Pathwaytofree

I was on facebook the other day, and happened to look at a friend of a friend's profile because we had some things in common. I was curious what she was like, thinking maybe I'd friend her. I had met her once before.

She had a bunch of family photos, and I noticed in each and every one of them, her son (I'm guessing he was about 19 or so) looked very down and depressed. There were a couple of photos where he looked like he was trying to smile.

There were a slew of posts about how wonderful her daughter was, with tons of photos of her.

My instinct was that oh no, here's one of those families where one child is the "golden child" and the other child is the "black sheep". I've seen this once before on facebook. It's not just from photos but from things the mother posts about her son vs her daughter. It's rather disturbing. It's at an obvious level that goes above just favoritism.

What really bothered me, however, was that the mother was calling him "Smiley" in the photos, basically making fun of him for being depressed. In many of the photos, she even drew in a rude, oversized colorful smile with some sort of "draw" program.

Not only that, but some of her friends were actually poking fun of his lack of smiling or when he smiled a tiny bit, in the comments section.

Sadly, he seemed to smile when he had something to drink. :-(

I don't understand how in this day and age, a mother/adult would think it was okay to actually make fun of her own child's obvious clinical depression.

Mental illness is not something to make fun of, and it's not something he's doing on purpose. Would she make fun of her son if he had Diabetes and had to take insulin or watch his diet?!

I can't seem to let this go or stop thinking about it.

The other thing is that this woman is highly educated and works in an industry that this sort of behavior would be very surprising. I guess I'd expect better out of someone like this. It's just deplorable. I feel so badly for the son. He obviously needs help and needs to know that the way his own mother is treating him is repulsive.

Astro

Definitely not a healthy family dynamic, I feel bad for the son too. I try to remind myself though that everyone has a different way of coping with adversity or difficulty, while it seems twisted to me the mother may know no other way of dealing with her own feelings. As an alcoholic I was very judgemental, I can slip back into that easily.

So maybe you befriend her and get to know both her and her son? You could lead by example?

Pathwaytofree

Thanks Astro. I hadn't looked at it from the perspective you mentioned. You bring up a good point that this was just the way she was coping. It still feels cruel, though, but I understand what you're saying.

I like your suggestion about leading by example and I will definitely consider doing that.