13 reasons.

I am pretty sure after seeing the title, you know that I'm about to talk about the latest series that everyone has been catching...

Today is the day that I have finally watched finished all 14 episodes of "13 Reasons Why", which is a Netflix series based on a book adaptation and I have decided to give you a little review of how the series went and why you should watch it as well as some personal thoughts that I had after watching this series.

First of all, I have to say that this is a very powerful 14-episode series especially to the teenagers of our generation. If you don't already know what this show is about, its based on a high school girl named Hannah Baker who committed suicide and sent 7 cassette tapes to a really good friend of hers named, Clay Jenson. On these 7 tapes were individual reasons as to why she had killed herself and who were responsible for them.

The series in my opinion was really good and it serves as a really good reflection as to how we teenagers currently treat one another. It really delves deep into how the little actions and words that come out of us can really affect someone emotionally, just like Hannah Baker. She suffered from so much mental stress and trauma because of all the things that people did to her: slut-shaming, mockery, sexual assault etc. You never know exactly how much a teenager can tolerate, whether they can take it as a joke or they take words seriously.

In addition, there is also our media-dominated society. Every day we are on our social media accounts like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and more and these social platforms are where people post things daily. In the series, we saw how a picture of Hannah Baker got spread round the school through social media platforms with people looking at the picture assuming that she had done something indecent with a guy. There are always people out there twisting the facts around and these very gossips and false truths are some of the reasons how someone can end up getting emotionally damaged, people start having the wrong impression of you and making assumptions about you that are not true and it torments you mentally and emotionally.

Also, as friends of those that we have seen and witnessed getting bullied, we need to be there for them and help them in any way we can. We should never be by-standers and just assume that just because they have a smile on their face means that they are fine. Sometimes, people are just really good at keeping things to themselves and that is ultimately what kills and destroys their positive spirit. They eventually get filled with so much negativity that they seem to come to a conclusion that all hope is lost. Making a reference to the series, we saw how Clay Jenson got filled with regret and guilt because he did know of some of the things that Hannah had gone through but he assumed that keeping quiet and not talking to her about it would be the best for her when it actually wasn't.

These are some personal thoughts that came to mind when I watched the show and it really made me realise that gossiping and making judgements about people can really affect that person and we need to always remind ourselves to put ourselves into the shoes of these people and ponder: If I got gossiped or talked about in this way, would I like it? It is so incredibly important that as teenagers, we need to be there for one another and not talk bad or judge each other behind one another's backs.

Suicide should also NEVER be the solution to problems. Yeah, there will be times when we think we can't resolve situations or problems on our own, but that is when we need to turn to our parents for help or go to treatment centres etc. Unfortunately in the series, it was seen that the school counsellor to some extent was responsible for the death of Hannah. He heard her problem of getting assaulted by Bryce but instead of helping her by calling the police or helping to tell her parents what she is going through, he tells her to move one and forget about it and that is incredibly insane for a victim of sexual assault. She has been hurt and has experienced so much emotional pain and yet instead of helping her, he makes it worse. She ultimately commits suicide by slitting her wrist and letting herself bleed out to death in the bathtub, that was the toughest scene to watch in the whole series but that was the soul purpose that the producers wanted to make the audience feel. This is to show everyone out there that suicide isn't worthwhile because you cause your loved ones to feel hurt and suffer in pain from realising that you killed yourself when you could have sought help and think of better options.

When teenagers have problems and situations, it is most often that they would keep it to themselves. Sometimes it is because there is some difficulty about telling a parent about it because you just don't know how but there are times when teenagers think, these negative thoughts and problems will go away soon. When in reality, these problems actually start piling up.

I really hope that everyone has a chance to watch this series because it could really become a catalyst for change, to make an impact on you and make you realise that maybe starting from today, there are certain things that you could change for the good of yourself and others. I could have saved this write-up for 10 September which is Suicide Prevention Day but I thought, why not post this now? You never know who could be reading your blog and what your opinions can do for others right?

This series made an impact on me and I hope it will on you too.

xoxo

Amanda