acting, direction and handling of different mental issues and themes of violence were all spot on. you will root for everyone at some points, even people you don't want to root for. and then you will be disappointed by everyone at some points, even people you don't want to judge. it's a painfully raw, upsetting series, and if you can stomach it, do watch it.

most importantly i'd suggest taking all the comments and reviews floating around the internet seriously. it is triggering, and not in the pop culture sense of the word. the only other time i've experienced this amount of visceral, physical distress over something otherwise harmless was the sound of a particular type of voice triggering a traumatic event. i went in believing wholeheartedly that it might be intense like everyone warned squid game would be (and it was), but that the triggers wouldn't be things i needed to be concerned about: i don't have my own child, and i'm not a victim of domestic partner violence.

but there are scenes of panic, anxiety, dissociation and dread. there are scenes with perspective views that are jarring, and scenes which act as unreliable narrative tools. there are characters who relapse into alcoholism, and there are extremely authentic and distressing manic episodes that play out on screen when alex's mother is concerned. there is homelessness, depicted in a number of ways and in the ways that most people don't think about, like sleeping in your car and having no safety net between various, fleeting types of temporary housing. there are courthouse scenes, and courtroom scenes (particularly stressful for me, having experienced them), and there are sensations of claustrophobia, loss of time and helplessness that the camerawork and acting convey in a way that translates outside of the actual show and into your own reactions, if you have ever felt any of those sensations yourself.

there are people who try to do the right thing, for the wrong reasons. there are people characterized as good, who are not good. there are people who keep doing the wrong thing. there are no straightforward villains because everyone is realistic, and that makes it worse. and there is a lead character in alex, with an innocent child, who consistently encounters obstacle after obstacle and does not get to breathe—not really—until the very last episode.

if you don't have any experience with the issues tackled by this show or you're watching it for maid confessions like the book, you will likely not get everything out of this experience that the show has to offer. if you are prone to dissociation, intense worry, or have firsthand experience with any of the things i've mentioned here, you're going to have a tough time. i regularly attend therapy and i'm doing quite well, but it was still not the kind of show i could binge-watch and it did come up a couple of times in therapy—for the better, honestly.

the last thing i want to say regarding the content is that, if you were a parentified child, or had insecure attachments growing up due to neglect, abuse or addiction—this is scary. unless you are completely cut off from your experiences with insecure attachment? this will remind you of things that aren't actually happening on screen, from different times and of different natures. i was a parentified child, and i still to this day struggle with not worrying about people who aren't my responsibility. that theme is present throughout the show, and it does not let up, not until the very end.