#I just feel isolated and that there is no livable option where I can’t do it & therefore am more afraid of my own inability

[punalavaflow]

Purgatory in Puna: Eruption survivors eager to return home — with or without roads

The largest eruption in more than 200 years to hit Kilauea’s lower East Rift Zone stopped more than six months ago.

Yet for dozens of Puna residents with homes or farms in at least two kipuka — isolated pockets of land surrounded by lava flows — the disaster feels like it never ended.

Instead, it has become meshed into their daily routines as they hike in supplies over craggy rivers of cooling volcanic rock, or try to rebuild their lives in other communities, eagerly waiting for the day they can simply drive home.

Those who have returned find a changed landscape, and sometimes destroyed homes or crops consumed by lava flows. But they don’t want to be anywhere else, and they have no interest in waiting.

“We gave up on them getting the road open,” said Michael Gornik, who is living back at his meditation center, known as Polestar Gardens, “and we started doing it.”

He lost his home there from a brush fire sparked by the raging river of lava that flowed past his property on the way to the ocean.

But with an array of solar panels, potable water from a catchment tank and the occasional trip over the flow or helicopter drop for supplies, he has made his collection of small cabins livable once again. Gornik shows no sign of lamenting the loss of his house, and says he is glad to be back, even if there is a “strange apocalyptic feel out here.”

“You can see the ocean from everywhere now,” he points out, after greeting a few neighbors and journalists Thursday at his property. “This is such a different place.”

A road to recovery?

With any luck, Gornik and the handful of others who have already returned to the largest kipuka off Highway 132 — where 56 properties with structures remain cut off — might soon have more company.

While Hawaii County still could be months away from starting to grade a new path over the highway, due to permitting and other requirements, Puna Geothermal Venture is getting closer to allowing access through its site, near the intersection of Highway 132 and Pohoiki Road.

That’s according to Mike Kaleikini, senior director of Hawaii affairs for Ormat, PGV’s owner, who said Friday that a community meeting is tentatively planned for March 22 in Pahoa.

He said the meeting will provide an update on restoration of the power plant, sandwiched between the main lava channel and a string of fissures from the eruption, and address liability waivers residents would have to sign to use its road.

From there, residents would traverse unpaved roads and easements until they reach the highway.

Resolving liability for PGV and the owner of the land, Kapoho Land &Development Co., as well as gaining a new grubbing and grading permit, are reasons the road to the kipuka hasn’t been completed yet, Kaleikini said. PGV re-established access over the lava channel with its own road in December.

“We’ve been working on the road” to the kipuka, he said. “We still have some more work to do be done. We want to make sure the road is done also by then.”

At the latest, the road could be open for use a week or two after the meeting, Kaleikini estimated.

That would come just in time for Ingrid Webb, who is planning to move her family — including four children ages 1 to 9 — back to their farm off Highway 132, with or without road access.

She said the house they are staying in is up for sale, and their housing aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency ran out months ago.

“We’re really down to no options but moving back to the farm,” Webb said.

She said they will be self-sufficient with water catchment and solar power, and plan to helicopter in supplies once a month if a road still hasn’t been built. In the meantime, they’ve already been flying in fertilizer needed to keep their tree orchard producing.

Oshi Simsarian, who has been living back in her home off and on for months, said residents can’t wait much longer for road access.

“The problem is homes reach a tipping point,” she said.

Not all the homes that were out of the flow’s path have survived.

Several were burned by brush fires, leaving behind twisted piles of metal and debris surrounded by a lush green landscape that has since recovered.

An abandoned bicycle with burnt tires along the highway or torched cars provide the only other signs of the fire that was left unchecked, adding to the post-apocalyptic scenery.

In many places, nature is already taking over, with parts of Highway 132 being slowly engulfed by encroaching tall grass. Wild pigs are seen roaming freely, as well as the occasional feral farm animal.

The resourceful residents get around on foot, bike or by driving cars that survived the fires and lava flows. Fuel has to be carried or flown in.

They also rely on the kindness of the owners of property they have to traverse.

Most go through property owned by Jennifer and Rusty Perry, whose farm was partially covered by the lava flow, and Kapoho Land &Development Co., the largest landowner in the area.

The Perrys see about 20 people cross a week, and are happy to help.

“I feel like a train station,” Jennifer Perry commented.

Residents take unpaved roads connected, and still maintained, by the county as evacuation routes during the eruption.

“Civil Defense has been really helpful with getting people over the flow,” she said.

Closer bonds

The isolation also brought the neighbors closer together. With a trip to the store requiring a hike over the lava flow, plus a long drive through back roads and papaya fields, they rely on each other for assistance.

“That has been one of the beauties,” Simsarian said. “I’ve gotten to know neighbors I didn’t know.”

But the lack of progress with the county recovering Highway 132 has left her feeling cynical.

Mayor Harry Kim has called restoring access over the road a No. 1 priority.

So far, county officials have not offered residents a timeline for when work could begin.

When asked for an estimate, Barett Otani, an executive assistant to the mayor, said in an email that depends on permits. Those can no longer be waived after Kim’s emergency declaration ended in January.

Otani said the project would require a grading permit, National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, and potentially a special management area permit for clearing near the intersection with Government Beach Road.

The county also is asking the Federal Highway Administration to cover the cost of the entire project, which it estimates could be $2 million.

That means the county needs to comply with requirements set by the National Environmental Policy Act, for which it is seeking an exemption.

The federal funding for the temporary road also hinges on an “alternative study” that also will look at the feasibility of restoration, said Public Works Director David Yamamoto. He estimated that could be done in the summer.

Depending on its findings, the county might need to pay for the road, Yamamoto said.

While grading won’t begin until that study is done, he said the county is moving forward with the permits and survey work at the same time.

It wouldn’t be the first temporary road the county has built over the lava flow.

Last December, the county graded a road over the narrowest lava-covered sections of Highway 137 between MacKenzie State Recreation Area and Isaac Hale Beach Park.

That road, which crosses less than a mile of lava flows, allowed the county to reopen Isaac Hale and provide access to homes and farms in the area, including the lower portion of Pohoiki Road.

The road cost about $190,000, and the county is seeking reimbursement from FEMA for 75 percent of the expense.

About 3 miles of Highway 132 is covered by lava, in depths ranging from 30 feet to more than 60 feet in areas. Only 1.7 miles is needed to cross to reach the kipuka.

Kim said he sees “no comparison” in re-establishing road access over Highway 132 versus that section of Highway 137 in terms of cost and danger.

The latter also was done without the need for permits since it occurred under the emergency declaration.

The mayor said he didn’t extend the declaration after January because cancelling it wouldn’t affect anyone’s requests for federal assistance.

The eruption, which began May 3 in Leilani Estates, destroyed more than 700 homes — including about 200 primary residences — and covered 13.7 square miles before Sept. 5, when lava was no longer visible in the fissures.

Kim also has said that no infrastructure would be restored until after April 5, when his six-month waiting period ends. That period started Oct. 5, when the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reduced its alert level for Kilauea.

He said the temporary road was built to Isaac Hale anyway in order to allow Puna residents, who lost other beach parks, tide pools and warm ponds from the eruption, to return to the ocean.

“I feel it was very important,” Kim said, to bring something positive back to their lives. “The ocean is part of them.”

He has faced criticism for the six-month waiting period, which he based off advice geologists gave him in 1990 during the eruption that covered Kalapana, for being arbitrary. Kim agreed that it is.

But the mayor, a former Civil Defense administrator during past eruptions, said it’s still based on what he thinks is best for ensuring safety, and the eruption doesn’t restart.

HVO has noted no signs of the eruption returning, and that it could be considered over after three months of no activity.

Kim said the county in the meantime is doing as much preliminary work to restore access over Highway 132, including aerial surveys.

“I know people are anxious,” he said. “We are trying to expedite it as fast as we can.”

Yamamoto said the surveys cover other county roads inundated by lava, including Highway 137 and Pohoiki Road. Full restoration of all county roads covered by lava could cost $170 million, he said.

Several more homes are located in an isolated kipuka off Pohoiki Road. It remains unclear when road access for them could be re-established, though Yamamoto said it will likely be the next priority after Highway 132.

Kim, during an interview last week, wasn’t keen on using county funds to repair the rest of Highway 137, where the thickest lava flows are located. About 4 miles of that road was covered in total.

A return to Vacationland?

“It’s very, very questionable whether government reinvests in that road,” he said, referring to the northern section where Kapoho Vacationland and other coastal subdivisions were located.

Kim himself lost a secondary home there, where the majority of homes destroyed by the eruption were located, but he questioned what people who want to return have to go back to.

After all, the famous tide pools are gone, and another 875 acres of new land was created, extending the ocean away from their properties. The subdivision roads were private, leaving property owners with a hefty bill if they want to rebuild on what is now a desolate volcanic landscape.

Jan Marshall, who owned a home in Vacationland, said she and other former neighbors are up to the task, assuming the county rebuilds its road.

“More and more people are talking about it,” she said, regarding returning.

“We have been looking around the Big Island, and we’ve concluded that we want to restore Vacationland.”

The owners are seeking loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration and grants from FEMA to help them restore their infrastructure, Marshall said.

When asked about those efforts, Kim said he wants them to “know all the risks before they go back.”

What parts of the eruption area get rebuilt and to what extent could depend on a long-term recovery plan.

Ron Whitmore, county Research and Development deputy director, said the county is seeking to hire a consultant for that work. He said it would involve additional community input, and could be done by the end of the year.

Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com. from Hawaii News – Hawaii Tribune-Herald https://ift.tt/2EO0Gmw

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 050221

2 May, 2021

Dear Dad--

Sunday! I hope you’re having an excellent weekend so far. Thank you thank you thank you for the new package! I got the book and the smoking materials and they will be much enjoyed. I’m loving them so far!

The past week has largely consisted of me being frustrated by my new job at the casino. There are parts that are fun every day, like in the morning when I have to venture out onto the gaming floor for a brief spell before we open. Being on a casino gaming floor is like being in the middle of a fireworks display; you’re surrounded by millions of little points of moving colored light. (Modern slot machines have deliriously bright, dancing light displays. It’s very, very eye catching, I assume by design.) It’s seriously pretty and very pleasantly noisy.

Then I have to return to my desk and start working, which has been, for me, the daily point in the process where the wheels fly off and I forget everything they’ve taught me. I’ve been taking lots of notes while they’ve been training me, and they’ve been helpful to study, except sometimes my notes will consist of just a single important word with exclamation points around it, like:

!! Widgets !!!!!!!!!

Notes like that make sense when I write them down (This is the step where something dreadfully important happens with widgets.) but they don’t really convey a lot of information after the fact, beyond the existence of the word “widgets.” I’ve since attempted to make my notes a bit more descriptive, so I can read them and know what to do. This has met with occasional success.

My boss Tyler and my coworker Chris are both very gracious about answering my daily fusillade of questions, and if it makes it harder to get their own work done, they haven’t squawked about it. They are a pragmatic bunch; I guess they just understand that the shit is very complicated, it’s going to take weeks for me to attain proficiency with it, and ultimately I’m there to help reduce their workloads by taking some of the auditing off their hands. In the meantime, it’s like trying to take a road trip while stopping to ask for directions every three and a half minutes. I’ll start on a task, and refer to my checklist, and it’ll say to “Do X.” And then I have to consult my recollection and my notes to figure out what “Do X” means in terms of me, and my hands, and my colored pens, and my adding machine and spreadsheets and emails. Then I go ask Chris to help get me started and he graciously does so.

Mercifully, I am past the point when I am nervous every day coming to work. I encounter enough frustration and tension during each work day that I don’t have to artificially generate any between the time I wake up and the time I get there. And I have already isolated a way in which I can go a bit above and beyond, a way I can create something of my own that could perhaps be used as a training aid for the next me that comes along in the audit department. It’s kind of interesting, Tyler and I came up with the same idea, which was a much more verbose and explicit version of some of our work checklists. If we have a checklist that says, “Do X,” it might help a new auditor if you had a more detailed description of X, so you know how to complete the tasks. I’ll be helping to create something like that.

I’ve also identified another area where I can help out, beyond just showing up and doing my best. My area is a bit of a post-apocalyptic hellhole. I don’t know if it’s because of Covid, or because the department is a bunch of guys, but there are small areas in our section that are messy as fuck. Office supplies everywhere. It’s an affront to my sense of tidiness, so I’m going to find time to clean the place up, in a way that doesn’t conflict with my general job-doing. Right now, if I had to give a nickname to our section, it might be The Dark Lair of the Audit Troll, or The Little Office that Cried. After I learn how to do my job, I want to invest some time getting our work area squared away and spotless.

Spring is springing! We have seen our first chipmunks of the year. I got so excited that I marked the first sighting on our calendar. Now begins the period of the year when the electricity bills go way down, because we’re not spending every damn dollar we make trying to keep the place at a livable temperature. The trees are budding, and I no longer greet the arrival of spring with loathing and anxiety like I did in Texas, because spring is no longer just a brief, pleasant pit stop on the way to an unbearable 5-month long fiery furnace of summer. Spring lasts a while here! And all the trees wake up and begin budding, and the omnipresent piles of dirty snow disappear.

I’ve been feeling rather proud of myself recently. Since my goal in life seems to be: be a functioning adult in a place that has snow, I’m achieving the SHIT out of my life goals right now. And in two days, I will get my second Covid vaccine! The boss said to take that day off work. I did the thing I felt I was required to do, which was to say, “But I don’t want to miss a day of work so early in my illustrious casino career!” To which my boss replied, “That’s great, but if you have a bad reaction to the shot, you probably don’t want to have it at the casino.” I am therefore taking Tuesday off. I will get my shot at 6:00 in the morning, because I grabbed the earliest time slot I could, and then I’ll go home and see what mischief the shot will impose upon my person. I predict very little will happen, and I’ll end up having a day off with maybe some body aches. There is always a chance, though, that it’ll just beat the shit out of me, and I’ll have to miss a second day. Boss seems prepared for both eventualities. We text each other, so if it looks like the vaccination is going to cause sudden and irreversible death syndrome, I can let him know as it happens.

I shall include with this letter a before and after shot of my bathroom, now that I’ve received my new custom-designed shower curtain in the mail. I realized a few weeks ago that we just had a shower curtain liner in our bathroom, and not an actual shower curtain to look nice, so I got on Amazon to order one. Our shower stall is shorter than most (4 ft. wide, as opposed to the more standard--I think--72 inches) so we can’t just pop down to WalMart and get one. Right away, on Amazon, I found an option that allowed you to upload a photo of your own, and they’d turn it into a custom shower curtain. I uploaded a closeup photo of our cat Horta. Now you can’t take a dump in our house without staring straight into a four-foot blowup of our cat’s face! We had the option of adding text, so I added, “Whatcha doing?” to the picture, but ultimately decided it was better to just have the huge, big-eyed kitty, otherwise unadorned. I think it’s fucking hilarious, and not for nothing, but it’s beautiful to look at. Horta (as is true of most cats) is photogenic as hell. On the shower curtain, her big golden eyes are as large as saucers. Twenty bucks, and it’s going to turn all future poops into a giant kitty adventure. I may not be good at creating art, but I like to think I’ve filled my life to bursting with little artistic masterpieces such as this one.

More, as always, next Sunday. All my love to you both!

[thediscoveryhouse]

How Eating Disorders Relate to Substance Abuse

For people who struggle with an eating disorder, sitting with your closest friends and family around a table spread with food is a terrifying prospect. It’s what makes this time of year, with a bevy of social holidays centered around eating and drinking, so tricky.

Interestingly enough, it’s also a tough time of year for those of us recovering from drug or alcohol addiction. So, we decided to take a closer look at the relationship between eating disorders and substance abuse.

Eating Disorders and Substance Abuse Share the Same Stigma

There is a considerable stigma associated with people who have an eating disorder. When you think of someone who is struggling with an ED, you might think of female celebrities that appear on the covers of gossip magazine with the words “deathly thin” or “disappearing.” 

However, eating disorders don’t only affect women. Ten percent of cases detected are in males. Typically, the onset of eating disorders will start at a young age (12-25 years). According to Medical News Today, someone with anorexia has 5-8 times greater risk of dying early in life while bulimia doubles that risk. Furthermore, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder. 

Somebody with anorexia has a 5.8-times greater risk of dying early, compared to healthy individuals with no eating disorders. Bulimia doubles the risk of premature death.1 

Spotting someone with an eating disorder an be more difficult than you think. Not everyone shows the same physical or psychological signs of disordered eating. While it might be physically apparent for some people (excessively thin), it’s also common to maintain a healthy body weight or sometimes even overweight. 

Recovering addicts or alcoholics notoriously develop substitute addictions in the way of excessive exercise or orthorexia.

So, What is the Actual Definition of an Eating Disorder? 

eat·ing dis·or·der ēdiNG diˈsôrdər/ noun noun: eating disorder; plural noun: eating disorders

any of a range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits (such as anorexia nervosa).

Typically someone with an eating disorder seeks to control their food intake and their weight.  A skewed body image is one of the most common symptoms. For example, they will see themselves as “too fat” even if they are in fact, dangerously thin. They may participate in dangerous behaviors such as excessive exercise, binge eating (eating large amounts of food), purging behaviors (self-induced vomiting), use of laxatives or diuretics, and substance abuse. 

There are different types of eating disorders which include anorexia nervosa, bulimia, EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified). 

Substance abuse like eating disorders, are influenced by genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. Scientists estimate that genetic factors account for between 40 to 60 percent of a person’s vulnerability to addiction, including the effects of environment on gene expression and function. Multiple shared neurotransmitters are thought to be involved in both eating and substance use disorders.2 – National Eating Disorders Association

50% of people with an eating disorder (ED) are also abusing drugs and alcohol.

What Do Eating Disorders Have To Do With Substance Abuse? 

There are various beliefs around whether we should consider eating disorders a type of substance abuse. Conflicting opinions aside, there is no denying the staggering similarities not to mention the rate of co-morbidity.

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, nearly 50% of people with an eating disorder (ED) are also abusing drugs and alcohol. So, if someone has an eating disorder, they are 5 times more likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than someone without an ED. 

Sarah* struggled with disordered eating and spoke of her relationship with drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism.

“An eating disorder often goes hand in hand with drugs, alcohol, and depression,” she explained. “For me, my eating disorder came first, and I found that drugs – either prescription or otherwise – helped me get through the day. Just living became too much. It was too painful.”

Also, recovering addicts or alcoholics notoriously develop substitute addictions in the way of excessive exercise or orthorexia.

A little empathy and understanding go a long way.

How to Help Someone With an Eating Disorder

When you haven’t experienced addictive behavior first-hand, it’s really hard to understand it. Simply being around our loved ones is difficult. Especially when they seem consumed by their eating disorder or alcohol or heroin. It’s like watching the events of a natural disaster unravel right in front of you. The nightmare of watching something terrible happen and you want to scream out, but when you open your mouth, all that comes out is silence. 

Show empathy. You may not understand exactly what they are going through but let them know you are here for them regardless.

A defining characteristic of addiction is isolation. When someone feels alone, they will find a way to make that feeling go away. A way to handle a world that seems unmanageable. 

“I think the drugs helped me get through a deep dark hole that I had dug myself into,” Sarah said of her drug use and ED. “Drugs made my life more livable. It allowed me to connect and go out with friends without food being the main focus.”

Journalist Johann Yari has said that instead of taking a “tough love” stance with your loved one, that we should just take a “love” approach? Yari has also said that the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection. We all just want to feel connected to someone or something, and for people struggling with eating disorders and substance abuse, they connect with their addiction.

So try this. Tell your loved one that you love them. Show empathy. You may not understand what they are going through but let them know you are here for support regardless. Then try to help figure out a plan. That could mean exploring treatment program options, going to a support group meeting, or making a doctor appointment to discuss next steps.

Overcoming Eating Disorders and Substance Abuse

Eating disorders are a very serious mental illness. It affects young women and men of all ages from all walks of life. However, it is treatable. 

“I can’t believe where I am now and how different my life is. I never thought I’d feel fulfilled,” Sarah shared with us recently. She’s been recovered from disordered eating for five years. “I went for the easy things to give me that momentary feeling of being fulfilled. It’s crazy to look back at that time. I’m so grateful for where I am and the people that stuck by me.”

If you know someone who is struggling with an eating disorder, substance abuse, or both call us today at 888.962.8208. We can help you, and your loved one find a new way to live. 

[dolliq]

13 reasons why?

Ok so I just finished this series, which honestly is something I personally wouldn't watch if I didn't hear so much shit about it. Or more like so many different opinions about it. I heard a lot of people praise the series but also a lot of people saying it's absolutely awful and shouldn't have been published ever. So I decided I wanted to see for myself and give my opinion about it. Why would my opinion matter? Because I have been through very similar situations as Hannah has been and more than once I thought of doing the same thing. What I'm going to do is basically look at all the negative points I heard about it and tell if I agree with those or not. Warning, there's gonna be a shit ton of spoilers in here for those who want to watch the series. And it's long, like super duper long so have fun reading all this. So, here we go. First of all I heard all these things about the tapes being Hannah's revenge on everyone who hurt her, which I don't really agree with. Honestly I've been at the point of killing myself as well and the one thing I wanted to do before taking my life was tell the world what this whole bunch of people did to me, because that would give an explanation of why I would have done something. (I'm actually still thinking of writing everything that happened to me down, mainly because, like Hannah said, it will be a relief to get all of that shit out and seeing as I basically made my dream come true, I think it could work very motivational for other people to read my story) I think Hannah did the same thing, but she just wanted to let the people who hurt her so much she took her own life to know this first, before telling the world. I mean very obviously the last person would have told the police etc... So I personally don't think of it as her wanting to take revenge by recording those tapes, more like telling her story to explain why she killed herself. Did it fuck up the lives of the people on the tapes? Pretty much I guess. Wasn't that Hannah's plan all along? I really don't see any kind of evidence for that, I just see a broken girl who wants to tell the truth. Did the series tell me suicide would be a great revenge to my past bullies? Absolutely not, at the end of the series, when all her secrets were exposed, the people around her started to solve the things that happened to her, mainly the Bryce thing is obviously going to get a good end, and I don't mean a good end for Bryce. If anything it motivates me to tell my story and finally be able to actually deal with everything. So, then I heard a lot about Hannah's suicide scene and the scene with Skye's self-harm scars. Let's start with Skye's scene. Basically Skye says that self-harm is what you do instead of killing yourself. And oh my god I was about to flip a table when she said that, but honestly I can't say she's completely wrong. I, for example, smoke to keep myself alive, it helps me relax at moments I'm not doing well. Is it healthy? No. Am I aware of this? Obviously yes. Then why don't I stop? Because I would literally throw myself of a building otherwise. Surely there are other things you can do instead of damaging yourself in any kind of way, honestly dancing also keeps me alive, but let's be honest, the social embarrassment it would put me through if I would start dancing the little swans in a busy street isn't going to do anything good to me either, so I smoke a fucking cigaret yes. It's not good to harm yourself in any kind of way and I would never tell anyone to do something like that to themselves, seriously don't cut yourself, it's no good, not at all, but honestly I'd rather have a friend who cuts their wrist than a dead friend. A friend who cuts their wrist I can try to help, we can find a solution to whatever is going on in their life and try to make it better, make it livable. A dead friend is hard to help, because they're gone already. Ok, I went kind of off track here, so back to the Skye scene. "This is what you do instead of killing yourself." Was it wrong of the producers to include this? Absolutely, but it's the truth I fear, even if we shouldn't let the world know, hurting yourself is what most suicidal people do to stay alive, it's not good, not at all and yes you need help if you're at that point. I do agree that it was wrong to include this scene in the series, but I do not agree that it's not true. Maybe not everyone cuts their wrists, but trust me if you constantly think of death, you're not gonna give a lot about your body and if you still have a will to fight you most likely are doing something that is hurting you in some kind of way, maybe it's smoking, overeating, taking a shit ton of medication to suppress those feelings, maybe it's more of those and maybe, maybe you're telling yourself everything is fine and you don't need anything, no help, no talking to anyone, at all, because isolation is hurting yourself as well, trust me. The scene was wrong to include, but it wasn't a lie. Then Hannah's suicide scene. People said it basically was a tutorial on how to kill yourself. Honestly, as much as I was able to say good things about the previous two points, I got nothing good to say about this one. It was a very emotional scene and I almost completely turned down my volume and didn't look at it, it just was too real. Sure, I get why they would include her suicide scene, or at least part of it, but I see no fucking reason for it to be so graphic, it was too much and it did absolutely show how she did it, in detail. This scene, unlike the last one, is ok to include, but not in the way they did. I don't understand why Hannah's scene was so graphic while Alex, who shot himself, didn't get shown. Was that too much? A teen shooting himself is too much, but a girl who slit her wrists isn't? They should have done Hannah's scene the same way as Alex's, just show her parents finding her dead body and not show how she did it. It would have been as emotional as it was, without triggering anyone. So woah for once I got nothing good to say, surprise right? Next thing is about her last tape, how Mr. Porter didn't do anything for her. I heard people say that this whole episode also was bullshit, shouldn't have been there etc... First of all, people who said that the episode would show that suicide is the only solution and that you're alone. Hannah's solution was suicide, that was her choice. She didn't want to tell exactly what Bryce did nor that he was the one who did it. Honestly, Mr. Porter really isn't able to do anything like that, how would he be able to? Just ban all senior students from the school for her sake? That, my friend, would not make sense. As hard as it may be to talk about, you'll have to if you want someone to be punished for what they did, so yes he was right that her only other option was just live with it. That being said, the series actually tried to tell you that you can either talk about what happened or try to live with it yourself, Mr. Porter never told Hannah that suicide was a solution. Yes, he should have understood that with what she told him, she saw a third option of dealing with what happened. But sadly, this is what it's like, people for some reason don't understand that you're about to kill yourself unless you use those exact words. Trust me, been there. I literally tried to subtly hint it to my school as well that I was suffering and that I wanted to end it, but they didn't really get it, until I one day in a panic called my mother that I was about to throw myself off the building, that was the moment they finally understood. Did the scene show that you're on your own and no one understands you? Yes, because people are fucking idiots and you just have to tell them exactly what you're feeling and what you're about to do. Then they will finally fucking understand and it's the only way of getting it into their thick skulls. Was the whole thing bad to include? A bit, but once again it is the truth. You still reading this? I'm proud. This is the final point I want to talk about also. And my god am I upset about this. Because well this entire series is about fucking suicide, so you'd expect a lot of like suicide hotlines in the credits or something right? Well, as I already heard, they don't put anything like that anywhere. Come on guys, you've apparently done some things that aren't according to the suicide prevention lists that tell you what not to include in a series, at least fucking try to help people who feel like Hannah in some other kind of way please. Or at least put up an advice for people to get help, was that really too much to ask? So all in all, I think the series is very interesting, but it absolutely made some big mistakes and I would certainly not advice highly suicidal people to watch it. I am glad I watched it tho, as it motivated me to finally start something I have thought about for years, I am going to write down everything anyone ever did to me and where it got me in life, publish my story and hopefully, unlike what I heard about this series, I will motivate people with suicidal thoughts to keep going and fight. I am pretty sure I will get shit for my opinions in this post but I honestly don't care, this is my opinion and I had already decided to share it before I even started watching. Also if you want to know how I look at other things in the series that you think I missed out on, please do ask.