Media is medicating, no one can deny that. The right song, the right film, it can bring about revelation and reinvention. It can hit us in our momentary circumstances in such a way that it has lasting, significant impact. Stories, expressions of emotion, beauty... all of it can heal us, or help us further accept ourselves.
I studied film in college. I come from a film family. My boyfriend works in film. I wanted to give my life to film at one point and worked hard as an actor and trained for over 13 years. In fact, I live right outside of L.A... most people around here are involved in the industry in some way or another. In short, TV shows are never just TV shows to me. I full recognize their power and significance. I don't spend time watching something that doesn't impress me. That may sound both arrogant and cynical but its true so I won't take it back. I am an elitist with film and television, I'll be the first to admit it. So when I am affected by something, its significant to me.
We started watching Mr. Robot because it was getting good reviews. Right off the bat, I loved it. It felt fresh and intelligent to me. I liked the style, I liked the aesthetic, I liked to concept of creating a show around the virtual world that we have created for ourselves. But that was not what immediately endeared it to me. What endeared it to me was its protagonist. Elliot.
Elliot is, in a nutshell (and this is where the spoilers come in) a paranoid schizophrenic with severe depression and social anxiety that is a gifted tech. He can hack anyone, code anything, you get the picture. He gets computers and speaks their language fluently. Oh, and he has a drug problem. But that's beside the point.
From that description, Elliot seems like the typical "tortured angst" protagonist that we see on TV all the time now. But, he's not. He feels very... real. Now, I can't speak for his paranoid schizophrenia being portrayed with 100% accuracy to the reality of the condition. It's TV. And as much as I would like to think we are more aware about mental illness these days, we are not completely accurate in our portrayals. But his severe social anxiety, his loneliness, his thought processing, his constant reference to the audience as an imaginary friend so he could have someone, somewhere to talk to? Yeah, that's all very real. And I understand it.
Elliot's uniform of choice is the same jeans, tee shirt, sneakers and black hoodie every day. He wears his hood all the time as a kind of protective coping mechanism. I do that too.
I have had (and will probably continue to have) seasons in which I have a very hard time compartmentalizing my life. I seem to be easily exhausted, my thoughts often feel scattered and vague, I have little to no appetite for food or friends, and I have a hard time remembering things. These are depressive periods. Sometimes they are triggered by circumstances, sometimes they aren't. But during those periods, the hood goes on. For some reason, it makes me feel safer. My uniform of choice is similar to his: jeans, sneakers, tee shirt and a hoodie. I take long walks during those times because the exercise is good for my brain. And I, too, talk to an invisible audience to stave away the loneliness. Maybe that's weird. I don't know. My psychiatrist thinks I'm fine though, haha. Okay, moving on.
I remember about three years ago when was in London, studying at RADA, we had a sonnet assignment. It was really simple. Just memorize the sonnet and prepare it for the following week. Well, I couldn't memorize it. I worked really hard, I spent time, I listened to audio recordings of it. But it wouldn't stick. I was humiliated by it and was eventually reprimanded by my vocal coach. I cried and tried to explain to him that I had worked really hard and I didn't know what was going on with me, and he politely told me that I needed to work harder next time. I was devastated.
Now, this occurred during a depressive episode (I didn't know that at the time, I was not diagnosed or being treated). During those periods, I am chronically exhausted, prone to headaches and I struggle retaining any information. Everything feels overwhelming and no matter how positive I try to stay and how hard I work, my body fails me. Because I am now being treated and am more aware of what I need to do to take care of myself, those periods occur less often. But they still occur. And when they do, I, like Elliot, find myself wondering whats wrong with my brain and feeling completed isolated from everyone else.
During those periods, I spend a majority of my time alone. I will text you back, sure. But don't ask me to see you in person. I mostly just talk to myself and spend my time working hard to pretend I am fully functioning while at work. At least, for as long as I can. You see that in Elliot. You see someone that is always fighting a sense of guilt for being the way he is, someone who works so hard to master his illness, and never quite succeeds. Sure, he's a cyber-terrorist with duel personalities, severe paranoia, vivid hallucinations, PTSD from a traumatic childhood, and a devastating drug addiction... but still... I get him. He gets me.
There's a scene in the pilot episode where Elliot is crouching behind his bed, in fetal position, rocking back and forth, and sobbing. He says to his Invisible Friend (us, the audience) in his mind, "I hate it when I can't hold in my loneliness. What do normal people do in this situation? They reach out to friends or family, I think."
I have had so many similar experiences. Loneliness, sadness, hopelessness... it grips me like a vice randomly and without warning and I crouch in a corner and cry. Been that way since I was a kid. And I always think the same thing, "What do normal people do when they feel like this? Why am I not normal?"
And sometimes, like Elliot, I am really confused and scared and I feel like I can't trust my own mind and I just want to sleep for a really long time until its over. And sometimes, like Elliot, I wonder why my brain is broken and why people are the way they are and if I will ever feel like I am achieving something with my life. And sometimes, like Elliot, I get angry that I can't win the battle with myself some days and that I don't always know why I do things or feel things.
So, thank you Mr. Robot, for creating a protagonist that feels real to me, that is flawed and human and interesting, and that makes me feel a little more okay with all the broken parts of my brain that used to scare me so much. Thanks for helping me embrace my "not-normalness" because maybe that's what will prompt me to do great things one day.