Michelle E Howard

Didn’t know what to expect and spent the entirety laughing and then crying and then smiling. We loved every second of it.

Warning - spoilers…kind of. First of all, I loved it. The acting was magnificent and the content was tough. Having been in a similar situation, I personally found a couple of the episodes hard to watch/triggering but I do take umbrage with the fact that she was able to find her feet so quickly. Navigating public services and financial aid can be trickier than portrayed, and the relationship with her mother was fraught with questions about the treatment of her disease was questionable. Andie acted the script efficiently and beautifully, but her release from hold and lack of attention to her disease as well as how it affected the relationship between her and her daughter was one of fiction, compacted into a short time frame. Having known manic bipolar individuals, this didn’t feel genuine. The other hard part for me to take was the boyfriend being so gracious about it. I grew up around an alcoholic whose illness was manifested in a similar way and those in the throes of addiction to alcohol are much more selfish. The most real character to me was her dad. A man who thinks he’s changed his ways, but in reality takes no responsibility for his actions and shows his true colours consistently, while thinking he’s being the best version of himself hit so close to home that I believed it. It was a good introduction to the things that many women are going through and the absolute agony the reality of abuse really is. As a woman who has called the police to leave a relationship like that (but without the alcohol) it was humbling to see how far I’ve come since those days. I can still remember the first day I went to the grocery store to buy groceries and didn’t worry what the total would be. I walked out of there, my cart full of everything I wanted, my bills paid, my car insured and running perfectly fine, in a brand new pair of shoes and a man at home who in now 11 years has never done anything but celebrate us and lifted me up and we walked out, my son, my husband and I, heads high, our voices full of laughter and mischief, stopped on the way home to buy takeout and settled into our home where no bills were overdue and we spent the evening playing a board game and joking around with one another was my best day.