Commentary from Published July 3, 2016
This is a comic idea I had put into my book a year ago, but it was different enough in execution that it made me go “meh”. It’s based on a finding that parents think their kids are more okay than they really are, and that they tend to be in denial about such things ( https://www.yahoo.com/news/parents-in-denial-about-teens-depression-and-117195820377.html ). I know my parents were, and I can certainly imagine that this is a thing.
I had a bit of a negative reaction to this strip, some people were dead-set that this sort of thing doesn’t happen. What’s ironic is that is exactly what is being shown in this strip — people in denial. But in my own adventures in doing this comic I’ve seen a lot of denial from people when it comes to the depression in others, so it shouldn’t really surprise me, but it did.
One of the best things about this comic for me was finding a new symbolic use for the smile card. One of the most difficult was drawing the mom. Since I switched from brush pens to dip pens I can get a lot more detail in, and I kept on drawing wrinkles in and soon she looked more like a grandmother than a mother. I still think I went a little overboard.
I had a bit of a negative reaction to this strip, some people were dead-set that this sort of thing doesn’t happen. What’s ironic is that is exactly what is being shown in this strip — people in denial. But in my own adventures in doing this comic I’ve seen a lot of denial from people when it comes to the depression in others, so it shouldn’t really surprise me, but it did.
One of the best things about this comic for me was finding a new symbolic use for the smile card. One of the most difficult was drawing the mom. Since I switched from brush pens to dip pens I can get a lot more detail in, and I kept on drawing wrinkles in and soon she looked more like a grandmother than a mother. I still think I went a little overboard.
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I remember my parent saying one time “Depressed??? You are lazy, not depressed”
Every damn day for years.
Then when I took to standing at the edge of the cliff below the house, trying to find a spot that would be guaranteed to kill me if I jumped (because surviving and being incapacitated around those people would have been even worse), they called it sulking.
Ow.
Sub my father for the female character and you’d have my situation. Except he was not so nice about it.
My mother is not guilty of my problems. And she doesn’t think she is, but she needs to think that there is one very concrete reason for it, something that one day will disapear; so she forces reasons. She sees me “upset” and the she asks and answers alone, “Yeah, that job… I wish you could get a better job”, she says. She doesn’t want to listen and I don’t fight to explain myself. She loves me and I understand. And after all, we want the same thing: stop suffering.
Arg. I would totally smack that smile card away and start yelling… or crying.
… *sighs*
Daughter has depression, mom had anxiety
Yes exactly this. Except my mother punched that card into my mouth until the bruises held it in place.
She thinks that her daughter can’t be depressed because that would reflect badly on her own parenting skills?
Are there really people who think this way? I figured out that some of my thoughts were irrational when I was depressed, but I assumed that it was just part of the illness. I didn’t realize that some people were so illogical (and shallow) normally.
Yes, people – especially parents – think that way. Like for years, they’re doing their best to raise their child as good as they possibly can, and then seeing their child being not the happy human they thought they raised makes them think they failed somehow, makes them think they missed something they could or should have done. As a result, some parents actually ask their children stuff like “What did I do to make you so {something undesirable}” which isn’t exactly helping either. And other parents resolve to seeing no issues at all with their child, and try to make their child pretend the same way, like depicted above …
Oh god…. This is everyone around me. I- Thank you. Thank you so damn much for putting this into words and thoughts. Thank you.
I finally, in a moment of anger, shouted that I’d rather kill myself than be around him. He threatened me with having to go get professional psychiatric help, thinking the thought of a therapist would scare me off. I felt a little relieved, because now I wouldn’t have to ask for help, it would be forced on me!
……….
Once he saw it wasn’t scaring me into silence, he rescinded his offer
Things got worse
Mom decides I do need help.
I finally get the help I need!……….?
A Christian psychologist, told me that I needed more Jesus to be happy, poked fun at my issues on the very first session, openly admitted that he felt he already knew everything about me.
Never lucky rubber ducky, eh?
who else gets this
this must be what my daddy thinks when I say I’m fine
It’s the opposite for my mother. She is depressed herself, and I have to actively convince her that my depression is not her fault.