Hello everyone,
I haven't updated the comic in a long time, I apologize for this. This has been a tumultuous few years for me.
My sibling and I have recently had to discover the hard way that we were born to and raised by a person who is mentally ill.
We always knew something was wrong in our household, but contrary to popular belief, there was and remains no real mental health awareness or support system that would have helped us discover this sooner.
I've been coming to terms with the fact that I was raised by someone who brought me into this world for all the wrong reasons. And when those grandiose and delusional reasons did not come to fruition, I was abused and neglected.
My sibling and I have fully realized that abuse we suffered was not normal, and that we were so isolated and manipulated it took us over a decade to understand what had happened to us growing up.
It's not easy to describe how one discovers a parent is mentally ill. For me, it was spending time away from that parent. I took a few years to create for myself a new reality away from my parent's influence. Then, my parent briefly re-entered my life, I realized just how poorly she treats me, how much of an object I was to her, how I had mistaken bullying for love. I realized that in order to survive, my child's mind had fabricated a loving mother that never really existed. It was a lot to come to terms with.
And so, I'm making this post because this comic now means something very different to me. Looking back it seems stupidly obvious, but it wasn't for me. For me, it felt like the abuse had put me into a state of sleepwalking through life.
This comic now represents feelings I had and didn't understand, feelings I had repressed on another level, that I could only deal with through art and not any other way based in reality. When I had started making the comic, I believe I had subconsciously hoped that someone out there would understand what I was feeling better than I did. That someone would see the dynamic between Ava and Wrathia and tell me why I felt this way.
So if you have ever had a parent who made you feel unloved, worthless, and unwanted; a parent who degraded you and belittled you, destroyed your boundaries, who minimized your accomplishments, and instilled terror in you as a child or as an adult, this comic was always written for you. You are not alone.
Ava’s Demon might be a bit different from now on, but I promise it will still be made with love.
Books that helped me, and might help you overcome something similar:
Mothers Who Can't Love: A healing guide for daughters
Understanding the Borderline Mother
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm
