10 pop culture characters who accurately depict mental health issues

Dead To Me season 1 production still. Photo: Saeed Adyani / Netflix

Jen Harding

We love characters who are just free to be angry, tired, and messy. Character complexity doesn’t take on one form. The new Netflix series, Dead to Me, has a slow burn approach to clarifying Jen Harding’s attempts to manage her anger. However, like everything else on the show, Jen’s anger and grief aren’t one-sided, nor are they connected to each other in a perfectly packaged plot point.

Grieving is complicated. Admittedly, much of the storyline complicates Jen’s grief and everything else of the show well all on its own. However, Jen’s character development allows her to naturally progress and regress through her grief and the layers of her anger, which realistically started well before her husband died.

As people, we should be allowed to just be angry and vent, especially since she grieves for a man who didn’t love her, cheated on her, and deteriorated her self-esteem. But Jen’s anger is seemingly never-ending, and it doesn’t just impact her. It impacts her friends, her family, and her job. It’s all-consuming. Although the series is just beginning, we see her acknowledge that her expression of anger is a problem.

There’s a lot left to discuss regarding her grief and anger management. However, sometimes it’s okay to channel your rage and revel in being mad at the world. Jen shows that just as much as she subsequently illustrates that it’s okay to check how you channel your emotions.