How Euphoria’s depiction of depression made me feel less alone.
We’ve seen it a million times. The re-used storyline of a depressed teenager getting their amazing happy ending when they move away from home or dump their boyfriend. All these ideas from movies and shows planted in our brain that depression is something that will always end and something we can run away from. Under the glitter eyes and purple haze of the show, Euphoria is the show that a lot of people might have needed.
The truth is. Depression isn't pretty. It doesn’t just disappear when you move away from home. It doesn’t just end. But even when/if it does, it’s like a scar that fades but can be seen in certain lights.
Rue Bennet in Season 1, Episode 7: The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Pee While Depressed, was the rawest depiction of depression that TV has to offer. The not going to pee for hours, the binge-watching of reality TV because sometimes actual TV is too much, the googling of mental illnesses in an attempt to figure out what is going on in our brains. As hard as it is to watch, showing people the reality of what depression actually looks like is needed. Depression isn’t just endless tears. Sometimes it is being in a ball on the floor. Sometimes it’s realising that you’re so helpless at that moment that you need to ask for help. Sometimes its “whole days blending together to create one endless and suffocating loop.” Of course, depression is not the same for everyone. But for some, Euphoria is more than a TV show. It’s a reflection of their inner suffering.
The way depression has been portrayed in the past, as something one can just “get over”, does more damage than may be intended. If the aim of these directors and writers was to instil hope, I’m sure for some it may, but I’m also sure that for others it feels more alienating. Raising questions such as “well why hasn’t it got better for me?”. You know those classic cliche coming-of-age films where the girl gets a lover and suddenly has all the serotonin in the world? Well, Euphoria showing how Rue’s world changes when she meets Jules is exactly how you depict the way people can still bring you happiness but your depression doesn’t just disappear into thin air. Even though Rue loves her time with Jules and smiles more around her, she’s still hurting. She is still going through whatever she’s going through and that is the real side of depression. That you can have happy moments, but underneath it all, you still feel that heaviness in your chest that feels like an overwhelming wave of sadness that comes and goes with the currents of the ocean. When the tide is out, you have periods of time that you hold on to as a reminder that life has light to it. But as the tide comes back in and the waves start to crash, you feel that pain again. The one that didn’t quite disappear but for a moment in time, that wave of sadness was out.
There’s no glorification in Euphoria. They don’t beat around the bush. They don’t show you the stereotypical it will get better BS that a lot of shows do. It also doesn’t focus on the idea that all depressed people end their own life. It shows the good, it shows the bad, it shows the in between. It shows that depressed people go to school, have friends, share good times with their family but they also have moments where being human is too much of a weight to carry, they distance themselves from friendships, sometimes they turn to substances to alleviate the pain and sometimes their world completely breaks and it doesn’t look as if there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is not to say that getting better is not a possibility but instead, whilst you’re in the depths of it, it is healing to know that you’re not the only one.
