Editor’s Note: A trigger warning that this article discusses depression and suicideUntilYou’re the Worst,I had never seen an accurate portrayal of depression on screen that truly captures the nuances of the condition. My primary frames of reference were the montage inTwilight: New Moonwhere Bella sits in her bedroom and stares out her window as the months pass by and the episode ofEuphoriawhere Rue gets a kidney infection because she’s too depressed to leave her bed. And yes, depression can absolutely manifest in that kind of behavior - the feelings of emotional numbness portrayed in those scenes is all too familiar to me - but they don’t capture what depression can feel or look like beyond that. That’s what setsYou’re the Worstapart. It doesn’t portray depression as a strict binary of “you’re either okay or you’re barely functioning”. Instead, the series shows various states of depression that Gretchen (Aya Cash) experiences and how it affects daily aspects of her life.
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I’ve struggled with depression for almost all of my adult life, but wasn’t formally diagnosed until I started therapy in 2020. Until that year, my depression was “manageable” by the standards I had set for myself. Even though I had to go on a special attendance plan my senior year of high school, so I wouldn’t flunk out for missing classes and even though I spent the better part of my freshman spring semester in my college dorm room, I still didn’t think I was depressed enough to seek help. I mean, I was still mostly functioning right? I wasn’t totally shut in my room for months at a time, ignoring bodily functions, or suicidal, so surely I could push through the darkness on my own. But boy was I wrong.
Before 2020, my depression came in small waves whose peak would entail me spending any free time in bed watching TV until the feelings of numbness passed. I would leave my room to eat, work, and go to class, but that’s it. When the pandemic hit, those small waves became a tsunami - destroying whatever coping mechanisms I had cobbled together over the years in the process. Even with therapy, I still felt like a fraud when I acknowledged my depression because despite spending most days wishing I didn’t exist anymore, I still kept up with work and showering and other basic functions. I lied to my therapist about how I was doing, because admitting it to her meant that it was real. I couldn’t validate what I was feeling because, even at my lowest, my experience still wasn’t matching this idea I had in my head of what depression “should” look like. But watchingYou’re the Worstfor the first time that same year truly helped to change that.
On the surface, Gretchen and I have nothing in common other than being clinically depressed. She is brash, loves to party, and is a self-proclaimed under-achiever. On the other hand I am introverted, type A, and a chronic people pleaser. And yet, I relate to so much of how her depression is portrayed in the series.
Her depression is first hinted at in Season 2 when she sneaks out of her boyfriend’s house to cry in her car, so he doesn’t see. At that moment, I’m reminded of all the places I’ve hidden to cry in secret. In Episode 7 “There is Not Currently a Problem” I recognize her feelings of panic when she’s stuck inside with her friends and has to act like she’s okay because I know how overwhelming it is to feel like you have to hide this part of yourself from your loved ones. This is the episode where she finally tells her boyfriend Jimmy (Chris Geere) about her depression. Gretchen is afraid that he won’t accept her “broken” brain and will either try to “fix” her or leave her. This is also one of my biggest fears and why I, like Gretchen, tend to push people away and deal with my depression alone rather than let them in. The rest of Season 2 includes other moments, both big and small, that show Gretchen sinking further and further into her depression. In the Season’s penultimate episode “Other Things You Could Be Doing”, Gretchen is “scraped out” and emotionally numb to everything going on around her. She’s worried because she hasn’t been able to pull herself out of the depression yet and has resigned to the fact that she may be like this forever. I see so much of myself in Gretchen during this scene because I’ve been feeling this way almost constantly for the last two years. The heaviness and hopelessness and worthlessness feel infinite. That’s what makes Jimmy’s gesture at the end of the episode feel so big. Even though all he does is make a blanket fort around Gretchen, so he can lie down beside her on the floor, his decision to stay and just be with her shows an understanding of depression that I wish more people had. Talking through our thoughts can be helpful, but sometimes all we want at the moment is someone to be with us - to have physical proof that we aren’t worthless and alone.
Gretchen’s depression affects her character trajectory for the rest of the series. It isn’t reduced to a single season plot point that’s dismissed as soon as she starts to feel better. In Season 3, Gretchen starts therapy and medication, but continues to see depression as something she has to “beat”. In Season 4, she has to deal with the emotional repercussions of Jimmy proposing then abandoning her for 3 months. Throughout the season, she feels like her biggest fear - that she has no one in her life that will fight for her - has come true until Jimmy confirms that he ran away because of his own problems and not because of Gretchen. Gretchen and I seem to have the same core fear. We’re afraid that we aren’t good enough for the people in our lives and they’ll leave us as soon as someone better comes along. Depression likes to latch onto fears like this and use them to fuel negative thoughts. It’s easier to believe something is true if it’s coming from our own subconscious. Gretchen starts to recognize this fear in herself in Season 4 and it’s a major catalyst for conflict in Season 5 as Jimmy and Gretchen prepare to get married.
At the beginning of Season 5, Gretchen feels secure in her relationship with Jimmy. They’re getting married, Gretchen gets a promotion, life is good! But in Episode 7 “Zero Eggplants, her depression starts to fuel this fear once again and Gretchen sabotages a potential friendship with another couple, Rachel (Janina Gavankar) and Quinn (Timm Sharp). Gretchen’s self-conscious about her depression and hesitates to bring it up. She is constantly worried about saying something that will make Rachel hate her. Even when Rachel reassures her that “once you’re in, you’re in for life”, Gretchen’s fear gets the better of her, and she pushes them away. In Episode 10 “Magical Thinking” Gretchen’s depression has started to affect her job. Before her promotion, she really didn’t care and never put in more effort than she had to at work. But now she has a lot of people counting on her, and it’s overwhelming. When conflict arises between two clients at a music release party, she sets off the fire alarm rather than addressing the conflict. Gretchen then gets fired, which she hides from Jimmy. She pretends to go to work to avoid wedding planning and to avoid telling Jimmy that her depression is bad again because she’s both terrified of the wedding and terrified of losing Jimmy. Gretchen has admitted many times throughout the series that she prefers to always have “one foot out the door” with her relationships because avoiding commitment feels like the easiest way to avoid rejection. And honestly, I’ve come to the realization recently that I do the same. Depression is incredibly manipulative, making you crave closeness with others to bring you out of the darkness while simultaneously convincing you that you’re not worthy of their love, that you deserve to be alone, and that everyone secretly hates you. To see Gretchen continue to go through this in Season 5 while everything seems to be going well for her is incredibly important because depression doesn’t magically go away when life gets better.
The inclusion of depression in Gretchen’s character arc never feels exploitative throughout the series. It feels real and honest, and it has allowed me to become more accepting of my depression. I’m more honest with the people in my life about how depression affects me. I’m getting better at letting my therapist in when I feel the depression coming instead of waiting until it’s consuming me.You’re the Worstportrays depression accurately because it shows how random, unforgiving, and overwhelming depression can be while still allowing Gretchen to grow and heal and be happy. It shows that depression isn’t a binary condition, but rather a spectrum of emotions that can present themselves at any time.You’re the Worsthelped me through a really rough patch because of how well done Gretchen’s arc is. Normally I look for things that distract me from how depressed I am, but the series helped me feel validated in my experience and a lot less alone.
