A little over a month ago, the series "13 Reasons Why" premiered on Netflix and the reactions around the world have been, to say the least, quite diverse. On the one hand, many people praise the series and the issues it brings to the table; on the other hand, there are those who have even labeled it as "an apology for suicide."

For those who have not yet seen it and are planning to do so, do not worry—you will not find spoilers in this article. The series tells the story of a teenager named Hannah Baker, who leaves behind 13 cassette recordings after taking her own life. She states that each of those recordings explains her reasons and the relationship she had with each person who played a significant role in her tragic decision to end her life.

Hannah is a teenager from a small American town. However, her life and story are not very different from those of many young people in our country and in Latin America. As is well known, although it was not the only reason, bullying plays an extremely important role in Hannah's decision to take her own life. And this is something very real, something that happens in any school around the world, and it also happens in schools in Lima and anywhere else in our country. However, it is something we do not usually talk about.

Today I was speaking with my brother and, as sometimes happens, he told me about one of those flashbacks that come to his mind about his life at school. He told me again that he was very shy and embarrassed to go out and play, and that he used to spend recess alone in a corner. But today he told me a story he had not told me before. He told me that one day a boy hurt him (he never uses that word), and that he pulled him by his shirt and threw him to the ground, simply because he was standing alone in a corner. He remembered his first and last name (I will not publish it to do him a favor), and apparently he could relive the entire scene in his head.

To be honest, this story adds to a few others that I am fortunate enough for him to tell me in those moments when the voices do not torment him. However, about twenty years have passed since he had to survive this type of harassment at school, and he never, ever shared it with my parents, nor with me, nor with anyone.

Bullying is something that happens in all schools. It is something that happened in mine, one of the most privileged schools in Lima. And it happens right under the noses of all school authorities. Because it is known: everyone knows who the bully is and who the victim is—it is not very difficult to figure out. But it is as if there were a kind code of silence among these authorities, as if students had to go through that in order to prepare for life.

My brother's case is special; he was an adolescent with schizophrenia in a school where no one had the slightest idea how to handle such a situation, despite the cost of the tuition fees. But it is not an isolated case. In my classroom, bullying was an everyday occurrence; a boy who had occasional tics, a friend of mine who was gay and whose life was made so impossible that the moment we finished school he moved to another country and deleted the entire class from his Facebook simply to start over; even bullying directed at me, which in some way affected my self-esteem to this day.

Bullying is real and it is something we need to talk about. Schools must strive to offer their students more spaces where this is the main topic of conversation; parents must strive to listen to their children and not minimize the problems they may have at school. All of us, in general, as a society, must stop normalizing this phenomenon and realize that it is truly something that can have terrible consequences for an adolescent who tends to believe that everything that happens to them at school will last forever.

"13 Reasons Why" is an important series because, like few others, it addresses bullying and its consequences. Like many mental health experts, we believe it should be treated with due care and that it is important to consider how an adolescent going through a similar situation might react.

However, the success of the series provides us with a good platform to start talking about this issue, as well as the opportunity to place it on the agenda and ensure that more and more people take it seriously. From our organization, we urge educational institutions to offer their students the necessary and appropriate spaces to talk about their mental health and about possible episodes of bullying of which they may be victims, perpetrators, or witnesses.

It is truly important to initiate an open conversation on this issue. It is urgent to start taking bullying more seriously.

#EveryoneForMentalHealth