Trauma, Healing, and Doing the Next Right Thing
Why Princess Anna and Frozen 2 will change the mental health conversation for the next generation
Generations of Americans have grown up with stories of traumatized women and men who magically arrive at “happy endings” in spite of their past experiences.
- Cinderella’s father dies and her step-family abuses her. Cinderella cries, and time passes. She lives happily ever after.
- Aurora is kidnapped. Her parents cry, and time passes. They all live happily ever after.
- Shang’s father dies. Shang builds a shrine, no one cries, and time passes. Mulan and Shang live happily ever after.
Disney characters throughout the cannon nod at grief. We know they’ve experienced loss. We know they survive it. We know they make it through to their happily ever after.
But it’s not true what they say — that time heals all wounds. There are people who freeze themselves, living in their grief, waiting for time to pass and healing to come.
Time passes, but they do not heal.
It’s because what heals us is not time itself, but our actions, our small daily choices to move forward, one after another.
What heals us, in Princess Anna’s words, is doing “the next right thing.”
In a darkly moving scene, we watch as Olaf the snowman disappears, floating away snowflake by snowflake. As he fades away, he leaves Anna with a frightening — and very lonely — thought: her sister Elsa is not okay. All alone in a dark cave, with no perceptible exit, Anna collapses. She cries.
This time, Disney does not choose to sweep us years, days, or even hours into the future.
Instead, we live with Anna in her grief. It’s slow. It’s painful.
And it’s the most human moment I’ve witnessed in a Disney movie.
“I’ve seen dark before, but not like this,” she confides to the emptiness of the cave, leading us into a first verse packed with empathy-triggering identifiers.
Most adults, and many children, have experienced a paralyzing grief at some point in their lives. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t learn from each other’s experiences. We are, then, hit even harder by the isolation of it when we experience trauma for the first time ourselves.
I’m sure it’s not just me who felt a sense of “us”-ness as Anna described her mourning: “This is cold, this is empty, this is numb. The life I knew is over. The lights are out. Hello, darkness. I’m ready to succumb.”
“I’ve seen dark before, but not like this”
Princess Anna has certainly been known to have her dramatic moments (she is a Disney cartoon character, after all), but in this moment, when she says she is “ready to succumb,” I believe her.
And that’s important.
Almost 10 million Americans report experiencing serious suicidal thoughts each year, and in the United States one person dies from suicide every 12 minutes.
We’re getting better at talking about it. Organizations like National Alliance for Mental Illness, To Write Love On Her Arms, and Project Semicolon are working hard to increase awareness and decrease the stigma surrounding mental health.
And yet, depression and other mental illness is under-represented in entertainment media, especially children’s media. With 1 in 5 U.S. children diagnosed with a mental illness, and likely many more undiagnosed, representation matters.
Representation matters because when kids are feeling alone — whether because of their skin color, their abilities, their gender identity, or the thoughts and feelings they struggle with — seeing someone who is like them (whether on a screen, a magazine page or a toy shelf) can melt away a little bit of that isolation. Representation can change a child’s perception of their place and their value.
Representation also matters because of how it affects the kids who don’t identify with that character. In the case of mental illness, maybe they will someday. And maybe they won’t. But whether they do or don’t isn’t the point.
The point is that they’re seeing someone they love and respect — a smart, loving, beautiful Disney Princess — feel a feeling that’s not so great. And it doesn’t make her unloveable, dumb, or ugly. She is still the person we knew. We still love her. And now she’s struggling, and we are witness to it.
Humans are hard-wired to make snap judgments. For our own survival (or so our brains think), we quickly categorize new experiences into existing “schema,” basically, models that demonstrate how the world works (again, according to our often-unreliable brain). The way to change those schema, the categories we drop our experience into, we need to be exposed to new ways of thinking about them.
By pairing a beloved heroine with dark and difficult feelings, Disney creates a bridge of understanding. Because we already respect Anna, we are more likely to respect her experience, rather than brushing her off as “melodramatic,” “a drama-queen,” or “crazy.”
In Anna’s scene in the cave, kids watch a heroine struggle with her emotions. They hear her self-talk. They cheer her on as she takes small steps forward. They might not understand why she feels the way she does. But someday, when they encounter a friend, a family member, or even a stranger who is struggling, this scene will help inform their reaction.
And the effects of Anna’s story will ripple out far beyond the scene itself.
Because the most important part of representation in media is that it opens the door to thoughtful discussion.
As a result of Anna’s scene, children in the audience gain a baseline for understanding and empathy. After the movie, they might ask questions. They might connect the dots to another experience they’ve had or something they’ve witnessed.
Representation matters not just because it shows some kids that there are people out there like them. It also matters because representation shows all of the other kids that there are people out there who are different from them, but who are still human, still loveable, still smart, still everything that we look up to. Still worthy of our respect and admiration, no matter their skin color, their abilities, their gender identity, or their struggles.
Representation lets all kids feel more comfortable asking questions, thinking about challenging topics, and learning about each other. It’s that openness that really affects the kids and the social groups who need it most. This is what builds a framework for empathy and for positive, open reactions to all kinds of differences, no matter what they are.
Disney doesn’t brush past the trauma this time. And we shouldn’t, either.
It’s our responsibility as adults to encourage the questions that our kids have about Anna’s experience. In fact, it’s our responsibility to bring it up — even when they don’t. It’s no secret that adults shy away from uncomfortable conversations. Even with other adults, we use euphemisms, we change subjects, we send brief texts and emojis instead of having in-depth, in-person discussions. Being human is hard. And it’s human nature to take the path of least resistance.
But Frozen 2 gives adults a starting place for those discussions. With the shared experience of seeing the movie, we can start conversations with our kids (or, really, anyone else): “Hey, I was thinking about that scene with Anna in the cave, how she was feeling so alone and hopeless. Did you ever notice anybody maybe feeling like that?”
Of course, those conversations are going to be different for each age and each child, and it might feel stilted and awkward. But simply giving room, opening the door to that conversation, can be life-altering, whether for your child or for someone they interact with later on. It’s the exposure that makes a difference in changing people’s prejudices. The more exposure kids have, the more questions they ask, and the more that adults are open to discussions, the more we can decrease the stigma of mental illness that keeps people from seeking help.
I saw Frozen 2 in the theater with two friends, all in our 30s. We went on a Saturday to a 5:30pm showing — late enough that toddlers were scarce, but earlier than most grown-ups want to be at a movie. So it was us and a theater full of tweens. They mostly sat quietly in their seats until Olaf’s first big scene, when his antics gave them permission to react. The kids came to life. They laughed at Olaf, they “ooh”ed at the gorgeous nighttime snowflake animation — and they wept with Anna.
One girl a few seats to the right of us sobbed throughout Anna’s lonely journey. A couple of times, she couldn’t stop herself from crying out, “Oh, Anna!”
I wondered about her.
I don’t know that girl’s story. But with teen suicide at an all-time high, and when 1 in 4 girls practices self-harm, it’s not hard to imagine that she’s felt a little like Anna in the past. Or found out, too late, that someone she cared about did.
“You are lost. Hope is gone. But you must go on and do the next right thing.”
Anna is grieving. She’s grieving the loss of her friend, her sister, her boyfriend who she thinks she’ll never survive to see, and her old way of life. She describes how grief weighs on her:
This grief has a gravity
It pulls me down
While we’ll never know for sure (unless Disney decides to tell us more in a third installment of the franchise), Anna is probably not suffering from chronic depression or other mental illness causing these feelings. From the story we’ve been told, it seems like Anna is an otherwise healthy woman who is currently experiencing some very tough emotional challenges.
And while we all deal with trauma and experience grief in our own ways, I imagine a lot of us can relate. Especially sensitive kids, whose emotions can feel unmanageable and impossible for them to regulate.
Even for people who aren’t dealing with grief or depression, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. Kids have school, homework, music, sports, languages, religion classes, and all sorts of other responsibilities that can lead to a paralysis of sorts.
Fortunately, when they’re feeling paralyzed, whether by hopelessness or general overwhelm, Princess Anna has some very solid advice:
But you must go on
And do the next right thing.
By identifying her feelings of despondence, Anna not only gives her listeners permission to feel them, too, but she also hands us a tool to combat them: Do the next right thing.
“Take a step. Step again.”
It’s okay to feel alone, we learn as we listen to her song. It’s okay to feel hopeless. It’s okay to feel grief. It’s even okay, according to the next verse, to feel like you have no purpose at all — precisely how Anna feels when she has lost her sister and her best friend in a matter of minutes. How do you go on living when there’s no one left to live for?
It’s okay to feel all of those dark, intense, difficult feelings.
But you don’t have to give up.
Take a step. Step again.
It is all that I can —
To do the next right thing.
The “next right thing” can be minuscule. In fact, Anna acknowledges, focusing on anything bigger feels like an overwhelming task.
I won’t look too far ahead —
It’s too much for me to take.
Her “next right thing” is a literal, physical step. And then another. And another.
Get out of bed. Drink a cup of water. Say something nice about yourself out loud. Take a shower. Eat a vegetable. Something small and achievable, even if it feels awfully hard.
But break it down to this next breath,
This next step,
This next choice is one that I can make.
And she does. Step by painful step, Anna stumbles her way through the cave and manages to finally climb out into the light.
“Make the choice”
When Anna steps out of the cave at last, she doesn’t strike a heroic pose. She doesn’t laugh or shout. She’s exhausted from grief . . . and her journey isn’t over.
So she takes one small step, again. And again. And again.
There is no Disney magic here. No passage of time and ringing of church bells. No fast-forward to happily ever after. Just a beautiful illustration of what it is to live, to continue to take one step at a time.
And with the dawn, what comes then
When it’s clear that everything will never be the same again?
Then I’ll make the choice
To hear that voice
And do the next right thing
Through this scene, Frozen 2 sets a great example for us, whether we’re dealing with our own mental health or encouraging a friend through theirs.
We see Anna in her most intimate, vulnerable moment as she experiences her grief. We hear the advice she repeats to herself over and over. We see her gain strength from her own voice and her self-encouragement. We watch her take one small step and then another, ultimately seeing her emerge from the darkness of the cave into a new day.
Still alone, still hurting, but still trying.
“Do the next right thing”
Talk about it
It’s our responsibility to start hard conversations with our children. Use Frozen 2 and “The Next Right Thing” as an opportunity to talk with the kids in your life about the feelings Anna experienced, what they might mean, and what to do if they or someone else feel like that. Open the doors to that dialogue now and continue to revisit it.
Here are a few resources on how to talk with your kids about mental health:
- National Alliance on Mental Illness
- Children of Parents with a Mental Illness
- Today’s Parent
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Psychology Today
Take Anna’s advice for yourself and share it with others.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, find your “next right thing.”
When you see someone else feeling that way, help figure out what their “next right thing” is, and encourage them to take that one small step — and then another.
Remember:
- Being alone and being lonely are survivable. You can escape it. Even when it doesn’t feel like it, and even when you don’t know them yet, your people are out there.
- It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed sometimes.
- Take one breath at a time. Take one step at a time.
- You might feel like you are stumbling blindly. Just keep moving.
- Things change if we take small steps to change them.
If you need support at any time, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1–800–273-TALK
Cathlyn Melvin is a freelance writer and co-founder of Compass Creative Dramatics, a national touring theatre focused on arts education for children grades 3K-12. With over 15 years of experience as a teacher, tutor, and nanny, Cathlyn is acutely aware of the effect that media and art can have on children and their development. Cathlyn is passionate about educating the whole child and committed to building a better, healthier world for the next generation. Her work has been published by Chicago’s Neighborhood Parents Network and Americans for the Arts.
