The one-season hit show ‘I Am Not Okay With This,’ produced by Netflix, tells us the story of the turbulence of adolescence through tragedy and dark humor. Released on February 26, 2020, and adapted from Charles Forsman’s 2017 graphic novel, the series follows Sydney Novak, a seventeen-year-old girl who discovers that her anger and grief surface as destructive telekinetic power. Played by Sophia Lillis, Sydney struggles to understand her emotions, her family, and herself while trying to control what grows inside her.
Unfolds in a small Pennsylvania town, the story is narrated through Sydney’s diary, which reveals the thoughts she cannot share aloud. Her father’s Self-inflicted death leaves a silence that weighs on her family. Her mother, Maggie, played by Kathleen Rose Perkins, hides her pain behind exhaustion and routine, while Sydney finds comfort in caring for her younger brother, Liam, whose innocence gives her rare moments of warmth. Their bond reminds us that even amid despair, tenderness can survive.
The Weight of What We Feel When Nothing Feels Simple
Outside her home, Sydney’s world is held together by her friendship with Stanley Barber, her odd yet sincere neighbor who listens without judgment. He offers a kind of loyalty that Sydney finds both reassuring and difficult to accept. At the same time, her feelings for her best friend, Dina, played by Sofia Bryant, create a quiet conflict within her. Dina is dating Brad Lewis, the arrogant athlete whose cruelty embodies everything Sydney resents. These relationships pull her in different directions, each revealing the tension between love, anger, and confusion.
Sydney’s powers emerge as an extension of what she cannot express. They are not heroic or liberating but violent and unpredictable, shaped by grief and guilt. Objects move, walls crack, and fear follows her whenever her emotions rise. The story builds toward the homecoming dance, where Brad steals her diary and reads her secrets aloud, turning her shame into spectacle. Overwhelmed and furious, Sydney loses control, and in one horrifying instant, Brad’s head explodes. The violence feels less like revenge than release, a consequence of the pain she can no longer contain.
Afterward, Sydney escapes to an abandoned watchtower, where a shadowed man approaches her. He tells her not to fear him but to fear “them.” The scene fades before we learn who he is or what he represents, leaving us in the same uncertainty that defines Sydney’s journey.
A Story That Ends Before It Can Begin
Created by Jonathan Entwistle and Christy Hall and produced by the team behind Stranger Things, the show combines the emotional depth of a coming-of-age story with the unease of a supernatural mystery. Filmed in the Pittsburgh area, its muted tones and stillness mirror Sydney’s inner world. Although Netflix canceled the series after one seven-episode season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains a work that stays.
I Am Not Okay with This stands as a quiet reflection on growing up with grief and anger that have no clear outlet. It reminds us that the line between control and collapse is thin and that power can often feel like a burden rather than a gift. The ending offers no closure, which feels fitting because some stories, like growing up itself, do not end neatly but continue in the spaces they leave behind.
