When Girls are Victims and Villains
I'm loving Hulu's Under the Bridge!
I’m currently watching Under the Bridge the latest hit show on Hulu. It’s a series about the true story of fourteen-year old Reena Virk’s disappearance A group of teenage girls and one boy were accused of murdering Reena in the 1990’s. Reena is played by up-and-coming South Asian American actress Vritika Gupta — who, by the way, is seriously stellar.
I’m not done with the whole series yet (I just finished Episode Four last night). So far, it feels very much in the the “When Girls Kill Each Other” genre that we have seen proliferate recently.
Today I’m sharing three themes that I’ve noticed as a psychiatrist and what we can learn from them.
(Full spoilers for Sharp Objects and Yellowjackets, and mild spoilers for Under the Bridge below.)
It’s when you’re fighting for survival that you’re most likely to hurt others.
It seems like every season there is another “Girls Who Kill Each Other” show that goes viral (think, Yellowjackets, Sharp Objects). These shows are thrillers that keep us on the edge of our seats. We want to know who did the killing. Central is that the girls are “troubled” (but, I mean, what girl is NOT troubled?). That said, for sure, the circumstances these girls contend with are extremes (eg. Munchausen syndrome by proxy, surviving a plane crash in the Canadian winter, living in a group home). As a psychiatrist, of course I find myself thinking about how the villain is also the victim of her families pathology, of social and structural circumstances, of bullying, or worse.
We know that hurt people hurt people. On TV we watch the dramatic impact (though, to be fair, Under the Bridge is actually a true story, grim). Most girls are not committing murder or having to resort to cannibalism after finding out they’re pregnant with the baby of their dead best-friend’s boyfriend. Most girls are just experiencing or inflicting emotional cruelty onto themselves or onto others and thus collecting childhood wounds that will fester into adulthood wounds (also grim but less so). The line between victim and villain is blurry in real life and on TV.
It’s when you are fighting to survive (existentially, spiritually, or in some cases, physically) that you are at highest risk for inflicting harm on the people you care about most. This has been true for me in my own life, and I see it all of the time with my patients. To be clear, this doesn’t excuse anyone’s actions. But, remembering the context can help us understand and feel less out of control internally.
Which leads me to my next thought..
Polarization comes from being disconnected from another person’s humanity
We know starting out in Under the Bridge that Reena has disappeared. We find out pretty quickly that she is dead — probably murdered by one of her classmates. From flashbacks we go on to learn that months prior to Reena’s death she had acted out towards her parents in a horrifying way that had lasting implications.
After watching the last episode, I scanned Reddit and was shocked to find that people were saying a 14-year-old girl deserved to die because of how she treated her parents. How Reena acts out is for sure incredibly destructive and painful to watch, but I still found myself shocked that random internet people could have such an callous take.1
But, in retrospect, I think this is a helpful example of how polarization, in life and on the internet, happens. When we see senseless trauma or tragedy, our first thought is some version of “How could this be?” or “This is impossible.” Because our preferred version of reality is one in which the world is an orderly meritocracy, we feel threatened by senseless chaos and destruction. So, naturally, we want distance ourselves from the messiness and from the people involved. This emotional distance closes us off to the humanity of the experience of others. It’s in this constricted and isolated emotional space that we are vulnerable to being polarized.
Something about this feels particularly resonant to our times when a significant portion of our country is refusing to acknowledge that they are posed to vote a convicted felon into the Presidency.
When we view someone’s identity or their circumstances as either so different than our own (or, when we view someone’s identity as similar but their choices as so different), and we are unwilling or unable to self-reflect, the combination can lead to dehumanizing others, and thus, polarization.
Being a kid that feels on the outside stays with you forever
Watching Under the Bridge feels a little bit like transporting through time for me. While I did not act out as dramatically as she did, like Reena, I grew up with strict South Asian immigrant parents who did not want me to date, and who were very focused on upholding our cultural traditions (Indian food, Indian clothes, etc). Like Reena, I desperately wanted to be white when I was growing up.
I find that my patients, no matter the color of their skin or the level of resources they had, usually have experienced some version of the same. It is ubiquitous in girlhood — and this was even before screens and social media and algorithms.
I’ve written before about wanting to belong and how I’ve struggled with self-confidence over the years.
When people ask me how I have achieved my career successes, I usually answer by saying that for a long time it was not by healthy means. Even at this stage in my life and career, I have to pull myself back from wanting to fit in. The need is so deep. What has changed (through therapy, treatment, challenging myself, and taking risks) is that the need is no longer existential like it was in my teens and in my 20’s. Now, it’s a bit more like muscle memory. When I see my desperation to be invited to the cool girls’ table come up, I identify it, and course-correct. Being myself does not feel like a loss.
I share this because my patients expect that once they are “better” they won’t feel the need to fit in anymore. In reality, that feeling never goes away. You’ll always feel it because you are human. If you had those girlhood childhood wounds, they will be muscle memory. What matters is what you DO with the feeling.
xo,
Pooja
ICMYI
“Indelible in the Hippocampus is the Laughter”
WHEN WILL I LEARN