so when all of you heard that the theme
of today’s event was serendipity I’m
sure a lot of you expected kind of
optimistic happy talks unfortunately
mine starts in a bit of a dark place but
I promise we’ll get to the optimism
later but just to kind of set the stage
right out right our nation has a history
with suicide now when I say this word
I’m sure a lot of people in this room
feel a bit uncomfortable it’s not a
discussion that we typically like to
have but it’s one that we do need to
discuss now as a nation our suicide
rates have actually been fairly stagnant
over the past few years but that is not
truly reflective of the composition of
those suicide rates as a matter of fact
as this chart displays between 2007 and
2014 adolescents who have said rates
more than doubled now this is
immediately concerning when we think
about this statistic but it becomes even
more alarming when we start to consider
why this change might be happening and
one of the more interesting propositions
that we have heard about is that media
in the way that media is incorporating
narratives of mental illness into
entertainment can actually be
perpetuating some of the negative stigma
surrounding mental illness now this is
not something that a lot of people are
aware of because in a lot of people’s
minds representation equals improvement
and while most of the time that is true
the flawed representations of mental
illness that often come through an
entertainment not only failed to
accomplish their positive goals but
actually perpetuate the problem that
they claim to be solving as a matter of
fact Stephen Hinshaw professor of
psychology at the University of
California Berkeley said that the worst
stereotypes come out in such depictions
mentally ill individuals as incompetent
dangerous slovenly undeserving these
portrayals still serve to distance them
from the rest of us ultimately people
with mental illness don’t look to mental
illness on the screen as something that
is helpful rather it serves to distance
them from the rest of society they view
themselves on the screen as something
that is a threat something that is
dangerous
often times because of the flawed way
that they are represented and this
actually comes through and a lot of
forms of media we all are kind of aware
of the role that social media can play
in suicide rates particularly because of
phenomena like cyberbullying wherein
people are oftentimes have their mental
illnesses perpetuated by derogatory
comments but a lot of people aren’t
aware of the problematic extent to which
media perpetuates mental illness so I
want to talk about a few examples
outright that I think everybody in here
will recognize and maybe kind of help
you understand what I’m talking about
first the in night Shyamalan film split
came out this past year it did fairly
well it got a lot of really positive
reviews and many people said that it was
one of the best films to come out in the
year but split depicts one of the main
characters Kevin as having diid
dissociative identity disorder which is
a disorder in which in response to some
type of trauma an individual develops
multiple personalities to help them cope
people with the ID can be aggressive but
oftentimes they’re just trying to work
through their own trauma in their own
way in this film Kevin’s mental mental
illness is used to justify his
kidnapping and acts of violence against
several individuals and even at times
his transitions between personalities
turn him into a physical monster these
representations of the ID are obviously
damaging because people living with that
disorder don’t like to think of
themselves as monsters they don’t like
to think that just because of the way
that their brain chemicals are altered
means that they are more likely to
kidnap and murder people but it goes
beyond films the Joker is a fairly
well-known comic-book character also
comes out in a lot of films but
specifically in a lot of comic-book
iterations his acts of violence within
Gotham the Batman universe are
frequently blamed on his mental illness
even going so far in some iterations to
say that he commits these large acts of
violence because he’s schizophrenic
obviously there seems to be some type of
disconnect there especially for people
here in the audience that knows what
schizophrenia actually looks like people
with schizophrenia are not mass
murderers
just because you have a mental illness
doesn’t mean that you are going to rig
up a bomb to blow up a hospital there’s
an obvious disconnect there that many
members of the public don’t see but if
you are someone be close to you suffers
from schizophrenia these representations
hurt but perhaps the most common and
discussed problem that we see with
entertainment media and mental illness
is with issues of depression and anxiety
and a really great example of this is
the Netflix series 13 reasons why this
show depicts Hanna Baker a high school
student who has committed suicide she
leaves behind 13 tapes for 13 people to
tell them the role that they played in
her suicide many people loved this show
it received great reviews and its second
season is coming out soon Netflix when
they originally released it championed
themselves as mastering the art of
mental illness representation but as a
matter of fact what this message
conveyed to people actually fighting
against depression is that there are at
least 13 good reasons to end one’s own
life and that could not be further from
the truth
we tend to think that media is just for
entertainment and it can’t really affect
us but unfortunately for people that are
dealing with issues that are portrayed
and media they will recognize the
problems that a lot of us are content to
ignore and I’m unfortunately not just
talking in hypotheticals there have been
a lot of cases recently that I’ve been
connected back to entertainment media
and I want to talk about two in
particular
priscilla chu and bella Herndon both
depicted here with their fathers these
images were taken a few weeks before
these two high school girls took their
own life what is unique about these
cases is that in both instances in their
last remarks or notes to their family
they mentioned 13 reasons why as one of
the reasons that they committed the act
they thought that it showed that people
really do care about you more when
you’re gone that it is okay to commit
suicide as long as it’s for a meaning
that is a
horrible lesson to be teaching our
children and these two people Priscilla
and Bella they are not the only people
that lost their lives because of this
media representation they’re just the
ones that made the headlines it’s even
more concerning when we think about the
fact that the rising suicide rates among
adolescents could very well be tied to
what we all consider to be great
television and movies now beyond just on
a world scale I do want to talk about
why I want to have this conversation
here in this school on this stage and
that’s because of this this is a KXAN
article that came out recently that
revealed that Lake Travis ISD students
are more likely to consider suicide than
the national average to go into more
detail 170 students have contemplated
suicide that’s 6 percent of our high
school population and 80 students have
attempted it to put that into a bit more
perspective the six percent that have
contemplated suicide that’s one out of
every about 16 students our average
class size here at Lake Travis is thirty
meaning that if you’re a Lake Travis
high school student sitting in this room
in any of your classes you have about
two people that have contemplated
suicide and about one that has attempted
it these numbers prove that mental
illness is not something that we can
ignore it’s not going to go away and
it’s not something that only affects
other people
mental illness will affect the lives of
just about everybody in America whether
you’re going through yourself or
somebody close to you and a lot of times
these people don’t know that they need
to vocalize or ask for help so we need
to be the ones that are willing to have
that discussion and challenge the stigma
that perpetuates the violence that they
have to undergo so now let’s get to the
optimistic part first I want to point
everybody to a really good resource this
is an organization called rethink mental
illness their website is rethink org is
a uk-based organization that holds
petitions and events and fundraisers to
try to challenge mental illness stigma
particularly in the media I think this
is a great organization if we are trying
to fight against the media giants that
we as individuals can’t have much
influence over so I highly recommend
everybody checks out this website it’s
also just great if you’re wanting to
educate yourself a bit more about mental
illness
but then that leaves the question of
what can we as individuals do mental
illness often seems vast and unknowable
but helping people around you that are
suffering from mental illness is a lot
easier than you may think all that we
have to do is be someone else’s
serendipity it’s like I said people with
mental illness often don’t know or want
to ask for help they’re ashamed they
think that they don’t deserve help they
think that people don’t care about them
but as I’m sure everybody in this room
that has a connection to mental illness
knows people that are mentally ill are
just as loved as anybody else and they
are just as deserving of help and care
we need to be willing to have this
conversation we need to not get
uncomfortable when suicide gets
mentioned into a microphone in a black
box theater we need to be willing to
open up this discourse and I would
encourage everybody in this room to
become more educated on mental illness
look for signs and those around you and
to reach out for them and encourage them
to get help I want to end on a quote
from an organization called Social Work
helper they say that mental health
awareness should not only be for a day
or two or even a month we must be
informed about it because it can easily
happen to someone close to us awareness
does not just end here don’t be scared
to talk about it it’s hard work but the
power to reach and teach the community
is well worth it I would encourage
everybody here to try to be somebody
else with serendipity and I want to
thank everybody for letting me try to start this battle here thank you
of today’s event was serendipity I’m
sure a lot of you expected kind of
optimistic happy talks unfortunately
mine starts in a bit of a dark place but
I promise we’ll get to the optimism
later but just to kind of set the stage
right out right our nation has a history
with suicide now when I say this word
I’m sure a lot of people in this room
feel a bit uncomfortable it’s not a
discussion that we typically like to
have but it’s one that we do need to
discuss now as a nation our suicide
rates have actually been fairly stagnant
over the past few years but that is not
truly reflective of the composition of
those suicide rates as a matter of fact
as this chart displays between 2007 and
2014 adolescents who have said rates
more than doubled now this is
immediately concerning when we think
about this statistic but it becomes even
more alarming when we start to consider
why this change might be happening and
one of the more interesting propositions
that we have heard about is that media
in the way that media is incorporating
narratives of mental illness into
entertainment can actually be
perpetuating some of the negative stigma
surrounding mental illness now this is
not something that a lot of people are
aware of because in a lot of people’s
minds representation equals improvement
and while most of the time that is true
the flawed representations of mental
illness that often come through an
entertainment not only failed to
accomplish their positive goals but
actually perpetuate the problem that
they claim to be solving as a matter of
fact Stephen Hinshaw professor of
psychology at the University of
California Berkeley said that the worst
stereotypes come out in such depictions
mentally ill individuals as incompetent
dangerous slovenly undeserving these
portrayals still serve to distance them
from the rest of us ultimately people
with mental illness don’t look to mental
illness on the screen as something that
is helpful rather it serves to distance
them from the rest of society they view
themselves on the screen as something
that is a threat something that is
dangerous
often times because of the flawed way
that they are represented and this
actually comes through and a lot of
forms of media we all are kind of aware
of the role that social media can play
in suicide rates particularly because of
phenomena like cyberbullying wherein
people are oftentimes have their mental
illnesses perpetuated by derogatory
comments but a lot of people aren’t
aware of the problematic extent to which
media perpetuates mental illness so I
want to talk about a few examples
outright that I think everybody in here
will recognize and maybe kind of help
you understand what I’m talking about
first the in night Shyamalan film split
came out this past year it did fairly
well it got a lot of really positive
reviews and many people said that it was
one of the best films to come out in the
year but split depicts one of the main
characters Kevin as having diid
dissociative identity disorder which is
a disorder in which in response to some
type of trauma an individual develops
multiple personalities to help them cope
people with the ID can be aggressive but
oftentimes they’re just trying to work
through their own trauma in their own
way in this film Kevin’s mental mental
illness is used to justify his
kidnapping and acts of violence against
several individuals and even at times
his transitions between personalities
turn him into a physical monster these
representations of the ID are obviously
damaging because people living with that
disorder don’t like to think of
themselves as monsters they don’t like
to think that just because of the way
that their brain chemicals are altered
means that they are more likely to
kidnap and murder people but it goes
beyond films the Joker is a fairly
well-known comic-book character also
comes out in a lot of films but
specifically in a lot of comic-book
iterations his acts of violence within
Gotham the Batman universe are
frequently blamed on his mental illness
even going so far in some iterations to
say that he commits these large acts of
violence because he’s schizophrenic
obviously there seems to be some type of
disconnect there especially for people
here in the audience that knows what
schizophrenia actually looks like people
with schizophrenia are not mass
murderers
just because you have a mental illness
doesn’t mean that you are going to rig
up a bomb to blow up a hospital there’s
an obvious disconnect there that many
members of the public don’t see but if
you are someone be close to you suffers
from schizophrenia these representations
hurt but perhaps the most common and
discussed problem that we see with
entertainment media and mental illness
is with issues of depression and anxiety
and a really great example of this is
the Netflix series 13 reasons why this
show depicts Hanna Baker a high school
student who has committed suicide she
leaves behind 13 tapes for 13 people to
tell them the role that they played in
her suicide many people loved this show
it received great reviews and its second
season is coming out soon Netflix when
they originally released it championed
themselves as mastering the art of
mental illness representation but as a
matter of fact what this message
conveyed to people actually fighting
against depression is that there are at
least 13 good reasons to end one’s own
life and that could not be further from
the truth
we tend to think that media is just for
entertainment and it can’t really affect
us but unfortunately for people that are
dealing with issues that are portrayed
and media they will recognize the
problems that a lot of us are content to
ignore and I’m unfortunately not just
talking in hypotheticals there have been
a lot of cases recently that I’ve been
connected back to entertainment media
and I want to talk about two in
particular
priscilla chu and bella Herndon both
depicted here with their fathers these
images were taken a few weeks before
these two high school girls took their
own life what is unique about these
cases is that in both instances in their
last remarks or notes to their family
they mentioned 13 reasons why as one of
the reasons that they committed the act
they thought that it showed that people
really do care about you more when
you’re gone that it is okay to commit
suicide as long as it’s for a meaning
that is a
horrible lesson to be teaching our
children and these two people Priscilla
and Bella they are not the only people
that lost their lives because of this
media representation they’re just the
ones that made the headlines it’s even
more concerning when we think about the
fact that the rising suicide rates among
adolescents could very well be tied to
what we all consider to be great
television and movies now beyond just on
a world scale I do want to talk about
why I want to have this conversation
here in this school on this stage and
that’s because of this this is a KXAN
article that came out recently that
revealed that Lake Travis ISD students
are more likely to consider suicide than
the national average to go into more
detail 170 students have contemplated
suicide that’s 6 percent of our high
school population and 80 students have
attempted it to put that into a bit more
perspective the six percent that have
contemplated suicide that’s one out of
every about 16 students our average
class size here at Lake Travis is thirty
meaning that if you’re a Lake Travis
high school student sitting in this room
in any of your classes you have about
two people that have contemplated
suicide and about one that has attempted
it these numbers prove that mental
illness is not something that we can
ignore it’s not going to go away and
it’s not something that only affects
other people
mental illness will affect the lives of
just about everybody in America whether
you’re going through yourself or
somebody close to you and a lot of times
these people don’t know that they need
to vocalize or ask for help so we need
to be the ones that are willing to have
that discussion and challenge the stigma
that perpetuates the violence that they
have to undergo so now let’s get to the
optimistic part first I want to point
everybody to a really good resource this
is an organization called rethink mental
illness their website is rethink org is
a uk-based organization that holds
petitions and events and fundraisers to
try to challenge mental illness stigma
particularly in the media I think this
is a great organization if we are trying
to fight against the media giants that
we as individuals can’t have much
influence over so I highly recommend
everybody checks out this website it’s
also just great if you’re wanting to
educate yourself a bit more about mental
illness
but then that leaves the question of
what can we as individuals do mental
illness often seems vast and unknowable
but helping people around you that are
suffering from mental illness is a lot
easier than you may think all that we
have to do is be someone else’s
serendipity it’s like I said people with
mental illness often don’t know or want
to ask for help they’re ashamed they
think that they don’t deserve help they
think that people don’t care about them
but as I’m sure everybody in this room
that has a connection to mental illness
knows people that are mentally ill are
just as loved as anybody else and they
are just as deserving of help and care
we need to be willing to have this
conversation we need to not get
uncomfortable when suicide gets
mentioned into a microphone in a black
box theater we need to be willing to
open up this discourse and I would
encourage everybody in this room to
become more educated on mental illness
look for signs and those around you and
to reach out for them and encourage them
to get help I want to end on a quote
from an organization called Social Work
helper they say that mental health
awareness should not only be for a day
or two or even a month we must be
informed about it because it can easily
happen to someone close to us awareness
does not just end here don’t be scared
to talk about it it’s hard work but the
power to reach and teach the community
is well worth it I would encourage
everybody here to try to be somebody
else with serendipity and I want to
thank everybody for letting me try to start this battle here thank you
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