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Charlie’s Heartstopper Story Hints at Dire State of Mental Health Services

Queer youth in the U.K. are often left without the help they need

Sarah TC
Prism & Pen
6 min readOct 15, 2024

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Image of a person at a Pride event holding a placard saying, “Defend and Protect Queer Kids”.
Photo by Denin Lawley on Unsplash

The third season of the Netflix drama Heartstopper, based on the webcomic and graphic novels by Alice Oseman, dropped on Netflix a couple of weeks ago, gaining rave reviews. The storyline centres on Nick and Charlie, a teenage queer couple and their friend group. The show aims at a teenage audience whilst dealing with some serious issues like homophobia and mental illness, but it always shows life through an optimistic lens.

As a queer person growing up in the 80s and 90s, I saw very few positive media representations of queerness. The queer joy portrayed so beautifully in Heartstopper felt healing when I watched season 3.

But as a mental health nurse, I was interested to see how the show tackled Charlie’s Anorexia Nervosa and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, how it portrayed the treatment and support he received, and how it compared to my own clinical experience supporting people with mental illness.

In episode 4 of the new Heartstopper season, Charlie is admitted to a private children’s eating disorder unit, a slight change from the narrative in the comics. In the comics, Charlie attended the Emergency Department (ED) during a mental…

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Prism & Pen
Prism & Pen

Published in Prism & Pen

Amplifying LGBTQ voices through the art of storytelling

Sarah TC
Sarah TC

Written by Sarah TC

I am a queer, neurodivergent mental health nurse, academic and PhD student. I write about the things that matter to me and my community.

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