I was in seventh grade the first time I became sucked into the world of Hannah Baker and her 13 Reasons Why. It was 2007 and everybody was reading the novel. I was a semi-depressed and isolated young adolescent at the time and thought this kind of book would be right up my ally, so I decided to read it. I came out of my reading with a critical eye (I was already a scholar in just seventh grade, you know) and felt like the book was marginal at best. I did not find myself empathizing with Hannah the way I had hoped I would, feeling as though my own anxieties and views of the world were being represented and understood within the confines of this book. Rather, I almost hated Hannah. I thought she was superficial and weak and that her motive for releasing these tapes, to expose everyone’s secrets, was just a big scheme for attention, even after she was already dead and gone. I didn’t really feel attached to Clay all that well either, envisioning a young boy who blamed everyone else on the tapes for Hannah’s decision and not other factors that may have been involved, such as himself for instance. I put the book on the backburner and relatively forgot about the contents or “message” and moved on with my life.

My junior year of high school I participated for the second time in a row in the annual Teen Book Festival held at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY. As a young, aspiring author myself, I saw this festival as my way into the world of the new literary developers of our time, as young adult novels were becoming increasingly more popular, and I wanted to pick every author’s brain I could for ideas. I was originally paired with Margaret Stohl, the author of the Beautiful Creatures series, but upon arrival to Nazareth, I was informed that her flight had been delayed and she would be unable to attend. Slightly hung over and still sporting my glamorous updo and makeup from junior prom the night before, I was paired instead with Jay Asher who wrote 13 Reasons Why. Asher was a lovely enough person, comical and relatively kind-hearted, but all I could think about the whole time I tended to him was “I hated your book”. To say the least, it was an awkward time and I left feeling unfulfilled in my dreams to have ethereal inspiration from some young adult authors.

I was in my sophomore year of college when 13 Reasons Why came out on Netflix. After hearing months of hype on various social media platforms about the show, I was intrigued. I watched the entire first season in one week, waiting to feel some kind of connection to the characters, unlike when I read the book many years before. And I did. I did feel connected to the character’s built around Hannah Baker—Jessica, Alex, Zach, etc. I was shocked at how brutal the rape scenes appeared to me and especially at Hannah’s suicide. I wasn’t really expecting the director to actually show the razor blade slicing Hannah’s skin open and I had to leave my dorm room to go throw up in the bathroom stall before returning to watch the rest of the episode. It was disturbing and I found myself feeling horrible about the entire series, having nightmares about rape and suicide for weeks following watching the show.

When the second season came out on Netflix a few weeks ago, I wasn’t originally planning on watching it at all, as I was still rather upset by the first season, but the promos and teasers got to me, and I wanted to know what they could possibly do with a dead girl’s story after she was already dead. What really pushed me over the edge into watching the second season was when my 14 year-old sister asked me if I had started watching it yet. Unbeknownst to me, she had already seen the first season all by herself and was eager to start the second. My sister isn’t easily touched or moved by movies, books, or music and often times she rarely shows emotions at all. She’s always been rather stoic and reserved. But, I was already bothered that she had seen Hannah’s suicide all by herself, knowing that watching that scene had been difficult for me and I was seven years older than her. Being the over-protective sister that I am, and still arguably a bit curious, I told her I thought we should watch the second season together.

For the most part, the season went by rather smoothly. There is some sex and nudity that I wasn’t too fond of having my sister see, but the whole time I was just glad that she wasn’t watching it all alone. Then came the last episode, and the bathroom scene with Tyler. You all know which scene I’m talking about. I knew what was coming when Monty picked up the mop handle and dragged it over to Tyler, but for some reason I couldn’t react fast enough to shield my sister from seeing the inevitable. Like I said before, my sister isn’t really affected by much of anything, but this particular scene bothered her, I could tell. She let out a little squeak and looked away from the television as we watched Tyler being sodomized by his peers. The rest of the episode was a blur for me, all I could think about was that one scene and how my 14 year-old sister had just watched something so graphic with me.

Days later, and she is over it, but I’m not. That night of watching the particular episode I had nightmares again, like I did after I finished the first season, but they were exacerbated by the fact that I had seen someone being sexually assaulted in front of my baby sister. Rationally, I can see the purpose for such a scene. The raw shock-value of it for the director, the ability to get the word out about the gruesome realities of male sexual violence and assault, and an overall ability to empathize with Tyler as he moves on in the episode to become a school shooter. As a person, an older sister, and an empathetic ball of anxiety, this scene hurt me to my very soul. I know it was just a scene, it didn’t really happen right there in front of me, but it felt like it did, and I know that to some people this is a reality that they have lived through. I don’t know if exploiting that reality for a television series was really the right way to send a message about male sexual assault.

Overall, I understand the purpose of the scene and what the writers, actors, and director were trying to do. But, I can’t help myself from feeling tricked into watching something that I didn’t want to be watching. From my seventh grade reading of 13 Reasons Why back when I was 11 years-old, I knew what to expect in the first season, but I was completely unprepared for what would happen in the second and what that might mean for my little sister.

I know that watching Tyler in the bathroom in the last episode will not completely scar my sister for life, and eventually I too will forget about what happened, but to think that this does not have an impact on how my sister moves forward in her life would be ridiculous. Whether that impact be positive, or negative, I’m not really sure, but I am afraid for season 3 and I am afraid of her watching it.