CANDY BOX: An Open Letter to Hannah Baker

An Open Letter to Hannah Baker, catalyst and second narrator of Thirteen Reasons Why

Spoiler warning: various plot points of Thirteen Reasons Why

Hannah, the criticism around your story right now is that it romanticizes mental illness. Furthermore, you are accused of thinking you were a martyr and of justifying suicide as a method of dealing with your problems.  I want you to know that I believe neither of these claims is true.

Obviously, killing yourself was not an intelligent choice.  You were only eighteen, and almost none of the issues you were facing would have followed you out of high school.  Moreover, you closed yourself off from receiving help at almost every opportunity.  For example, Clay specifically made the effort to open up to you and encourage you to do the same, and you chose to remain in your depression instead of letting him help you out.  You also only spoke to one adult, and even then you walked into the conversation expecting and encouraging it to fail.  Your situation was only hopeless because you painted it that way, and you denied countless other resources that could have helped you back onto your feet.

Nevertheless, it is rude of everyone to claim that you only committed suicide because you wanted to be seen as a hero.  You simply felt that you had no one to turn to, which I would venture to say is one of the most damaging, crushing mindsets someone could fall into.  We’re a tribal species; feeling emotionally misunderstood and isolated will drive anyone to desperation.  In a way, your suicide was a final attempt at improving your life; the only thing you could hold onto was the belief that leaving a message would allow others to finally see your perspective and disprove the rumors about you.

The overarching message of your story is that we need to be aware of how our actions and words can affect others, even when we don’t intend to be hurtful.  Yet this was not your personal goal in telling it.  While I am sure you hoped that you could convince everyone you mentioned on the tapes to change their behavior and their awareness moving forward, I don’t think you expected that most, if any, of them would fundamentally change their way of life.  The tapes are not a revenge quest either.  Although you taunt Tyler and Bryce, the people with the most harmful secrets, by reminding them that trying to stop the spread of the tapes will ensure that the entire school will find out what they did, the important part for you was simply ensuring that at least one other person found out.  You didn’t want to be keeping it all in.

What you wanted was simply acknowledgment.  Not communication; you still weren’t ready for that.  Had you been willing to fully communicate with someone, you could have worked through your issues and come out alive.  You just needed to know that someone was listening.

Suicide was the wrong choice, Hannah.  But I’m going to keep telling people to read Thirteen Reasons Why because you never truly justify your actions or ask anyone to agree with you.  Your tapes were a cry for help, and we need to learn from both the problems and situations you faced and the ways you found to avoid dealing with them.  The controversy around your story, like your troubled life, cannot be fixed by denial and censorship.  It can only be resolved with open communication.

Sincerely,

Jonah