Bodyguard - what they got wrong...

Berserker Bard here -

So I watched the BBC drama Bodyguard, and hearing its acclaim I thought it might be worth giving it a go.

And…

(-_-) *sigh*

It’s not as if the show started off badly, the very beginning set up a good narrative and showed the main character as a genuine, thoughtful and capable police officer who is good in a crisis. This tone of his character does continue and it would make sense in real life; he’s a police officer and bodyguard, he needs to be able and effective in a crisis, on a pin drop he needs to be vigilant and prepared. This makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense, what really, really makes NO sense… is him reportedly having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I’m sorry show, just no…

As a sufferer myself, I spent the first episode hoping, praying that they wouldn’t have him be a PTSD sufferer, hoping that there was another reason for the gun sound effects when he was asleep, for his apparent anger issues and the his wife’s suggestion that he ‘needed help’.

But, like in most shows, it was as they were trying to hint. 

Yes, this character who remains collected in a crisis, who can respond productively to chaos and can literally keep his nerve in gunfire (which is suggested to be the cause of said PTSD), has PTSD.

I’m sorry, I’m not buying it; it’s beyond any comprehensible suspension of my disbelief.
Not only are you expecting me to believe he’s got PTSD, but you’re also expecting me to believe he can hide it from the police, no less, people more likely to get PTSD in the first place and recognise it’s signs.

Really? Is PTSD something that can be that well hidden even with trained psychological analysis and vetting which would definitely be required? I put it to any sufferer to prove this show is bullshitting what it means to have a mental illness. Yes, it’s invisible and yes people can hide what’s going on inside their heads - mental illness is easily overlooked, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean it can be swept under the rug - there’s a reason they’re called ‘sufferers’.

Take, say, someone with a severe leg injury. Can they stand? Yes, just about, with difficulty. Can they run? No, and they’d hurt themselves trying.

PTSD is like a leg injury. It doesn’t go away by itself, it remains raw and open until it’s treated specifically and even with treatment there’s no guarantee of complete recovery - the limp may stay even if the wound looks healed. If David (the bodyguard) really did have PTSD, his ‘limp’ would show, especially with such a mentally demanding job. He would stumble before he became a bodyguard, probably while he was training with the police force. Because if with extensive training they missed him limping and stumbling, they must have been looking away from him entirely, for however many years it takes to train to be a bodyguard.

 So either the police force itself is severely lacking in collective observation or he didn’t show any symptoms in front of them, which makes his ‘suffering’ very questionable indeed.

But it is questionable, because, using my metaphor, he barely limped on screen. Not one moment of utter panic, no look of ‘shell shock’, no near mention of vulnerability. Not to mention that because PTSD sufferers tend to want to avoid flashbacks, they stay well clear of any situation that may trigger one - including signing up for a career that can literally plunge you into dangerous, scary and life-threatening situations. Now I cannot speak for all PTSD sufferers, everyone’s different of course and so are their triggers. For me, going into hospital has my heart racing, hands shaking and anger and bitterness fume in my stomach. I’m better than I was when I was younger, but a part of me still wants to get out of there as quickly as possible without looking back. Let's say medical care or nursing would be the last thing I'd sign up to do - not that I'd be suited anyway.

Now take David’s character - assuming his triggers are anything relating to a battlefield, the sights, sounds and smells that all flooded in with the trauma. 

He would be at least a bit concerned about encountering said triggers for fear of all that information overloading his mind again, as is the case with PTSD. At most (and most likely) he would be dead set against the idea of putting himself back in a situation where there’s a possibility of reliving the trauma for real and having guns firing at him.

This is at the heart of what’s wrong with his character - it doesn’t add up. Even with someone firing a gun at them he manages to manoeuvre his charge to safety and pursue the attacker coolly. He doesn’t even show signs of panic or terror, he remains collected and professional. There’s a reason why veterans with PTSD don’t return to the front line, but the show writers don’t seem to understand that.

It.

Would.

Terrify.

Him.

Going through trauma is the scariest thing a human being can experience and come back from. Most people experience trauma at some point in their lives and it’s not something anyone would wish to go back to. It’s feeling unable to escape from the situation, everything being beyond control as if you’re in a car going at 100 miles an hour with no pedals or steering wheel. That’s what trauma is like, it’s not knowing if you’re going to survive and being faced with your own mortality in a sudden and inexplicable way that overwhelms your mind and body.

When a show deals with issues like this they’re not really expected to understand or show the after effects of trauma, because in shows everyone can be more powerful than any real living person. So shows like this skirt around the issue of PTSD by only showing the more ‘macho’ symptoms - like anger and hyper-vigilance.

Why?

Because not many people would want to think about their own fragile state of existence. It wouldn’t be ‘entertaining’ to see a main character in a state of utter helplessness or fear where they’re unable to do anything productive. No one wants to be helpless or dependent.

Much more entertaining to see someone stare sexily out of a window and pretend it's deep.

There’s a theme of David refusing to go to therapy for that reason and burying his problems, but if he really could effectively ‘bury’ his mental illness, he wouldn’t be ill, because when you ignore an injury it gets worse - it doesn’t sit benignly in your pocket until you pick it up again.

Imagine you’re watching a show about someone with a physical disability that meant they couldn’t walk and were in a wheelchair. Then, suddenly out of nowhere they stand up and karate kick someone to the ground before sidling back into their wheelchair as if nothing happened. Then they keep complaining about how they can’t walk and yet don’t seek the physiotherapy they’d need to help them, whilst their partner left them because ‘they weren’t the same after the injury’. It would look weird right? I mean, were they just pretending for the benefit money?

That’s what this show seems like to me. You can’t centre the plot on a guy with an illness and only bring it up when he doesn’t need to be a bad-ass cop (like at night, when he’s asleep.) You could say well maybe he’s just dissociated most of the day until he takes his guard down. Problem is dissociation means you can hardly concentrate on anything - it's like an out of body experience where nothing feels grounded in reality and a bodyguard needs to be on high alert, not ‘off with the fairies’ so to speak.

The reason I didn’t just ignore this show is because it’s hit a nerve and touched on something which is rarely addressed.

The PTSD stereotype.

The ex-soldier, the veteran who has trouble with anger issues. He broods, he gets into fights and he’s abusive to his wife who eventually just can’t take it any more. I’m not saying that scenario hasn’t happened before but it’s what most people think of when they hear PTSD and it needs to end. Now.

The fact is anyone who has been through trauma can suffer PTSD - trauma means an immediate or threatened threat to the life of yourself or someone close to you. This could mean horrific crimes such as rape or murder and accidents like car crashes or medical emergencies. Young children are particularly susceptible.

If literally anyone can suffer it, the minority being war veterans, it’s hardly fair in modern times to use such a lazy stereotype. The truth is PTSD is more likely to be caused from violence than cause it. The pressure on relationships associated is more likely from the dissociation and emotional numbing it causes than any physical threat - it’s sad but true.  With sufferers so often shunned and misunderstood with an already stigmatised illness, it’s not right to perpetuate negative stereotypes in films and TV with things like trying to strangle someone in the night because ‘flashback’ presumably.

Trust me, in all my years I’ve never woken up attempting to strangle anyone - it’s not a common symptom. (Indeed if you look up symptoms, it’s not even listed!) What show writers need to realise is that mental illness is not an accessory to explain why a character lashes out or broods, neither is it like a cool battle scar. 

It’s hard. 

It affects everyday life and it can only hide beneath the surface, not further down. It’s messy, it’s complex, it’s never convenient and most of all it’s real - it’s what real people have to suffer and try to cope despite it and it’s not glamorous, sexy, hard, tough or edgy - it’s vulnerability personified and it hurts.

It also doesn't magically make powerful people attracted to you.

There's no redeemable factor in this show for me - it's stereotypes, it's typical 'drama' with forced relationships that come out of nowhere because a sex scene was scripted to keep viewers from switching off. It does handle politics, intrigue and suspense well, but it's like junk food television, formulaic, stiff and characterless that's only there to provide a dramatic spectacle and constant 'on edge' feelings. If you like it, there's nothing wrong in that, more power to you, but it's not what I would consider 'good television'.

OK, that's me done ranting for now. I hope I didn’t make anyone feel uncomfortable reading this, this isn’t an easy topic to discuss. I may do a review in the future about shows that got it right in terms of mental health and PTSD - I am aware of a few.

Please feel free to leave a comment or a criticism - I am happy to respond to civil critiques. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day,

Signed,

Berserker Bard

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

Bodyguard is (c) BBC. Images are from IMDB.