All I Am, All I'll Ever Be

When I tell people how much I like “Bojack Horseman,” they ask a lot of questions. “It’s so sad,” they always tell me. When discussing it with others, the most frequent comment is how the show would hardly be classed as a comedy if not for the animation and the intermingling of humans and animals as main and supporting characters.

The rawness of Bojack springs from its strains of monotony and failure. Though it is never explicitly stated, Bojack’s struggles with alcoholism and his existential grappling with meaninglessness point to his suffering from depression. I notice this because I find it all too relatable.

Throughout the latter half of my high school career, I often found myself in much the same state of hopelessness Bojack regularly encounters. I forced myself past it, throwing myself into schoolwork and neglecting to maintain friendships or relationships. I had my own methods of self-medicating. Like Bojack, I tried to convince myself that my depression was rooted in the fear of being unloved and that if I could win the affections of someone, I would be cured. This never was the case.

Portraying mental illness on television takes a deft hand. The fact is, mental illness hides easily. It can disappear entirely in polite company, if only as a means of protection for the sufferer. Addiction, an illness in itself, is easier to show. A person’s downward spiral is visible, and witnessing that spiral is, in many ways, a voyeuristic act. It is far harder, on the other hand, to make the daily realities of mental illness interesting and observable.

Netflix’s “Jessica Jones,” much like Bojack, is about dark sides and hidden facets. Though on the surface it seems like any other superficial superhero show, it looks far more deeply into the complexities of Jessica’s psyche than into the lurid excitement of action and fight scenes. Jessica, like Bojack, self-medicates with alcohol. But this coping mechanism takes a secondary role to her struggles with PTSD and the pain of fighting the forces that caused it.

“Jessica Jones” handles far more elegantly than most the realities of triggers and anxiety that come with surviving trauma. It also puts a face to abuse—an attractive face, the face of one who gaslights and manipulates rather than using his fists. Abusers don’t always leave bruises. Victims spend time convincing themselves that it wasn’t what the abuser said, that the abuser’s words and blame and manipulation are just part of the abuser’s identity or somehow not the abuser’s fault. I know I did.

The true villains of these shows are not television rivals or criminal masterminds. They are the demons of the mind, wearing you down until you forget whether you’re person or illness, or if there’s still a person inside of that pain. The very real and very evil manifestation of Jessica’s demons can be vanquished, can have his neck snapped by her hand. All I could do was block mine on Facebook.

What I see as the most important part of both these shows is that they don’t blame the victim. Certainly, both Jessica Jones and Bojack Horseman make mistakes. They hurt people around them and make harmful decisions motivated by their illnesses—but they are still, in some ways, sympathetic. The viewer can love them for the good still in them rather than for the things that hurt them.

At one point, in a dream, Bojack is made to recite the line, “This is all I am and all I’ll ever be.” That simple line gets to the heart of the fear that goes along with depression, as with much mental illness. There is no magic cure, no tumor to be cut out and no infection to be eradicated. It sits with you; it dies down and flares up and tells you lies to make you think things won’t change. But they always do. My demons are far away now. I still cringe when I hear their names, but I don’t cry as much anymore. This isn’t all I am, and it’s not all I’ll ever be. There is so, so much more beyond this.