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Entity reports on how Ellie Kemper from "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmitz" discusses Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Netflix sweetheart “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” is known for its happy-go-lucky female heroine who doesn’t let anything stand in her way of big city dreams. Cliché? Maybe. Yet the show – brainchild of feminist comedy crafter Tina Fey – holds something deeper than a one-dimensional optimistic take on a cynical world and season two proves it.

After Kimmy Schmidt (played by quirky Ellie Kemper) is rescued from 15 years of captivity, she’s painfully positive after the whole experience. But this Netflix special isn’t a superhero movie. Kimmy’s smile turns out to be a defense mechanism for dealing with a very serious mental condition: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.

PTSD is a psychological disorder in which a traumatized individual experiences lingering anxiety, flashbacks and nightmares related to a specific incident. And Kimmy is struggling with more than your average Jane’s (no Krakowski pun intended) share of trauma. After being kidnapped as an innocent brace-faced young woman, she spent 15 years in an underground post-apocalyptic bunker with an appallingly charming cult leader who manipulates, abuses and rapes her.

So why does Kimmy emerge from the darkness and into the foreign world with a wide smile and giddy attitude? Although most men and women diagnosed with PTSD experience irritability, anger and negativity, Kimmy exhibits the opposite reactions. Her attitude doesn’t prove that she is immune to any of these symptoms; her behavior implies that she chooses to push these emotions aside.

The result? Overcompensation – in the form of her bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, yellow-cardigan-wearing character.

Because she doesn’t outwardly exhibit the most common symptoms, it can be easy for the average Netflix binger to brush off the PTSD element of the chuckle-worthy series. Yes, she has trauma – but look! A robot-costume-wearing actor who failed to achieve his Broadway dreams! A promiscuous landlord with an alcohol addiction! A Chinese love interest evading immigration officers!

These subplots give the show much-needed complexity, but may distract from what the series is inherently about: A young woman dealing with the trauma of her kidnapping.

While season one skirted past Kimmy’s likely PTSD diagnosis, season two reveals some of the pain behind her toothy grin. Some viewers have found the episodes, laced with therapy sessions and panic attacks, too distressing to watch. The show finally stops circling around the elephant in the room and zeros in on the giant – trauma isn’t so mild after all.

Although show creator Tina Fey doesn’t like to talk about the incident, Vanity Fair (via Huffington Post) asked a few questions about her childhood trauma, which stems from a stranger’s knife attack when Fey was five years old. The attack left a faint scar across her face that she usually refuses to discuss in interviews. “It’s impossible to talk about it without somehow exploiting it,” she said.

Although Fey shies away from the topic, The Atlantic points out that it’s hard not to draw a parallel between her real-life attack and Kimmy’s on-screen trauma.

Regardless of the inspiration behind the trauma, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” breaks its season one silence on PTSD. Fey and Kemper’s brilliance beautifully meshes together to deliver a raw take on a traumatic tale, sprinkling the dirty streets of NYC with a little bit of bizarrely funny and yet deeply thoughtful fairy dust.

Edited by Ellena Kilgallon
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