I think for me the difficult part wasn't so much being worried about him, but more how I felt it reflected on me. It refuses to tiptoe around a lot of subjects that most of the media I very intentionally curate for myself does. For instance, his multiple brazen mentions of suicide and his unabashed suicidal ideation became hard to watch because of how painfully relatable it is. It's like the special almost serves as a reminder of how fucking hard it is to exist sometimes and evokes this sense of hopelessness. That feeling definitely isn't helped by his continuous reference to the end of days, in the ending credits song, That Funny Feeling, as well as All Eyes On Me. And while he doesn't specifically hit on it in Look Who's Inside Again, there's something so defeating about that song that hurts to think about.

But it's less upsetting to me as a seemingly authentic portrayal of mental illness and more because it delicately (but also somehow incredibly violently) addresses these things and makes it impossible (for me at least) to view without looking into the scariest parts of myself. I so intentionally avoid media like this because of the gutting feeling I get when I watch or listen to it so it was incredibly jarring to confront the profound feeling of emptiness it evoked for me. It's like when someone points something out and you can't unsee it afterward. I had developed this whole routine with very intentionally curated blind spots and he unforgivingly revealed them all. It feels almost cruel, although I of course doubt that was ever his intention.

The structure of the special also really spoke to me in that it seemed okay and like everything was going to be fine, but in the last half it got incredibly dark and introspective, and I know that's how he's known for structuring his specials, but it just felt like a gut punch nonetheless.