Jason Sudeikis's award-winning series Ted Lasso became the necessary salve to many during a rough year. Viewers latched on to Ted Lasso’s sunny disposition and never-ending Rolodex of puns and pop culture references just to survive. It’s as if he held the gravitational pull needed to escape the dark hole that’s been these past two years. And with good reason. It hasn’t been easy, not even for our good old coach Ted Lasso. The same man who tries so hard to find the good in others and every situation. Not a facade, but a necessary coping mechanism to hide and deflect from his own pain. It’s almost instinctual for people who carry such an endless supply of pain and grief on the inside to do so, so as not to break under the immense weight of it all. A feeling I’m all too familiar with.
The first time Ted has a panic attack, he’s in the middle of a karaoke parlor with the Richmond team after a game. They’re all celebrating a significant win and belting out classics like Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." Meanwhile, Ted is thrown out of his own body, triggered by his recent divorce. Papers are waiting for him back at the hotel to be signed, a sign of failure from Ted's own point of view. His hands curled inward, breathing hollow and short, and his face clammy with terror. Too much noise and light. He runs out of the club, hoping to regain his breathing outside. There’s a ringing in his ears, and voices hollowed out until Rebecca Welton’s (Hannah Waddingham) voice pulls him back into a calming breathing pattern. At that particular moment, I felt my own hands begin to feel like pins and needles for a moment. An engulfing panic overtook me at that moment because I recognized what Ted was going through all too well. Almost too well. It was probably the first time I saw the depiction of a panic attack so realistically portrayed on television – or any form of media.
I also recognized the shame afterward. I've been there, too many times to count. Ted hobbles back to the hotel, rejecting Rebecca’s offer to go with him and help him. Shame is one nasty and persistent enemy that lives inside your head when something like this happens. You reject the very nature of comfort needed after an episode because of it. It’s your mind’s way of driving that panic home; let it fester inside of yourself. What follows the panic is such a deep state of depression that it makes your limbs feel heavy, and even the most menial task becomes unbearable. This became the overarching theme of Ted’s second season arc. His depression and panic became that vicious circle that closed him off from the rest of the world, quite literally once—running off the pitch after a panic attack during a game.
Ted’s character has always been coded in darker tones since the pilot. Something was lurking underneath the sparkling eyes and quick barbs. It was a performance I was all too good at myself, perfected over the years. Recognizing the nuances in this character helped me better understand parts of myself I still have to contend with. What do you do when your biggest bully is yourself? How do you destroy them without destroying yourself in the process? It’s a conflicting paradox that Ted himself attempts to rationalize throughout his life after his father’s death. It’s also one I’ve been trying to solve since it began to manifest after I graduated high school. But here’s the catch, it’s not about “solving” anything. It’s about living with it and learning how to manage all of these emotions at once.
I remember my response to Ted’s broken sobs as he recounted to Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, played by Sarah Niles, the day his father took his own life in "No Wedding and a Funeral." It was triggered by the death of Rebecca’s father, Paul Welton, as Ted got ready to attend the funeral: “‘Cause life, it’s hard. It’s real hard,” he chokes out.
The words stuck in his throat. Just as foreign as it is for Ted, the embodiment of optimism, to say them, it’s just as heartbreaking for us to hear them. To hear such a wave of sadness and heartbreak come from the same man who bakes biscuits every day for his boss. His apartment is in a storm of disarray, probably due to his lack of any genuine interest in… anything. See, when depression worms its daunting presence in your mind, it latches on to every aspect of your being. Down to the smallest part that would get up and make the bed. The part that would remember to water the plants or take out the garbage. It also allows you to keep rituals in place. Those rituals become your only lifeline to the living, and it’s the same ones that keep Ted waking up every day as he navigates his own depression. Even in a messy apartment, making those biscuits helps him stay connected because otherwise, he’d float away. Because once you do, it’s hard to swim back to shore.
Life is hard. It’s even more complicated when your own mind is actively trying to close you off from the rest of the world – from yourself. Understanding that part of myself through Ted Lasso as someone who suffers from panic attacks and depression has quelled my own shame. It’s not about placations of “representation.” I know what ails me. Diagnosing is not the problem. It’s about opening up a dialogue, an honest one, through these characters. Not glamorizing, romanticizing, or exaggerating the complexities of living with depression and anxiety. Sometimes, it’s about allowing for characters like Ted to exist with conditions that have no cure. Because there is no “cure” for these things. Sure, you can medicate it and treat it, but at the end of the day, it’s a part of you, just like the part of you who enjoys reading Walt Whitman. Why do we assign shame to some and not other parts of ourselves? Living with its guilt is often more challenging than the symptoms of depression and anxiety. Even typing out that this is a part of who I am is shrouded in a level of shame that makes me cringe. I can’t help it any more than Ted can help run from the pitch and hide his feelings from everyone around him. Especially from those he cares about.
If there’s anything I learned from Ted Lasso’s messy and complicated sophomore season, and by extension, Ted himself, is that sometimes it’s enough to get up in the morning. It’s okay to allow others to care for you. To be angry and sullen about your set of circumstances. To feel like a great injustice has been committed because of your mental illness. That your mental illness does not define you, but it is a part of you. It’s about living with every aspect of yourself, even when it’s not so pretty or easy to handle. I’m not as easy to forgive as Ted or relatively amicable with people, especially with people I’ve just met, but I am just as hard on myself as Ted is. I don’t need to see “me” on screen to accept parts of myself I already know are hard to accept. It is, however, comforting to see a character become the universal beacon of hope for others like myself. Whose very existence sometimes becomes like a household chore – unbearable but necessary. Who once affirmed that life is hard but it’s also very good when it is.