Shea’s Hero – Reflections on the last fifteen years (Part 1/5)
Shea is in her third go at an outpatient heroin addiction treatment center. She’s been using on and off for the last fifteen years, as if trapped in a toxic relationship. Her previous two stints ended in relapse… but this time is different as Shea is legitimately afraid that she’ll relapse again.
Shea did just learn a new phrase after this meeting with her counselor: trauma bonding. It’s where you form an unhealthy attachment to your abuser. In Shea’s case, it doesn’t exactly apply, but there are some overlap, seeing as she personifies her addiction as her “hero” and has clearly formed a strong emotional attachment to it. Maybe if she can work out how to break that bond, she can finally learn how to heal.
But what can she do now with herself? Who’s in her corner? Everyone she knows has left town (well, maybe except her best friends Anne, Emo and Avery…) and so life has never felt so lonesome. But I have faith that she’ll get it figured out.
You’re still beautiful, Shea. Don’t forget that.
…
The design of the comic itself was a sort of stream of consciousness picture. Like, I drew Shea’s face in the center first just to draw something, and it inspired me such that the rest just sorta filled itself in. Her thoughts themselves comes either from people I’ve talked to about their drug rehab process and/or my own experiences. And we’ll leave it at that for now.