How HBO's Barry helped me heal
HBO’s Barry is not the show you think it is. On the surface, it’s about a former marine turned reluctant hitman who wants something more out of life. Underneath, it’s a clever meditation on trauma, the healing process, and finding a purpose for the pain.
As a repeat survivor of assault and someone who suffers from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and finds comfort in pop culture, I am always looking for myself on screen. I’m always searching for relatable moments that make me feel less alone, for creative (but accurate) depictions of what I live through every single day. This also allows me to better explain the disorder to family and friends who just don’t get it. My mom has never experienced a panic attack, but she understood how I felt when Hank Schrader suffered one in Breaking Bad. I’ve never been able to accurately explain the extreme paranoia caused by PTSD, but I was able to after season one of Better Call Saul and the realistic depiction of Chuck’s psychogenic illness. It’s important. It’s healing. It lets me, and other survivors know, that other people get it. They get us.
Trauma, however, is an entirely different ballgame. It changes the way our brain works and resets our entire personalities, the way we do things, and robs us of ordinary everyday experiences. How do you explain that to someone who doesn’t understand? You can’t – and it’s an impossibly lonely feeling.
Enter Barry. When we first meet Barry Berkman (Bill Hader), we watch him kill a guy, go home, play video games, and go to sleep as if it were a typical nine-to-five. His next assignment leads him to Los Angeles, where he stumbles upon an acting class full of eager hopefuls with big dreams of making it in the biz. The class is taught by famed acting
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