Suicide, Stigma, and Disney’s Encanto
(Trigger warning: If you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide please reach out for help from the national suicide line at 988. Please read safely).
Sitting in one of the hotel’s small conference rooms, I sat listening to other high schoolers my age talking about their losses with an ease I had never experienced before. Some of them lost a parent, some their brother or sister, and others an aunt or uncle. The only thing our losses had in common was that it was death by suicide that took our loved one away too soon. It had taken ten years for my mom to convince me to attend a TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) Suicide Grief Seminar to be with other teens who had also lost a loved one to suicide. At the time, I did not want to be there, however, by the end of the weekend, I wished I had agreed to go sooner.
My dad was an Active-Duty Marine who took his life in August of 2008 when I was just six years old. Around the age of nine, I began to learn the truth about what had really happened that night, I wanted to talk about my feeling with my friends, but many of the adults in my life told me that my peers were too young to talk about suicide. For most of my childhood, I was made to feel that suicide was a forbidden word. My father’s family would not accept the true cause of his death and told everyone he had died in a car accident. In the first couple years after my father’s death, even our church counseled us not to go into detail about the circumstances surrounding my father’s death. This lack of open dialog caused me to go silent with this horrible, deep secret festering inside.
At 15, more than a year before I attended my first TAPS event, I began taking college courses and was told that not everyone needed to know my story. I was told that my testimony was not meant to be shared with everyone. Every article I read on the subject, and my youth group leader warned that my story couldtrigger others into committing suicide themselves. Once again, I was forced to be quiet and pretend that my dad’s death was just a car accident.
Up to this point, I had never attended an actual TAPS event, however, TAPS Mentors were volunteers at other events for military surviving kids, such as Snowball Express where TAPS mentors would try to convince me to go to a Suicide Survivorsevent where I would be able to openly share my story. My only response was internally scoffing at their suggestions and sticking my nose up at them. I’m not allowed to tell my story, so what makes you so special that you think I’ll tell you my story?
In my senior year of high school when grief reared its ugly head again, my mom forced me to finally attend my first TAPS Suicide Survivor event. TAPS in an organization that offers events throughout the country for children who have experienced a military loss of any kind. For some it may have been a parent, for others a sibling, cousin, or even an aunt or uncle. Their events are created to help kids and young adults find healthy ways to deal with their grief. As I entered that room for the first time, with 30 other teens and their military mentors in their dark blue t-shirts, my walls immediately went up high as not to let anyone in and not to let any of my secrets out. The day started off fun enough with playing games, talking with the other teens about familiar subjects such as Star Wars vs. Star Trek, and making new friends. However, as the day progressed,I found that all the games we were playing and all the conversations we were having with one another, were the TAPS group leaders’ sneaky way of tearing down our walls.
The group leader in her white TAPS T-shirt, held her hand over her head in the quiet coyote signal to draw the room of chattering teens and mentors quiet. I can’t remember what she asked that opened the flood gates, all I remember was tears running down my face as words tumbled out of my mouth, “I hate my dad. He could have chosen to be here for me. He could have chosen to fight for me, but he didn’t. He was supposed to teach me how to drive. He was supposed to be here to threaten boyfriends. He was supposed to be there for my high school graduation. He chose to abandon me! I hate him, but at the same time, there is a side of me that just wants him back!” At the end of my tear-filled rant about my dad, I expected to see everyone look at me in disbelief, that I could think such things about the dad I had lost.
In the past, I had always had people condescend to me about my feeling by saying, “Oh…honey you don’t really mean that!” or “Oh… honey you shouldn’t say that!” However, when I looked up at the other teens around me, rather than judgement or condescension, they were looking back at me, nodding their heads with understanding in their eyes.
A girl at another table across the room from me in her red TAPS T-shirt, long blonde hair and ballcap, with jeans that seemed to have more holes in them than actual jeans, leaned forward to look me right in the eye, and stated in the most matter-of-fact way, “I have and still feel the same way!”
A boy in the far corner of the room called, “Welcome to the club!”
Those two comments were both reassurance and a revelation that I wasn’t alone, my feelings were valid, which caused me to sit numbly in my own head as the dam of emotions finally broke for the first time. For ten years, I felt so alone in my feelings of loss, anger, sadness, and even betrayal. It left me with the question; why do we not talk about suicide?
Five years after this event at TAPS, Disney released the movie Encanto in November of 2021. This movie, to me, encompasses the whole experience of what the stigma of suicide does to a family, friends, and even neighbors and coworkers in the aftermath of a loss by suicide, and the mental health problems many survivors experience. Encanto follows the storyline of Abuela who lost her husband to bandits shortly after the birth of her triplets. She was given a miracle of hope through a magically created Casita that appeared the night he dies. Throughout the years, magical gifts were given to each child as they came of age. Mirabel is the one child who did not receive a magical gift. The story follows Mirabel and her desire to fit into the family. She comes to find out that her Uncle Bruno whose gift was to see the future, had a vision about Mirabel the night she didn’t get a gift, however, the vision wasunclear. At one angle, the Casita was cracking apart with her in the middle of it, in another, the house is healed with her in the same place. Mirabel goes on a mission to find Bruno’s vision and find a way to save the family miracle. Abuela holds on so tight to everyone and everything that happens in the family. Her strict hold over everyone causes so much stress that each of them and the Casita begin to crack under this pressure.
Through Bruno’s story, we see outright stigma about mental health and suicide through his song, “We Don’t Talk about Bruno,” which details his family and townspeople’s perception of him, that he makes bad things happen and one even believes he killed her goldfish (DisneyMusicVEVO). Luisa’s “Surface Pressure” shows the stress that people are oftenput under to act like they are fine after a loss, when they are not. Isabelle being forced to pretend that she is perfect her whole life demonstrates how many families try to save face after losing someone by suicide, so they don’t face persecution from others, for example, the religious community. All these issues build upon one another and often create a break in the family, as demonstrated through the cracks and collapse of their beloved Casita at the climax of the movie when the truth of how everyone has felt all along is revealed.
“We Don’t Talk About Bruno.”
The central theme of the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is how warped our perception can be of things we do not understand or fear (DisneyMusicVEVO). Bruno’s whole family and the village people became increasingly scared of his visions to the point where they either villainized him or shunned him altogether. The same thing happens in families when one of their members is struggling with serious mental health issues, or after a family member dies by suicide.
The song lyric, “Always left Abuela and the family fumbling,” shows how a family is sent staggering when someone they love is diagnosed with mental health conditions, someone is struggling with suicide ideation, or when they’ve reached the point of taking their lives (DisneyMusicVEVO). Families tend to push back from the situation because they do not want to admit that someone they love is struggling, or they don’t want to look into themselves or admit that they may have played a part in or added to the emotional decline of their loved one. This is when families begin to play the blame game.
People struggling with mental health often find themselves isolated because friends begin to distance themselvesbecause they don’t know what to say or are afraid of saying the wrong thing. Some friends just see their behavior as drama and choose to walk away. My closest friend Nichole is the only person that was my friend both before and after my father’s death in 2008. After his death, all my other friends slowly backed away because they didn’t know how to interact with me anymore. She shared with me that she knew I was closed off about my father’s death all these years, but she was the one person who saw me for who I was, her friend, rather than just my loss. However, she also revealed to me that sometimes she was afraid of saying the wrong thing, or she tried to be very careful with her words when talking about suicide, such as not joking about it like other young adults on social media do. What people need to understand is that it is okay to talk about suicide loss and the struggles they have with mental health, or they can simply choose not to say anything at all. It doesn’t have to be a taboo subject; in fact, it shouldn’t be. It is through open and honest conversations that we find healing.
Another song lyric is, “Seven-foot frame, rats along his back” points toward how we misinterpret people struggling with suicide ideation (DisneyMusicVEVO). There are two sides to this: First, people think that individuals struggling with mental health issues or suicide ideation are okay because on the outside they look fine, when in reality, they are fighting an intense, internal battle that no one else can see. Second, people have stereotypical ideas of how someone with mental health or grief should look like. This stigma keeps people from realizing there might be something wrong with a friend or family member and that they need help. People are afraid to face judgment or be considered abnormal when they reveal they are struggling. Everyone in the movie frames Bruno as this scary person who makes terrible things happen with his visions, but later it is revealed that he is just an awkward goofball who is honest when telling people what he sees in his visions (DisneyMusicVEVO).
Shortly after the TAPS event, I began to more openly and publicly share my story of how I really lost my father. The first time I did this was at a fellowship event in the honor society I was a part of. Since I was a relatively new member, I introduced myself to the group. This is where I met my friend Robert, a sweet black boy, shaped like a warm, round teddy bear, who always has a big smile on his face. He was affectionately named Huggy Bear; the first time we met, he literally swept me off my feet with the biggest hug. At the fellowship event, the conversation eventually came upon the topic of our parents, and I decided not to lie about how my father died. As soon as the word suicide left my mouth, I remember the sound of silence as almost everyone in the group stared silently because they did not know what to say. There was on person that night who knew exactly how I felt. I learned that my friend Lauren, who I had met a few weeks earlier had the same story as me. Her Active-Duty Army dad had died by suicide as well. I can vividly remember Robert’s reaction to my words as the giant whites of his eyes widened in shock at my revelation.
In the interview I had with him, he revealed why he had been so shocked at my reveal. He said that his expectation of someone who had gone through what I had would have a pessimistic view of the world and would wear black eye liner and dress more goth. He was not expecting me to be light-hearted, cheerful, and happy. Everyone in my life has expected me to look like I was a member of the Addams’ family, muddled with grief, but what they don’t realize is that it was just a season in my life, and I eventually learned to move forward. It was a defining moment, but it is not what defines me.
I have also experienced the other side of the mental health pendulum. Because I look normal and I’m a generally happy person. People don’t believe that I struggle with deep mental health issues caused by a TBI (traumatic brain injury) I experienced in a fall when I was a young child. The damage to the left frontal lobe damaged my language processing and severely limits my ability to control anxiety which causes panic attacks and PTSD. Since I was gifted my service dog, Everest, my sweet, fluffy, eager to please golden retriever, I have had many people ask me why I need him because I do not look disabled. People often refuse to believe that someone is struggling with mental health issues unless you look the part. What exactly is a person struggling with mental health “supposed” to look like? The truth is, they look like me, they look like you, and like everyone else, you will never fully know what the person right next to you is struggling with. I have had people judge me and ask for all sorts of certification papers for Everest that the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), does not require, in an attempt to prove my service dog is a fake. People try to treat him as if he is just a comfort animal, or they do not listen to me when I say he is working and seriously distract him from his job by talking to him or trying to pet him. This behavior by people keeps him from being able to attend tome when I need him most. The stigma people attach to those who struggle with severe mental health issues like autism, PTSD, and anxiety creates unnecessary shame on the one suffering and often keeps them from seeking the help they need to live a normal life. Everest allows me to lead a normal adult life rather than one shut off from the world.
“Surface Pressure”
The central theme of the song “Surface Pressure” is how people who have suffered a loss or struggle with mental health put pressure on themselves to care for their families and end up feeling as if they are carrying the world on their shoulders. This song points to how people put this pressure on themselves to make people think they have everything under control and can carry everything on their own, even though the exact opposite is true.
In this song lyric:
I’m pretty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of service
A flaw or a crack, the straw in the stack
That breaks the camel’s back
What breaks the camel’s back? It’s
Pressure like a drip, drip, drip, that’ll never stop…
Pressure that’ll tip, tip, tip ‘til you just go pop…
Give it to your sister, your sister’s older
Give her all the heavy things we can’t shoulder
Who am I if I can’t run with the ball. (DisneyMusicVEVO)?
This shows how people take on what is expected of them to carry or fix while struggling with mental health or losing a loved one. Our society pushes people to constantly accomplish one goal, meet another deadline, or push through their exhaustion. However, this societal rush keeps people from admitting they are not okay, which is detrimental to them and could add to their mental decline.
I began taking college courses in my junior year of high school at Polk State College. I was a young college student at just 15. Since I was homeschooled through elementary, middle, and part of high school, I did not know I had PTSD and severe anxiety from my father’s death, ten years prior, until I was physically out in the world alone, where I was faced with triggers I didn’t know existed. While I was in my first health class, a girl that sat beside me was late and rushed to fill up her gas tank and spilled some on herself. The same night this girl came in smelling like gasoline, the subject of the lesson was mental health and suicide. At this time, the debate of kneeling for the flag was starting, and of course, as a military surviving daughter, I was personally connected to the subject. This combination of things created a cocktail of triggers, triggering my first ever severe internal panic attack in the middle of class. This class was the first time I was ever under the authority of another teacher besides my mom. I did not want to be disrespectful by rushing out, so I stayed, glued and motionless to my seat for three hours. All I remember from that night is a voice inside my head screaming, telling me to run. When the class was called to an end, I rushed out of the building like the Roadrunner to the parking lot where my mom was waiting. Once I got into my mom’s car, and she saw the state I was in, she became extremely worried because her already pale Irish-skinned daughter was about ten shades paler. The next week I went to my class, my friend, who sat next to me, asked if I was okay because she watched me change in the three-hour class time and was worried that I would pass out. This was my first PTSD-related panic attack, and sadly, it was certainly not the last. For the next two years, I did everything I could do to run from it. I threw myself into my classes, joined clubs, and worked hard to prove myself and win awards both within and for my honor society. The abusive honor society chapter advisor pushed me to a breaking point by always making us work exceedingly hard to earn the awards and accolades he wanted for his chapter, not caring if our grades or mental health suffered. At one point, he said: “The chapter is more important than your studies, I want that F-ing number one chapter in the world banner.” He was verbally and psychologically abusive on one hand, theninappropriately touchy when he wanted something, which added to my volcano of anxiety that was about to erupt. It was not until the spring of 2020 when everything locked down due to Covid, that the overwhelming pressure became too much for me, and I had no place to run to, nowhere to hide from my mental health. I was lucky to have a mom who saw the signs and worked hard to keep me from completely breaking apart. This lockdown time with my mom helped me work through these issues and kept me from leaning into suicide ideation like many others were brought to.
In another song lyric:
I don’t ask how hard the work is
Got a rough, indestructible surface
Diamonds and platinum, I find ‘em, I flatten ‘em
I take what I’m handed, I break what’s demanded, but
Under the surface
I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus” (DisneyMusicVEVO).
This talks about what someone goes through trying to put everything back together after a loss by suicide or even a loss in general. However, they do not want to let everyone know they are struggling or think they are weak if they cannot handle everything on their own. From January 2008 to June of 2009, my mom and I lost my papa, my dad, and my nanny. We thought we had mourned these losses, but actually, ran from the grief rather than facing it, and about 18 months later, my mom and I finally reached our breaking point.
When my dad returned from his last deployment, his PTSD worsened all his previous addictions. By the time he finally took his life, we were practically financially ruined from his gambling. He had most of these credit card and loan statementssent to his office on base to hide it from my mom. My dad’s suicide not only affected us with grief from the loss, but that night, he also blew up seven years’ worth of financial documents that he had in a file box in the back seat. My mom was faced with trying to find a way to save our house, and to recreate the financial paper trail that my father had destroyed. This was on top of dealing with her own grief, walking me through my grief journey all while homeschooling me andhelping me overcome learning disabilities. More like educational roadblocks and blowups. The language processing issues from my TBI caused severe dyslexia and dysgraphia which often sent me over the edge during lessons. She also took care of her mom, who was dying of cancer, and went back to school to get a second degree in photography to try and provide for us by working from home. Many people tried to help my mom carry the load, but my mom would say, “I got this! We’re fine!” Yeah…it was more like, I got nothing. She was finally brought to a point where she had to admit we were not fine when at 11 years old I entered the anger stage of my grief when in a fit of rage, I threw a bicycle at my nanny. Our church family saw that we were both in crisis and brought my mom into counseling. We were a very close church family with Small Group each week, church on Sundays, and our church homeschool co-op Strong Oaks Academy. Friends were able to see the stress my mom was experiencing and the fact that she had never slowed down enough to grieve. Many adults experienced my inconsistent behavior directly in co-op classes. They stepped in to help take care of me like babysitting while she took care of important matters, keeping me for a day here and there to relieve some of the pressure she was carryingallowing her to get the help she needed so that she could then help me.
“What Else Can I do?”
The song “What Else Can I Do?” shows how some people feel forced to look perfect or be perfect after experiencing a loss by suicide or receiving a mental health diagnosis. Many people, to this day, are forced to lie about how their loved one died so they don’t get ostracized by friends, family, church, and in our case, the military community. Most people just want to feel something real, and by feeling as if they need to hide what they are truly feeling, healing never comes.
I have one friend who experienced a suicide death like my own. The military community her father served with believedher father could not have possibly “committed” suicide, so they thought her mom did something to him. However, once the investigation was wrapped up and it was confirmed her father did take his life, they pretended that he never existed, and it was not until several years later that her father was finally added onto his base’s memorial wall. Her family was not even invited to the ceremony when his name was added to the memorial. She is still tight-lipped about how her dad died because she does not like how people react to the reveal.
Most of the silence I was forced into came from my father’s side of the family and the religious views of the Catholic Church. This forced my mom and I into silence and pretending that everything was perfectly fine kept me from healing, causing me to relate to this song lyric:
“I’m so sick of pretty, I want something true, don’t you” (DisneyMusicVEVO).
I find it sad that my dad’s side of the family still does not admit my father’s death was a suicide, which I believe has hurt and stunted their healing process. Sometime in the last four years, I finally had enough of trying to pretend everything was normal and that I was okay all the time. The truth is, things are not always good or sunny, and life does have rainy days but that is okay, because without rain, we would have no flowers. All this trauma, baggage, and scars I carry inside are an integral part of me, they have contributed to the young woman I am today. Perfect, I am not, but I am a beautiful work in progress. These things just add to the beautiful mosaic piece I am becoming:
“What can you do when you know who you wanna be isn’t perfect?
But I’ll still be okay” (DisneyMusicVEVO).
It was not until I finally broke my silence and started to write my story that I started to heal.
“What can you do when you are deeply, madly, truly in the moment” (DisneyMusicVEVO).
This points to what could happen if people finally stop trying to pretend everything is okay and perfect. Healing only comes when people become real about their brokenness and struggles with the people around them to get help and, in turn, help others do the same.
Broken Home to Healing
The stigma of suicide and mental health can shake a family to its core. The silence continues to perpetuate the stigma and keeps people from seeking help. When people hide their deep, dark struggles, they will eventually turn into Mt. Vesuvius and will forcefully erupt creating a chaotic mess and causing others around them who may be struggling to go off the rails as well. Not facing struggles within our family due to stigma willeventually cause a family and home to break apart. It only takes one family member like Mirabel, or myself, to finally say enough is enough. Breaking the silence allows people to come out with their struggles and find healing. To break the stigma is to break the silence and recreate human connection with one another. In the movie, Maribel takes time to see things from each of her family members' points of view. She sees their struggles, their pain, and their loneliness, and she tells them they are not alone. Healing is all about creating a connection with one person, knowing they are not alone could save their life.
(Trigger warning: If you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide please reach out for help from the national suicide line at 988.)
Works Cited
DisneyMusicVEVO. “Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz - What Else Can I Do? (from ‘Encanto’/Lyric Video).” YouTube, YouTube, 23 Dec. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_jPoXu3qqI.
DisneyMusicVEVO. “Jessica Darrow - Surface Pressure (from ‘Encanto’/Lyric Video).” YouTube, YouTube, 8 Dec. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErY3eeRFTFg.
DisneyMusicVEVO. “We Don't Talk about Bruno (from ‘Encanto’).” YouTube, YouTube, 28 Dec. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvWRMAU6V-c.
McDermott, Rory M, and Lauren Garner. “Interview 3.” 16 May 2022.
McDermott, Rory M, et al. “Interview 1.” 16 May 2022.
McDermott, Rory M, et al. “Interview 2.” 23 May 2022.
©All writing property of R. M. McDermott LLC