Sad Belly by David Taransaud

Helping Children of Depressed Parents Build Resilience

When a parent struggles with depression, the warmth and affection a child relies on can feel out of reach, leaving lasting scars. Children in these situations are more likely to develop depression themselves and often adopt harmful coping mechanisms to deal with the emotional void, affecting their wellbeing and relationships well into adulthood. Psychotherapeutic counselor David Taransaud explores this dynamic, emphasizing that while the impact of parental depression is profound, there are ways to help these children regain hope and resilience.

Drawing on his extensive experience, Taransaud provides practical strategies to support children of depressed parents. His approach centers on addressing children’s negative beliefs, fostering acceptance, and creating space for grieving unfulfilled needs. He highlights the importance of patience, nonverbal communication, and listening without judgment, all guided by the power of hope. This book serves as a call to action for professionals to intervene early and compassionately, helping children reclaim their childhoods and build healthier futures.

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Excerpt from Sad Belly © Copyright 2024 David Taransaud

CHAPTER ONE

Two Kinds of Silence

Trauma comes in many forms, including profound absence.
(Smith, 2019, p.747)

There are two kinds of silence between a mother and a child. One is the silence of intimacy, filled with aliveness, soft like warm chocolate; the other is the cold silence of an absence, a kind of numb grief, heavy as lead. It is the silence of a ‘dead mother’ and the child who sacrifices all to revive her. The ‘dead mother’ is a mother who remains alive but has no enthusiasm for life (Green, 1986). She has transformed into a distant figure: lifeless, withdrawn, practically inanimate. Dutiful, perhaps, but affectionless.

The mother has disappeared into depression, leaving behind a confused child who is unable to comprehend what is happening. But the child is ingenious; he makes up stories and builds worlds that allow him to cope with fears he cannot understand (Cohen, 2015). He trades facts for fiction and convinces himself that he is the cause of her detachment, that something he has done or failed to do is responsible for his mother’s mood. It is not her who is ‘bad’ and ‘broken,’ it is him. The child takes the blame, gaining the illusion of control in a world that appears wholly out of control. If he were good enough, if he did not burden her with his needs and wants, her love would be forthcoming. Confident that his mother’s affection is within reach, he sacrifices all that is alive and spontaneous within him. He silences his needs, keeps his distress to himself, and uses all of his skills to revive the person on whom his life depends. He becomes selfless, eager to please, and highly sensitive to his mother’s suffering. He takes on parental duties and tries to put a smile on her face, hoping that she will return the favour. Their roles are reversed. For the sake of survival, the unmothered child leaves childhood behind and becomes the parent’s parent. One of two things may then happen, and both are painful: the child succeeds, if only momentarily, in bringing the ‘dead mother’ back to life, but he learns that parental love is conditional and contingent upon meeting her needs. Or the mother remains cold and distant, and so as not to lose her altogether, he joins her in her suffering and takes her depression as his own (Ogden, 2018). Either way, the child is in for a great deal of hardship.