All the way back in season 4, in “Bernice’s Sanity Hearing” (which we called “Some LIke Dolls, Some Like Revenge”), Julia said: "I'm saying this is the South, and we're proud of our crazy people. We don't hide them up in the attic. We bring 'em right down to the living room and show 'em off. See, Phyllis, no one in the South ever asks if you have crazy people in your family. They just ask what side they're on.”
Which leads us to the thesis of this “Extra Sugar”. We’ll poke around in that concept a little bit - what does Bernice’s character show us about mental health and “crazy" in the South? Is there anything in our collective experience that plays out through Bernice’s story?
And, since we’re a culture in crisis, we’ll end by sharing our own tips for preserving your sanity.
Here are our sources for this segment:
The State of Mental Health in America and state rankings, from Mental Health America
Mental Health by the Numbers, from the National Alliance on Mental Illness
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
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