There’s always a WHY. Sometimes it’s hard to share it, explain it, feel understood & believed. It’s also hard to hear, make sense of and understand.
But the WHY is there. Are you looking for it? Are you seeing it? Are you ignoring it? Are you hoping it’ll go away?
Teens, bullying, rape, suicide. They aren’t comfortable topics. But, we need to do better at sitting in the uncomfortable space. 13 Reasons Why, written by Jay Asher and made into a Netflix Original Series- does just this. It opens the uncomfortable, ugly topic. It doesn’t shy away.
Have you watched it? Have you sat through the discomfort? Have you noticed what comes up for you? Did you try to look away?
It’s dangerous to look away.
Look longer, sit longer in the uncomfortable, just then we may be able to have a deeper, transformative conversation.
It’s on us.
“It has to get better the way we treat and look out for each other.”
Teenager brains don’t work the way adults do- their frontal lobes in charge of executive reasoning aren’t fully developed. Pain and trauma feel permanent, that they will last forever. Feel there’s no way out- leading to impulsive behavior.
Factor in social media, the ability to instantly share to the world, your peers, anything. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram- curated versions of life. Pictures taken out of context, becoming factual parts of one’s developing identity. Shaping how others see and treat them. One click and the domino effect begins.
Cyber bullying, victim shaming, sexualized objects, slut-shaming.
The power people take over and away from others, instantly. Without thinking of how their behavior impacts another. How creating pain in another, impacts the rest of their life, their world, the loved ones around them. The shame & pain that gets in the way of speaking up, asking for help. Nobody knows what other people are going through. The collateral damage wreaks havoc.
It needs to stop. Change. Get better. It’s on us to change the conversation.