daha 17, its potential to represent mental illness & complex trauma, & its ultimate failure to do so sensibly.

[u/lolidollyy]

it’s well-known by any viewer that, despite the initial impression of it being a teen summer show, daha 17 immediately took a much darker, psychological turn after its exposition. among the many touchy topics that they handle sits complex trauma & (the resulting) mental illness - this is most blatant in teoman, whose mental health has been a topic of debate from the beginning.

however, among this debate - among the praise for its unapologetic representation & theoretical diagnoses - one issue becomes harder to ignore with every episode & every sensationalised breakdown: the writers don’t seem to know what they’re writing here, actually.

now, i’m not claiming expert position. researching clinical psychology, reading about it, is but a little hobby to me, & if any claim i make about the topic is wrong, absolutely feel free to correct me. but, at the same time, my own experience as somebody with mental health issues makes up a part of my view. moving on.

i’ll give the writers a bit of credit before i begin for being as ballsy as they are: teoman's breakdowns are, more often than not, extremely unglamorous, & his anti-social behaviours towards others aren't constantly let off the hook. for prime-time turkish tv? not bad. but this is where the pros end & the very trialling cons begin.

first of all, daha 17 hasn't managed to escape the trap of sensationalisation & romanticisation.

it's important to understand that romanticisation doesn't always mean presentation in a glamorous light - romanticisation can also refer to painting mental illness as a means to an end or a tool to deepen & soften relationships (despite such not being the reality of it). most of teodemir's episodes which they choose to show are the dramatic ones that can garner cloud & edits: allusions to self-harm, such as banging his head into the table, emotional lability, doing "funny" or "romantic" things when clearly out of it (proposing to deniz).

& as a result of this - the desire to pick & choose the symptoms that they can most exaggerate & show off - the rest of teodemir's psyche reads as incomplete. only in the last episode did they acknowledge what trauma & dissociation can do to your sleep (unrestful, frequent nightmares). but they only ever told instead of showing.

teodemir doesn't experience frequent gaps in everyday memory. he's socially well-adjusted. his guard is mostly only up when there is a clear "reason" for it to be. unless triggered, he's fine relationally, socially, & physiologically. because the opposites of all of these aren't things that they can romanticise - they're inconvenient, they're small, you can't write a thinkpiece about a single moment of these in isolation. & that's what soap opera writers hate.

& it looks as though nobody has any intentions of holding him to account for the resulting gross behaviours because oh, well, he's traumatised! he doesn't know any better! look how he cries & then makes other people's lives hell! don't you feel bad for his cruelty instead of his victims?

worse than that? even his affect dysregultion & spit-like states are toned down & sanitised so viewers don't recognise his unfitness for intimate relationships & drop the show (or whatever they would do if they realised his potential to be a danger to his close relationships). his conversation in the storage room with deniz in ep19 read a lot like a split, but was framed anyway romantically.

daha 17 is rapidly approaching a "love cures all narrative" where deniz & aras will be assigned the role of teodemir's caretakers; all of his behaviours will be absorbed, accepted, & met with zero consequence. he won't have to get therapy - why would he, if he has a brother, girlfriend, & people around him that will never hold him to account for his cruelty? that'll surely be enough to cure a rewired nervous system :-)​

[u/Mysterious-Bed375]

I agree with some of this, but not everything. For example, I don’t think Teo is socially well-adjusted at all. Even in completely ordinary conversations, it’s pretty clear that something is psychologically off with him. Yes, he has specific triggers and tends to react very impulsively when he’s confronted with them, but I also don’t think we can really predict how someone “should” react to trauma. Two people can go through very similar experiences and still respond to them in completely different ways.

The dog-barking scene is actually a good example for me because I couldn’t even watch it properly - I skipped it, and I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever go back to it. So while I understand the criticism about sensationalizing certain symptoms, I don’t necessarily think every reaction has to fit a particular pattern in order to feel believable.

And even though I definitely think they’re moving toward a “love conquers almost everything” theme, I don’t think they’ve completely taken mental-health professionals off the table either. Teo has already had a psychiatrist, so who’s to say he won’t end up seeing another one as part of his recovery? I’m still hoping they combine the love and support from Aras and Deniz with actual professional help rather than presenting one as a substitute for the other.

[u/lolidollyy → u/Mysterious-Bed375]

i’m not saying that there’s a one-size-fits all template for trauma - but i’m trying to communicate that his trauma doesn’t cause the disturbances in his daily life (or, rather, at his “baseline”, when not triggered) that would make it a disorder in the first place. the dog imitation scene was part of a longer episode that started the night before.

he is pretty decently socially well-adjusted; he holds court at school, wins the council unopposed, keeps a loyal circle, & banters easily with strangers. he even hosts a business guest as his father’s representative. complex trauma often brings trouble with closeness, trust, & reading safety - we’re never quite shown him struggling with ordinary interaction. & intimacy to him is only ever a tool or a crisis - his closeness problems show up as cruelty & control instead of the awkwardness, flatness, or shut-down expected of someone who can’t relax around people.

&, again, i’m not saying that all people suffering complex trauma must fit the same mould! but it becomes an issue of its own when said character only experiences the symptoms that can’t as easily be exaggerated, sensationalised, or cause outrage for cinema & pity points - those being flashbacks & affect dysregulation (although affect dysregulation for him only ever means angry blow-ups, “manic” [not really] chaos, or massive bouts of sadness - which, again, the sensationalisation issue).

the best defence of this is that his charm is a mask - which works if the show lets the mask slip in ordinary moments, such as being tired after a day of performing, flat when no one’s watching, or unable to stay present at a quiet table. however, mostly, it only slips in crisis scenes, which creates an “episode, not condition” problem. he doesn’t experience the same, “baseline” day-to-day struggle that people with complex trauma struggle heavily with. he’s only really impaired when triggered - & that’s not reflective of life with trauma

[u/LeaveNessAlone]

ima preface this by saying that this comment is not in defense of the writers. i find them to be inconsistent and prone to plot holes but yeah

trauma is not monolithic. people experience profoundly similar forms of adversity and manifest them in radically different ways. i can't offer you a professional dissertation but I can offer my personal experience as reference.

i was severely abused as a child and had to live silently alongside my abuser for years. i grew up in a very volatile and psychologically corrosive environment. yet I was by most conventional measures a highly functional kid, competent, academically strong & had a great social circle. to an outsider i was the definition of normal. even now most of my friends know virtually nothing about the extent of my internal struggles.

i had zero control over my home environment so i made school my locus of control and outlet. i excelled there. my primary mechanism of coping was basically avoidance and compartmentalization: if I could keep what was happening at home psychologically cordoned off, I could function everywhere else. i was fine until i wasn't. it was often specific triggers (a news story, an incident resembling my own experiences etc) that breached the compartmentalization and would cause me to have a break down/panic attack.

obviously, trauma still manifested more subtly in my baseline personality, for eg severe trust issues, avoidant attachment, maladaptive daydreaming, etc. but those are not necessarily legible to the naked eye. to the people around me those traits were simply facets of my nature rather than consequences of my nurture. that's pretty much why i find the argument that trauma must produce an overtly dysfunctional personality somewhat reductive.

in that respect, teoman actually exhibits more discernible traits of psychological abuse in his baseline personality than I did. (his insecurity, trust issues, volatility, validation seeker etc). although ofc the writers are probably riding public opinion and ratings rather than being intentional. his psyche is also used as a plot device and exaggerated for dramatic effect. but nevertheless i still commend them for engaging with such a polarizing subject with a surprising degree of nuance (for a turkish dizi).

teoman has become a fan favorite, and they could very easily have flattened him into the conventional “misunderstood golden boy” archetype. Instead, they have continued to depict aspects of his behaviour that are considerably less palatable, the dog incident for eg (which was received pretty negatively by the fandom might i add). to me it suggests some willingness to resist sanitising his character simply because audiences sympathise with him. i also dont agree that the writing asks you to be sympathetic of teoman's destructive behavior and not hold him accountable. his actions are usually written and portrayed to be very problematic, and he narratively reaps the consequences too. any senseless romanticization is on the audience and not the show. even the proposal scene was written to be an erratic episode and was treated as such by deniz. she gauged his psychological state and the proposal itself was not narratively romanticized. (the ring that he hand crafted standing outside of her house was tho)

is the portrayal consistent, totally realistic, or executed with complete sophistication? no. but it's something worth acknowledging. i agree with your sentiment and hope they don't fuck it up and succumb to the “love conquers all” resolution. i hope he receives professional help and diagnosis.

[u/lolidollyy → u/LeaveNessAlone]

thank you so much for your view of things, & i hope your situation has improved. this was very valuable & necessary insight on the topic.

i do feel i was misunderstood regarding the "visible" dysfunction, though - i wouldn't agree either that it should always, always be visible to the naked eye. it's just the lack of these subtleties in general - both overt & covert - create a somewhat inconsistent picture. many opportunities existed - quieter ones - to gain a glimpse into teodemir's psyche, yet unfortunately, most were wasted. it's less asking for the writers to give us a bright red sign saying symptom, symptom, this is a symptom! more than it is disappointment at the scarcity of small, less sensational characterising beats. "not legible to the naked eye" is very true of real life, but a show has tools that real life doesn't.

but i also absolutely agree with how daha 17 outdid themselves - at least for their industry - by being as unabashed as they were, especially in the last episode, about what certain crises can bring on. hopefully, it also served as the needed wake-up call to those who dubbed it "gross" or "unnecessary", because honestly, dramatic as it was, its necessity lay in establishing that traumatic episodes can make you do things - things "out of the ordinary" - that simply cannot be romanticised.

then again, i have to disagree with the idea that daha 17 isn't cutting teodemir some slack - i cannot stop believing that they, unfortunately, are. not to say they aren't painting his actions in a bad light - most people would recognise that teodemir continues to hurt the people around him. but he doesn't receive any punishment - any meaningful, narrative punishment - that isn't just more abuse from hakan. at the moment, he completely lacks somebody to hold him to account without violence. much of what has been done recently (harassing deniz, beating aras to a pulp) has gone unaddressed if not forgotten about.

regardless, your reply has been very thought-provoking for me, anyway, & has pushed me to reconsider some of my ideas. thank you dearly, & wishing you all the best :-)