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"Space to Dream": Queer Speculative Disability Narratives & Their Liberatory Value

I Am Not OkayWith This Cover

A white woman with short brown hair stands in the center of the shot. She is wearing a knee-length, spaghetti strap dress and low black Doc Martens with crew socks. She is covered in blood. She stands on the double yellow line in the road. Behind her are buildings of what appears to be a small town. The title of the show "I Am Not Okay with This" is superimposed over her in block yellow lettering.

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I Am Not Okay with This creat. by Jonathan Entwistle and Christy Hall
IDs: Sapphic, Lesbian, Neurodivergent, Mental Illness, Chronic Illness, Queer, PTSD

CWs: Mention of suicide, violence, death, public outing, homophobia, blood

I Am Not Okay with This, created by Jonathan Entwistle and Christy Hall and based on the graphic novel by Charles Forsman, follows Sydney, a gender non-conforming teenager, as she reckons with her sexuality, mental health, and developing superpowers. The show opens with Sydney, wearing a blood-soaked satin dress with military tags around her neck, walking alone on a dark, empty road with a blank look on her face. The first line of the show is Sydney saying, “Dear Diary, go fuck yourself” (“Dear Diary…”, 0:00 - 0:22).
Sydney’s father committed suicide a year before, and the show explores the ways that Sydney and her family navigate that trauma and loss. Sydney’s mother refuses to talk about her father or his suicide at all, and keeps the door to the basement (her father’s work area) closed at all times. Sydney’s anger and resentment towards her mother grow until she is having bouts of uncontrollable anger at school. These bouts of anger begin to result in strange things. First, Sydney gives her best friend Dina's horrible boyfriend a nosebleed with her mind. Then, she has bursts of uncontrolled telekinesis that move furniture and split walls. As the show progresses, Sydney experiences panic attacks and PTSD symptoms that often occur in sync with her bursts of power. These bursts grow exponentially in strength, from throwing a rock and knocking a metal road sign over to knocking down an entire forest of trees.
The connection between Sydney's PTSD, trauma, anxiety, and superpowers seem to fall right into what Sami Schalk calls the “superpowered supercrip narrative,” which is “primarily a fiction, television or film representation of a character who has abilities or ‘powers’ that operate in direct relationship with or contrast to their disability” (Schalk, "Reevaluating" 81). Understanding Sydney as a “superpowered supercrip” gives us more room to critically analyze Sydeny’s positionality within her world. According to Schalk, a “superpowered supercrip” “becomes exceptional by dint of their extraordinary powers and abilities alone--powers and abilities which are not the result of effort, but merely accident or luck” (Schalk, "Reevaluating" 81). Sydney’s superpowers initially appear to be a result of luck. However, as the show develops, Sydney learns from her mother that she has “similar issues” to her father. Sydney’s father suffered from clinical depression and PTSD, and eventually committed suicide. It is insinuated that he had superpowers as well. The show does not just equate superpowers to mental health, but instead asks what are the ways that trauma and mental illness become generational? How do we understand mental health lineage alongside superpower lineage? What does it mean to have a superpower, but have it be linked to panic attacks and PTSD flare ups?
Throughout the show, Sydney's friend Stan attempts to help her learn to "control" her powers. For a bit, she seems to be making some progress. In the final scene, she is publicly outed both as gay and as having mental health issues by her best friend’s jealous ex-boyfriend. She becomes so enraged and upset that she accidentally causes said ex-boyfriend’s head to explode. The next shot is Sydney walking down the road in the bloody dress, bringing us back to the moment from the first episode of the series. This temporal move emulates the cyclical nature of PTSD and trauma. We are brought back to the beginning, just as Sydney is. Sydney’s PTSD, anxiety, and struggles with anger directly inform the ways that her superpowers show up in her body, and what her body does with that power.

Discussion Questions
1. Why is Sydney’s anger linked to her power? Is her anger the cause of her power? A side effect of it?

2. What does it mean that the show ends with Sydney killing Dina's ex-boyfriend? Is this a progression or regression of her control over her abilities?

3. What is the connection between Sydney, her father, and mental illness?

4. What is this story trying to say about predispositions towards mental illness and/or superpowers? Why do you think these two are linked in the show?