An Actor’s big “break”: how Everyone on Barry Has PTSD
I watched the season 3 premiere of Barry and it was a reminder that everyone on this show has been through hell and back and suffers from PTSD. Barry is a black comedy crime drama centering Barry Berkman (played by Bill Hader), an American veteran turned hitman for hire who, in the midst of a crisis of faith, decided to come out of the shadows and pursue a passion for acting.
Throughout the show, Barry has straddled the line between the life of a recluse and an ordinary participating member of society that include a typical job, relationships, and somewhat of a social media presence. The choices he grapples with in this world keep you at the edge of your seat. Bill Hader has created a character with so much complexity and his acting is even more elevated. The man knows how to act with every feature of his face, especially his eyebrows. And what better set of eyebrows to tell such a story?
The Characters Begin to Face The Aftermath of Their Experiences
After 2 seasons of love, longing, murder, deception, and gang relations, all the main characters in the show find themselves surprisingly alive and dealing with the aftermath of their horrific experiences… and sometimes not dealing with it at all.
Barry’s season 3 premiere is a jam-packed half-hour of catch-up of all its main characters. If you haven’t watched the first 2 seasons, this is your official spoiler alert! I strongly recommend watching this show from the beginning for some genuine moral wrestling entertainment.
How Each Character is Playing Symptoms of PTSD
As I catch up on every storyline, I can’t help but think of the ways each character is playing out symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Coming from all walks of life, these characters prove how PTSD looks different in all of us and I’d like to show you how.
So I’m not going to go into the whole DSM-5-TR definition of PTSD. I’d like to explain PTSD symptoms in four categories: Intrusive symptoms, Arousal Symptoms, Avoidance, and the Cognitive Processing of the Trauma.
Four Categories of PTSD
Intrusive symptoms:
Intrusive symptoms are thoughts you’re not actively trying to think about but they show up anyway. They are literally intruding into your mind. This comes in the form of disturbing thoughts, dreams, nightmares, and flashbacks to your traumatic experience. In Barry, this is where editing really shines. The editors on this show use blunt, sudden transitions to images and sound to really get you to experience a flashback the way Barry does.
He dissociates completely from a moment and is brought directly back to a place that feels so real, he might as well be experiencing it again. This intense and all-encompassing experience is triggered by a reminder as simple as a sound, a phrase, or looking at an object that sends him right back to that traumatic moment in Iraq.
Another person who experiences intrusive symptoms is Hank, the hilarious, loveable, and naive member of the Chechen mafia. Though now in a safe environment, Hank continues to have nightmares and flashbacks to the time he spent in captivity at the home of his secret Bolivian drug lord boyfriend, under the threat of a panther who was running wild and attacking others outside his jail cell.
Arousal symptoms:
Arousal symptoms are traits that stimulate discomfort and are often physically manifested in the body. Examples are being easily startled, hypervigilance, disturbance in sleep, panic, distractibility, and irritability. If I were to describe the state Sally has been in it would be an elevated and impulsive state of irritability. Sally is screaming at everyone. She’s been screaming at everyone like a steaming kettle that’s had enough.
We find her seeking refuge back home to her family where she has a panic attack in response to trying to confide in her mother; who seems quite stoic in her response to what her daughter is going through. There is so much there that needs to be unpacked. What has gone on in that household through Sally’s childhood that causes a mother to respond in such a victim-blaming way?
Cognitive Processing of the Trauma:
This refers to autobiographical memories, thoughts, and emotions about trauma. Basically, the way you remember it, what you think about why it happened, what you think as a result of what’s happened, and how it makes you feel (ie. guilt, shame, etc). Guilt and shame are at the core of Barry’s motivation as an assassin. Since returning from war, Barry never saw himself as someone that can contribute to society in a positive way again. He wasn’t driven by passion, he was driven by the guilt and shame he’s adopted in response to how he perceives his role and behaviors as a soldier.
Barry’s Solitude and Violence is His Penance
His life of solitude and violence is his penance. It’s maintained by his low sense of self and belief that he’s not worthy of having more in his life. This is consistently manifested in his self-harming behavior. First, by banging his head against the wall until he bleeds in response to his ex no longer willing to take his call. Second, when he provokes a prison guard who tried to give him an affirmation that he’s not that bad. Barry responds by calling himself a “cop killer” in an attempt to rile up the guard and plan an attack on him, which worked.
Finding himself in prison, Barry is not willing to accept that there is anything good about himself. As an ongoing thread of his trauma, he is deserving of everything that goes wrong for him, even the acts that are inherently good like believing in your talent and being vulnerable with others. He now has more than enough evidence to double down on the cognitive distortion that he is cursed and never deserving of good things because of what he’s done in the military.
Avoidance:
Last but not least is avoidance. It’s one of the most important symptoms because it’s the one that keeps you the most “stuck” in your trauma. Avoidance is the act of evading anything that could possibly remind you of the trauma. That includes avoiding places, people, objects, situations, and activities.
Avoidance Can Happen With Substance Abuse
Avoidance is also manifested through chronic substance use (a self-soothing practice that helps numb other trauma symptoms), avoiding therapy and other helpful resources, and in Hank and Cristobal’s case, staying busy. In the face of violence, Hank and Cristobal have found safety in their romantic relationship.
Both coming from organized crime families, they’ve been able to escape to a beach town where they can live out their open and more honest lives. But not much time passes that Hank and Cristobal jump right back into the business and reconnect with people in the gang community to explore a new business venture. Perhaps you can argue they were getting bored with the simple life. I like to think of it as having a little too much time to sit with your thoughts, especially intrusive ones.
So What Will Happen To Barry and His Trauma?
So what will be the ending of Barry? It’s the last season and my hope is that one of these characters ends up in a therapist’s office. Like many of the clients I see, I want these characters to know that they don’t have to suffer in silence, they don’t have to be burdened by their past, and that therapeutic approaches like Cognitive Processing Therapy, are specifically aimed at decreasing symptoms of PTSD in as little as 3 months.
There’s a line of dialogue Hank says that stood out to me: “Forgiveness needs to be earned”. I hope the characters, and many others struggling with trauma, learn that they can start healing by forgiving themselves first.
Season 3 of Barry is now streaming on HBO Max
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