in Livingston New Jersey and she is in seventh grade. LPS (Livingston Public Schools) recently sent out a letter to all parents warning about the new season of the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why. The letter explained that graphic violence and prolonged depiction of suicide in the first season negatively affected some students and that the schools’ counseling departments want to get ahead of any problematic material that may come up on the second season of this popular show.

After getting the letter I watched the first season and was deeply disturbed by the depiction of the main character’s depression and eventual suicide. After watching, I quickly read the book that the show is based on, and was slightly relieved, but then angry at the liberties that the show took with the original story. It seemed that the show writers decided that the story could only be dramatized by making the story more gory, more intense, and less realistic. I was disgusted.
I let my daughter watch whatever she wants because she has always been responsible in picking appropriate material, so I asked her if she had seen this TV show. I was not surprised to learn that she had and that most of her friends had too.

I want to be able to talk to her about it and make sure she is ok with all of the content in it, but we have never really discussed mental health in a serious way. I suffered from clinical depression when I was her age, and while I have shared that experience with her, I don’t think anyone has ever taught her about different kinds of mental illnesses and how they can affect different people.

While I have no qualms with her watching the show, I do worry about her consuming such intense information without having any base knowledge to draw on. What should I do? And am I crazy to be so worried about this?

Thank you,
Concerned Mom

Dear Concerned Mom,

Let me assure you, you are not at all crazy. A show that glorifies suicide in the way that this show does is something that should be followed up on by parents and educators. When the show first came out, many psychiatrists made statements warning if suicide contagion. Research published in July 2017 argues that those concerns were valid. The study found that Google queries about suicide rose by almost 20 percent in 19 days after the show came out, representing between 900,000 and 1.5 million more searches than usual regarding the subject.

While an increase in searches regarding suicide doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in actual suicide attempts, but there is typically a correlation between the two. The authors suggest that editing out the scene of Hannah Baker’s suicide from the show and adding information about suicide hotlines to episodes could immediately minimize 13 Reasons Why’s “deleterious effects.”

All of that being said, your daughter already saw the show and its graphic imagery, so the best thing to do now is make sure that she is educated. There are many books and movies about mental illness and suicidal ideation that I would happily recommend to supplement the portrayal in this TV show, but no amount of pop culture makes up for real mental health education.

Unfortunately, schools do not generally do a great job with this kind of education, so the best place to start is a frank talk with your daughter. At the bottom, I have included Mental health America’s free educational resources, but since you have personal experience with mental illness, I think that would be a good jumping off point.

I have also included here the suicide prevention lifeline, which has never hurt anyone to have, whether for themselves or in case a friend or family member needs it. Thank you so much for your letter, and please do write in with any other follow up questions or thoughts. This is an important topic that more parents should be thinking about.

Much luck,
Hannah

This “Dear Abby” like column is a letter from a mom who having recently watched 13 Reasons Why, is worried about the impact it may have on her 12 year old daughter who also watches the show. The response is not intended to be real advice, but to be similar to the response that would be received if this letter were sent into “Dear Abby”. This mom’s anxiety about her daughter’s relationship to her mental health is an interesting side effect of the growing portrayal of mental illness in pop culture. As positive as most parents know this kind of social education is, the fact that false portrayals can be so easily consumed without any guarantee that kids will recognize which portrayals of mental health are accurate and which are not, is appropriately scary.