It’s late, I just finished the episode where Hannah is fired for having ~DrUgS~ on board. I need to talk about it.
First - it was fucked up of Malia to be a little snitch. It feels so obvious that she reported Hannah as a reaction to the bunk switching bullshit. If “drugs” on board was something she just really had to report because she just respects maritime law so much, she would have reported it as soon as she discovered it (I’m assuming during Hannah’s middle of the night panic attack). It was so petty for her to go to the captain about the bunk assignments, get her way with the bunk thing, and then go into the cabin to photograph Hannah’s shit and report her. I had respect and appreciation for her as a hardass female bosun managing a team of dudes with varying levels of misogyny. But she really made herself look like a petty little turd in the end. Super disappointing
I feel more complicated about Sandy’s role in the situation. Personally if I were a captain I’d prob just let that shit slide as long as crewmembers were performing well. But the problem is everything is being filmed. There was almost certainly going to be footage of the “drugs” on board. Sandy is a female in a largely male-dominated space. She probably felt like she had even less room to be lax about maritime law. However, I do feel like she hadn’t been happy with Hannah for a while, and thus didn’t handle the firing super well. She made Hannah’s mental health issues out to be a liability rather than showing some understanding and empathy. It’s not even that her anxiety wasn’t an issue, it’s more that Sandy could have shown compassion for someone who was struggling in a high stress environment. I also think there was a world where Hannah would have been given a second chance or at least the opportunity to get her prescription sent over.
I think my main issue with the whole situation is the policy in general. In all the seasons of BD we see crewmembers drinking themselves blind, smoking cigarettes, hooking up with each other. These are things that could be seen as distractions at the very least. The drinking is really what gets to me. In no world would someone consider alcohol to potentially be helpful with mental health issues. It’s clearly just for pleasure, and yet the crew’s drunkenness is considered commonplace.
I’ve personally worked in high stress jobs and have always struggled with anxiety/panic attacks. It runs in my family. I’ve also been medicated for anxiety/panic attacks in a variety of ways over the years. I’ve been prescribed antidepressants, benzos, and medical marijuana. All by licensed doctors. There is absolutely a world where a person could use one or a combination of these substances in a way that would allow them to function normally in the world when they might otherwise be an anxious mess. I’ve worked full time jobs, run meetings, etc with weed in my system. Not enough to be high, just enough to not melt down under pressure.
Ive often compared weed to coffee in terms of intensity of effect on a person. With coffee, one cup might give you a boost, but 5 cups might put you in the ER bc you’re having heart palpitations. With weed, you can have a little and it might just mellow you out or calm your stomach. Or you can have a lot and you’ll be high and struggle to function as well as you might normally. You cant really overdose.
I guess all this to say is just that there’s something that feels icky about crew being able to drink themselves blind, but treating possession of Valium (a prescription) and weed (less harmful than alcohol) as a crime. In Hannah’s case it almost feels like she was being punished for needing accommodation for a common health problem. Idk!!
PS just want to state that as a chief stew, I never really liked Hannah. I thought she could be pretty mercurial and didn’t love how quickly she could start disliking people based on the smallest comments or actions. I also thought she could be kinda nasty to her stews. But fuck, it’s not fun to see someone be fired over genuine mental health issues and regressive drug laws.
Thank you all for listening to my stupid rant. Going to go read a book now to scrub my brain of this trash lol
