With how fast-paced the world is, sometimes it takes an outside influence to make us realize that our feelings matter. We need to take a step back and realize that self-care is essential. So join us as we go through High Five K-Dramas that shed light on mental health as we close out Mental Health Awareness Month.
Before we get into the list, we want to clarify that these shows are not perfect. They are works of fiction that are not exact representations of real life issues. Needless to say, they are great starting points to introduce viewers to the intricate world of mental health and spark important conversations.
Spoilers and feels ahead, so get ready with tissue, as the floodgates are about to be unleashed when you watch these High Five K-dramas.
It’s Okay Not To Be Okay
“Only those who have suffered truly understand suffering” is one quote from It’s Okay Not to Be Okay that embodies the truth about how mental health is perceived. Experience is the best teacher, as they say. The show makes sure to help you see how agonized their characters are.
The story follows Moon Kang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun), Moon Sang-tae (Oh Jung-se), and Go Moon Young (Seo Yea-ji) as they deal with their intricately woven story. Kang-tae is a psychiatric nurse who cares for his older brother with autism, Sang-tae, and meets Moon Young, a children’s book author, by chance. Under the surface, reading that makes them seem mundane. But each one deals with emotional turmoil that ranges from suppressed emotions to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and more. It’s especially commendable how they treated Sang-tae with care because autism is a complex condition.
The beauty of the show comes from how they present heavy themes through something digestible: fairytales. Each episode opens with a fairytale-like sequence that’s based on Moon Young’s books. The stories translate into the real world through some of the patients from Kang-tae’s workplace. The children’s book always alludes to the experience that one of the three main characters experience, while their patients also deal with their struggles.
Other key highlights are how they portray caring for someone with autism (Sang-tae and his facial chart– a glimpse into his thought process), how PTSD can be debilitating and needs to be treated with care, and how heavy parental pressures can weigh on a child. If you’re looking for a show that balances comedy, heartfelt moments, and found family, this is the show for you.
Sell Your Haunted House
This supernatural series follows Hong Ji Ah (Jang Na-ra), an exorcist and real estate agent, and Oh In Bum (Jung Yong-hwa), a con-artist who doesn’t believe in ghosts. In Bum is later revealed to be a strong psychic who can get possessed by spirits and absorb their memories when exorcised—a literal expression of empathy. The show deals with grief and how spirits manifest those heavy emotions.
While not particularly mentioning any mental illness, the show describes how a vengeful spirit is made. When an innocent spirit is violently killed, it becomes vengeful. But that’s not the only factor as to why they stay– they have a desire that needs to be met. It could intrinsically come from the spirit’s grudge, but it’s also possible that the person who wants them to stay is impeding their ascension to the afterlife.
The show depicts how heavy emotions can affect an individual, as In Bum literally cries to Ji Ah to take responsibility for the side effects of absorbing the dead’s memories. The feelings and emotions of the dead stay with the absorber for a week, showing how no one can deal with intense negative feelings all alone all the time. We need someone who could catch us when we fall to lessen the burden of overwhelming negative emotions within us.
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
This entry features another K-Drama featuring a protagonist with autism. It’s important to note that autism is not an illness, but a complex developmental condition where individuals have challenges with social communication, restricted interests, and repetitive behavior. The condition also has levels that range from mild to severe.
Extraorginary Attorney Woo follows Woo Young Woo (Park Eun-bin), an attorney with high-functioning autism and savant syndrome—an incredibly rare condition, since only one in 10 individuals with autism have it. The show explores the intricacies and stigma that surround autism by showing Atty. Woo’s struggles, waiting years to be accepted for her first job after graduation despite her high grades.
While not a perfect depiction of people with autism, the show does a great job of educating people about what it’s like to see the world through their eyes. The show also makes sure to tell the audience to have patience and empathy towards people with autism, as they need more care and understanding from the people around them.
Bad and Crazy
At first glance, Bad and Crazy looks like an action-packed cop series with two cool protagonists, albeit one being a skilled yet morally compromised cop. What if we told you it’s actually a representation of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)? If you’ve watched James McAvoy in Split, that’s what we’re talking about here. But Bad and Crazy humanizes the condition rather than villainizes it. The series gives it more context and shows individuals with alter personalities in a much more positive light.
The story follows Soo Yeol (Lee Dong-wook) as his life turns upside down after meeting the righteous and eccentric K (Wi Ha Joon). Dong Wook and Ha Joon have incredible chemistry as Yeol and K respectively, although it’s good to note as well that people with DID do not know that they have the alters unless they are diagnosed, and often do not interact with their alters like Soo Yeol does with K here.
But one thing it does right is the representation of DID. Oftentimes, the condition stems from a traumatic experience that the mind cannot handle, hence the split. It’s an incredibly complex condition, and they did not allow it to become just another romanticization of DID—instead, Soo Yeol decides to leave K on his own, resulting in the integration of his personalities.
Daily Dose of Sunshine
Lastly, we feature Daily Dose of Sunshine—an incredibly compassionate love letter to people who have mental illness. It’s incredibly refreshing to see Park Bo Young in a role that’s different, at the same time similar to her bubbly character from Strong Woman Do Bong Soon.
We follow Jung Da Eun (Bo Young), a psychiatric nurse, as she and her colleagues care for the people while dealing with their personal troubles. This series humanizes the experience of mental illness through visual metaphors. An example of this was when Song Yu Chan (Jang Dong-yoon), Da Eun’s best friend, was experiencing the effects of panic disorder while inside the bathroom. The visuals show the bathroom starting to flood and suffocate Yu Chan—a unique depiction of the disorder, since people affected by it feel as though they are about to encounter an impending threat without any escape. Their body reacts to that thought process, and their breathing becomes ragged, and they will need assistance being grounded. Ultimately, it’s the depiction of depression that was visceral. The metaphor they used was quicksand, and the emphasis on time and acknowledgement that gives the individual power to heal themselves and pick them back up again.
This show made sure the audience understands that everyone is just one bad day away from breaking, and we need to have support systems to help better our mental health or regain it.
All in all, the shows here are some of the good representations of mental health in K-drama. It does its job of raising awareness for the conditions and lessons they tackle. Once you know the thought process behind how an individual may act, empathy comes in spades and you suddenly understand the point of view of someone who has a very different experience than you. Sometimes you just need to listen, other times you need to actively reach out, but either way, we all contribute to each other’s mental health, so being aware matters.
Is there a K-drama about mental health that you want to highlight? Let us know in the comments below!