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izzi and psychiatric trauma
🕑 Added 2018-05-11 03:29:55 +0000 UTC because of my focus on fresh meat lately, i've been thinking about izzi.i decided that i wanted to write up a small overview of details in izzi's character and dialog so far in the sketch comics she's appeared on that are directly relevant to her involvement in the psychiatric system from a young age.
i'll start with the comic where she is actually in a psychiatric setting.
at a glance, it seems that izzi is saying she wants self-control because she is clearly actively injuring herself.
it's noteworthy that she says "control" before she corrects it to "self-control"-- while stuttering is common in everyday speech, especially about difficult subjects, the fact that izzi is in a setting where she's being evaluated for sanity is a loaded atmosphere hard to ignore.
then she ends the therapy session she had shortly before said she wanted to participate in, seemingly, for no reason.
looking at what she was asked directly preceding ending the session, and keeping in mind the severe loss of rights and autonomy that comes with being a patient in an institution, it might be more obvious why.
she was asked how she planned on gaining some self-control, from a doctor who has more control over her life than she does. she ended the session to get a little piece of control back.
related to this is her comic with harley.
many would interpret paying off nice people's debt as a philanthropic gesture... very generous act of good will.
izzi's immediate reaction is that it's an abuse of power, though. her perceptivity of power dynamics seems unclear, given that she often seems to be unable to recognize them in her own relationships.
however, presented in the context of "i'll help you if you seem nice to me personally" rings exactly like a therapist, and easily explains why izzi immediately went to that line of thought. pertinently...
you can notice that the exact point izzi decides to lead into ending the conversation is when harley compares themself to a therapist directly afterwards. she also ends the interaction immediately when the topic of mental health comes up in her first comic:
in the same comic, she says a very sharp line directly afterwards:
izzi doesn't bring up ruining her relationship, or even the topic she'd been previously arguing about with diesel: treating other people cruelly. she specifically brings up how being "pitied" is the one thing she hates the most.
psychiatric control is often paternalistic, presented in the light of faux concern and authoritative seizure of your control of your rights "for your own good." izzi has noticed this pattern of behavior, maybe consciously, maybe not, and generalized it into a hatred for sympathy, under the expectation that it will turn into "tough love."
she observably brings up the concern of pity in her comic with felix, too:
directly after mentioning the concept of "a home where you feel safe"; it's fair to assume she was, at the time, trying to empathize by thinking about how she had felt in residential institutions, where a psychiatric facility WAS her home.
in the same comic, she also talks earlier about having more rooms in her apartment than she needs.
in psychiatric wards, you do not have your own room (usually); you share it most often with another patient of the same gender (ideally). most patient rights sheets, which you are given upon being institutionalized, actually specifically mention that you do not have the right to the privacy of your own room or a private place to sleep.
bearing in mind this setting, and settings with similar boarding, were how she slept for a very large portion of her childhood and adolescence... izzi's discomfort with having extra rooms, and confusion about not sleeping in the same room makes sense.
she likely has a simultaneous anxiety about being alone, especially in large mainly unoccupied spaces, as a somewhat alien phenomenon to her, and a natural inclination to be anxious in communal living situations under the expectation of violence and stress from close-quarter living.
she also mentions that she doesn't like "meds for shyness" here (obviously sedatives to inhibit anxiety), but that's an easy, straightforward detail.
and then there's the last comic... with malcolm.
izzi's initial instinct when dealing with genuine emotional issues is "therapy," even when it's a non-clinical heart-to-heart. malcolm calls her patronizing, and assumes she's doing it as a joke-- which she is, to some degree.
more importantly, she's very overtly signalling that she's shutting off her empathy for malcolm, as a therapist would. she is also likely bringing in a setting which she knows will antagonize negative emotions by eliciting negative emotions to cut to the chase quicker.
then malcolm asks her, "why are YOU here? because of some awful tragedy?" they use the phrase "treatment-resistant" in the next panel. izzi pauses here, and she's surrounded by a pink background. this could be taken as a mood setter for izzi feeling looked down upon or offended in some way, but the pink was also present earlier surrounding her head directly before she conjured up the therapy setting.
she responds rather cruelly. during integration therapy for DID, you are told that your alters are just fractured parts of yourself; they are just symptoms. this is how izzi sees herself, as taught by her experiences with psychiatric treatment, and, viewing malcolm as an unruly part of herself for the same reason, she tells them the same thing.
malcolm says they don't want to exist after this. they're surrounded by the same pink.
an important line to observe directly preceding this entire interaction:
... followed by her response to malcolm's statement. here, she isn't surrounded by that pink, she is the pink. izzi's giving malcolm what she considers "real therapy."
you can also note here that izzi's question about what malcolm wants is mimicking the structure for self-therapy in the first-mentioned comic. she doesn't bother to ask how malcolm plans to stop existing, because this is not an option in real therapy.
malcolm reacts understandably upset by her lack of empathy. izzi seems irritated, but she does not react with real anger in the panels following that; she actually ends the conversation. she might be uncomfortable with having a lucid glimpse of how she was in therapy, maybe upset at herself for acting that way when she was younger, considering she immediately compares malcolm to a child alter.
the ending is a joke, but izzi's messy handwriting is actually a small detail i wrote with relevance to the topic; because she was primarily formed from psychiatric trauma, her handwriting is pretty similar to an average doctor's.
ANYWAY, that's all i've got.
Comments
malphym
the power dynamics in psychiatric institutions/etc. are somethin i haven't seen explored before to be honest but hits close to home, personally. i really like izzi as a character and i like being able to go back and pick up on those kinds of details about her personality and characterization
francis
oh wow thank you for this... izzi has been one of my favorites since she was introduced and getting more information about her and what makes her tick is always great. + i'm never not awed by how much characterization you cram into what could so easily be throwaway dialogue
