First supervisor meeting - 16/07/18
Today was my first meeting with my supervisor Miss Heath. The first thing she asked was why I've chosen depression as the centre of my project. This was a fairly difficult question to answer, as depression is a topic close to my heart and my father suffered with it. This being why I wanted to earn a deeper understanding of it, in order to recognise that little bit more the struggle my dad went through and how much it's affected his life. I've realised that this will be a very personal project, however I need to make sure that during it, I take care of my own mental health and stay as objective as possible throughout my dissertation.
I raised the idea that I'm thinking about interviewing someone with depression, to get a clearer insight into the daily struggle those suffering have to go through. Miss Heath agreed that this would be valuable, however if I interviewed my dad, the process will most likely be emotionally challenging for both my father and I. She recommended that I think about creating a survey, as this would be far less emotionally demanding. After discussing the positive and negatives of creating a survey, Miss and I both agreed that I create a list of questions that I would hypothetically put into a survey, regardless if I actually create one or not. This would allow me to ponder over my thoughts and think about relevant and morally okay questions, that would take care not to trigger someone with depression.
As my father was brought up in the conversation, Miss talked about her own father and the similarities they share and we discussed how difficult it is for men to talk about their feelings, even in modern day society. Men are seen as the "bread-winners" of the family, the "lead/ head" of the family, this putting unmistakable pressure and stress on them (this referring solely to heterosexual men, however, this pressure is definitely visible within homosexual couples also). Alongside this, men are expected to not express their feelings, to cage them, this being enforced from a young age: "men don't cry". Miss then brought up postnatal depression and how society and hospitals recognise this as a very real illness, and accept this, yet many people fail to even discuss common depression in men. This topic is still very much treated as a taboo subject, which links to the idea of toxic masculinity. Where do new-fathers get their support from? They're expected to embrace the change, to be strong and support the family, while yes, the fathers did not have to carry the baby or have the irreplaceable connection a mother has with her child, but they are not given any reassurance that everything will be fine. Miss mentioned that she knows of a few Facebook mums, who post daily about their experiences and give advice to new-mums, yet very little of the same exists for dads. The ridicule stay-at-home dads receive kind of links to this, as they are often criticised for not earning money, for not playing up to the toxic mould society expects them to fit.
The conversation then deterred to realising that people begin to express their feelings when they trust someone deeply, or they can relate to other people and go "Hey! That person is like me, they feel the same way I do!", a sort of reassurance. We discussed how WWI and WWII led to an outburst of men being able to admit their feelings, this being through various post-war poems in which former soldiers shared their tragic experiences of war, and the heavy toll it had on their mental health. It's known that a large number of former and current soldiers suffer some form of PTSD, this having horrific implications on their future life. This has been accepted into society as a common 'effect' of war, yet other mental illnesses such as depression are not treated the same way. Due to this, I could look at how opinions of males talking about mental health have changed since the world wars (via literature), or Miss Heath suggested that I take a completely different route and think about revolving my project time-period on my lifetime (such as the past 17 - 20 years). This is due to the fact that there has been a large shift in acceptance of depression as an actual mental illness, even though many still refuse to accept this, a massive part of this being due to the influence of social media; people can now access information whenever, and can educate themselves on almost anything.
At the end of the meeting, Miss left me with some things I should make sure I do over the summer. These being;
- Thinking about the the time period I want to base my project on (e.g. my lifetime, early 1940s etc.)
- Creating a reading list, either of poems or books (taking into consideration the era I want to look at also)
- Creating a list of questions: to pinpoint my ideas, and go over any initial ideas I have
- Asking my English lit teacher about any book/ poem suggestions
- Looking into podcasts / Facebook posts etc. on postnatal depression, just to see if this is something that would interest me
- Completing page 5 of the CRF, as I've now had my first meeting
I should also be careful not to go off on a tangent, as I do do this a lot and it would result in me going very off topic, probably losing me marks in the process.
Overall, the meeting was very valuable as Miss Heath has shone in various insights looking into depression in men, in particular, and the idea of toxic masculinity. I wish to link and combine the two together as my new focus, as I feel this would be something I'm extremely passionate about and I would look forward to researching it, resulting in me (hopefully) not losing motivation.
I raised the idea that I'm thinking about interviewing someone with depression, to get a clearer insight into the daily struggle those suffering have to go through. Miss Heath agreed that this would be valuable, however if I interviewed my dad, the process will most likely be emotionally challenging for both my father and I. She recommended that I think about creating a survey, as this would be far less emotionally demanding. After discussing the positive and negatives of creating a survey, Miss and I both agreed that I create a list of questions that I would hypothetically put into a survey, regardless if I actually create one or not. This would allow me to ponder over my thoughts and think about relevant and morally okay questions, that would take care not to trigger someone with depression.
As my father was brought up in the conversation, Miss talked about her own father and the similarities they share and we discussed how difficult it is for men to talk about their feelings, even in modern day society. Men are seen as the "bread-winners" of the family, the "lead/ head" of the family, this putting unmistakable pressure and stress on them (this referring solely to heterosexual men, however, this pressure is definitely visible within homosexual couples also). Alongside this, men are expected to not express their feelings, to cage them, this being enforced from a young age: "men don't cry". Miss then brought up postnatal depression and how society and hospitals recognise this as a very real illness, and accept this, yet many people fail to even discuss common depression in men. This topic is still very much treated as a taboo subject, which links to the idea of toxic masculinity. Where do new-fathers get their support from? They're expected to embrace the change, to be strong and support the family, while yes, the fathers did not have to carry the baby or have the irreplaceable connection a mother has with her child, but they are not given any reassurance that everything will be fine. Miss mentioned that she knows of a few Facebook mums, who post daily about their experiences and give advice to new-mums, yet very little of the same exists for dads. The ridicule stay-at-home dads receive kind of links to this, as they are often criticised for not earning money, for not playing up to the toxic mould society expects them to fit.
The conversation then deterred to realising that people begin to express their feelings when they trust someone deeply, or they can relate to other people and go "Hey! That person is like me, they feel the same way I do!", a sort of reassurance. We discussed how WWI and WWII led to an outburst of men being able to admit their feelings, this being through various post-war poems in which former soldiers shared their tragic experiences of war, and the heavy toll it had on their mental health. It's known that a large number of former and current soldiers suffer some form of PTSD, this having horrific implications on their future life. This has been accepted into society as a common 'effect' of war, yet other mental illnesses such as depression are not treated the same way. Due to this, I could look at how opinions of males talking about mental health have changed since the world wars (via literature), or Miss Heath suggested that I take a completely different route and think about revolving my project time-period on my lifetime (such as the past 17 - 20 years). This is due to the fact that there has been a large shift in acceptance of depression as an actual mental illness, even though many still refuse to accept this, a massive part of this being due to the influence of social media; people can now access information whenever, and can educate themselves on almost anything.
At the end of the meeting, Miss left me with some things I should make sure I do over the summer. These being;
- Thinking about the the time period I want to base my project on (e.g. my lifetime, early 1940s etc.)
- Creating a reading list, either of poems or books (taking into consideration the era I want to look at also)
- Creating a list of questions: to pinpoint my ideas, and go over any initial ideas I have
- Asking my English lit teacher about any book/ poem suggestions
- Looking into podcasts / Facebook posts etc. on postnatal depression, just to see if this is something that would interest me
- Completing page 5 of the CRF, as I've now had my first meeting
I should also be careful not to go off on a tangent, as I do do this a lot and it would result in me going very off topic, probably losing me marks in the process.
Overall, the meeting was very valuable as Miss Heath has shone in various insights looking into depression in men, in particular, and the idea of toxic masculinity. I wish to link and combine the two together as my new focus, as I feel this would be something I'm extremely passionate about and I would look forward to researching it, resulting in me (hopefully) not losing motivation.
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