13 REASONS WHY: My PERSPECTIVE

Spring events 2017:

(my personal opinions are based on my own sphere of influence and experiences. I am not a professional nor do I have science-based evidence)

My husband is a pediatric hospitalist and IF a teen attempted suicide and failed, the teen would see an ER doc, be admitted, and be treated by a pediatric hospitalist to stabilize vital organs.

Mental health professionals, who are available during the hospital stay, also begin taking histories. A lot of emotional & physical work is involved.

(Ironically or coincidentally: more teens were admitted over the weekend for suicide attempt than in recent months. (Much higher than normal. This trend has repeated for 3 weeks: coincidentally,the show first aired 4 weeks ago.)

My son is a high school teacher, and I have 2 teens. (both teens have had "friend groups" comment about this series which was FIRST a book. 12-year-olds are seemingly intrigued)

Lastly, my now 18-year-old son has been treated by a psychiatrist since 3rd grade for Tourette's/OCD/ADD and I have sat it on countless sessions when the trained medical professional has asked my son if he feels sad enough to hurt himself. (Mandatory question for certain medications.)

I felt compelled to understand this series and hype and watched the FIRST and the LAST 2 episodes. (3 hours total)

I can now effectively offer opinions and weed out the " Hollywood" drama and separate reality from ENTERTAINMENT! 

This is the issue with this Netflix drama and all other media streaming on our devices. 

ENTERTAINMENT VS REALITY!!

The 25-and older target age group are hauntingly and willingly entertained and intrigued. The development of their brains most likely allows them to not be coercly affected by the 3 most graphic scenes. 

Target audience teen brains, however, may transpose images quite differently and separating reality vs. fantasy becomes skewed based on life experiences. 

The reality is doctors/medical professionals/staff in our Children's Hospital have treated more teen suicide attempt victims in the last 4 weeks than prior to this NETFLIX series being aired. Some teen patients HAVE admitted the Netflix show based on revenge suicide affected their actions. 

The mental health system in our region is bulging currently. The "true" victims will be the teens that succeed in "revenge suicide" and the teens who have "real" and not situational mental health symptoms such as bi-polar, schizophrenia, depression, addiction, etc. who will get "delayed" mental health due to an inordinate amount of "revenge" attempts.

I did not waste 13 hours on  disturbing, violent, overly dramatic, immoral entertainment seemingly depicting current high school social interactions. 

I GOT ENOUGH IN 3 hours.

The relevant topics depicted are none other than age-old bullying, positive and negative peer pressure, honest use of social media, listening intently to your own Holy Ghost/conscience/instinct and tell it like it is NO MATTER WHAT consequences may occur to other teens. Lack of parental involvement during "trigger" moments was hauntingly absent in the series. 

RAPE IS RAPE ... Death is DEATH. ... Reputations are important and should be honored.