"You are NOT alone"
August 10, 2013 9:14 AM   Subscribe

"Depression comix are simply a graphical representation of how depression and other related illnesses feel from a personal perspective." (about)
posted by Memo (22 comments total) 51 users marked this as a favorite
 
Given the author's previous work, I'm surprised at the insight and subtlety. A bunch of these are absolutely dead-on.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:26 AM on August 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Given the author's previous work, I'm surprised at the insight and subtlety
What was the author's previous work?

Edit: Oh, it's the Sexy Losers guy. Got it.
posted by slater at 9:41 AM on August 10, 2013


Edit: Oh, it's the Sexy Losers guy. Got it.

I am ... not ... hoping for a crossover strip.
posted by Myca at 9:50 AM on August 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Remembering...

Remembering that one is not alone is so GOD. DAMNED. HARD.

When there are so few that see you...

Even fewer that will speak to you...

When your very soul wishes to SCREAM loud enough to shatter the world...

To tear it asunder and leave it with what it has left with you...

Small battles...

Fading pasts...

Every little disgrace, and mistake...

Every. Day.

I'm tearing my way back...

It's taking all I have.

These help... in dulling the hurt... and shining a beacon of humor where it is desperately needed.

Thanks for the find, Memo...
posted by PROD_TPSL at 10:17 AM on August 10, 2013 [12 favorites]


What sexy losers guy
posted by sweetkid at 10:34 AM on August 10, 2013


I think I read that the highest rates of suicide right now in America are men 35 to 45. Is there a comic that relates to us? My perspective, as a 35 year old man, is that the bulk of our depression is heavily influenced by external forces. Our internal chemistry isn't driving us over the edge. I could be wrong, of course. It's selfish and stupid, but I'd love to be able to lock myself in my house for days on end, but that's not an option. Missing parties and such seems really trivial to my situation.
posted by Brocktoon at 10:43 AM on August 10, 2013


Good stuff, but I prefer Achewood and Hyperbole and a Half's approaches. Depression is a vain monster - it can weaken in the face of mockery.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:48 AM on August 10, 2013 [6 favorites]


Brocktoon you can contribute your own comic/responses
posted by sweetkid at 10:50 AM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


That's a great point, Stitcherbeast. With Achewood (which by the way, returned yesterday finally) you can see in Roast Beef that Onstad really, really knows depression from the inside, but you also get the other characters who just know that's a part of who he is and love and accept him anyway, and it never stops being funny (in its own Achewood way, of course.)
posted by Navelgazer at 10:52 AM on August 10, 2013 [3 favorites]


Some of these are incredibly accurate.
posted by double block and bleed at 11:18 AM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Not to trivialize this discussion with just another "book" about depression, if anyone here who is suffering from depression has not seen "Feeling Good". Highly recommended. Don't be put off by the title; this book has been used by cognitive therapists all over the world to a point where the often surprising impact that the book has on the reader is called "bibliotherapy".

The techniques used by the book are born out in exhaustive studies.

The last 25% of the book is focused on drug therapy, and is somewhat dated. That said, the focus of the book is NOT on drug therapy - what's most powerful are the simple exercises in the book that help one who is suffering from depression to identify defuse the cognitive distortions that cause depression, and make it worse if left unchecked.

I've given may 20 copies of this book away over the years, with many people coming back to tell me that it was a primary progenitor in their bid to get well.

Depression is a scourge, this book is one way to help defeat that scourge. One more thing: if you decide to use this book, I highly recommend writing the exercises out, to begin with. It will take 15-20 minutes a day, and will set you up for being able to use these very simple exercises to identify one of the 10 cognitive distortions, and then go through a very simple exercise to help defuse that distortion and make one feel a little (sometimes, maybe a lot) better. I can't recommend this book highly enough; it's research based, and in most cases it helps, and is often dramatic in in effect on helping depressed persons overcome their illness.

Last, this is a new development that holds promise for those who are suffering from intractable depression (NYT)
posted by Vibrissae at 11:38 AM on August 10, 2013 [8 favorites]




"I think I read that the highest rates of suicide right now in America are men 35 to 45."

Yeah. Quoting"

Males .............24,672
Females............5,950

Group # of Suicides 100,000
White Male.......22,328........19.5
White Female .....5,382.........4.6
Nonwhite Male ....2,344.........9.3
Nonwhite Female ....568.........2.1
Black Male .......1,627.........9.2
Black Female........330.........1.7
Hispanic...........1850.........5.0

More males die from suicide than females.
(4 male deaths by suicide for each female death by suicide.)

More people die from suicide than from homicide.
(Suicide ranks as the 11th leading cause of death; Homicide ranks 13th.)

73% of all suicide deaths are white males.

Source"

Depression [my sleepy friend] is so incredibly seductive and isolating. It is an almost perfect monster. I'm 49 and I'm going on record here as a sufferer / enjoyer. Depressed sleep is so damn nice - you feel like a steaming warm wet washcloth at sunset on a fall day with rubbery incipient flu drenched in Ny-Quil.

I'm maybe talking too much but be assured the title of this post is accurate.
posted by vapidave at 4:17 PM on August 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Taking pills for unhappiness reinforces the idea that being sad is not human

Grr why won't people stop writing and posting crap like this.
posted by sweetkid at 5:50 PM on August 10, 2013 [13 favorites]


Fantastic, so much of it is spot on. So, now what then?
posted by porpoise at 6:35 PM on August 10, 2013


Some of these panels had me pouring tears of recognition.

Thank you for posting this Memo.
posted by honey-barbara at 11:44 PM on August 10, 2013


Some of these are right on, though I feel like they dance around the edges and not all apply to my personal whatever etc.

I think I read that the highest rates of suicide right now in America are men 35 to 45. Is there a comic that relates to us?

Depression and suicide aren't the same thing. Hell, successful suicide and suicide attempts aren't even the same thing either. Here's an estimate that women are three times as likely to attempt suicide than men.

If you really want comics that cater specifically to the thoughts and worldviews of violent, troubled white men, I think you can probably find that somewhere.
posted by bleep-blop at 12:27 AM on August 11, 2013


First, bleep-blop, read the damn link before you decide to shoot your mouth off in an incredibly insensitive and, yes, actually racist-against-white-men way. As if being white and male precludes him from having personal problems. Suicide is such a repeated theme in the comics that the author actually has two characters who are specifically suicidal.

Second, as someone who's been down into that hole pretty damn far and made it reasonably far back up the other side, I see a lot that makes sense and strikes a nerve in there, but I do wish that there was even the slightest glimmer of hope presented in there. Therapy is presented as marginally useful at best, friends and loved ones are most commonly depicted giving up or being actively harmful...I get that the point is to communicate the depressive viewpoint, which this does brilliantly, but I can still remember my old bad thought processes, and this would not have been a good thing for me to see. That was what I really liked about Allie Brosh's posts on depression - yes, they were great illustrations of what it's like to go through depression, but they weren't this relentlessly grim. Therapy can take a while, but it can also help a lot, and friends can and do decide to see that you want help but can't ask for it, and kick down the barriers that depression makes us put up. It can, in fact, get better.
posted by Punkey at 3:20 AM on August 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


Just knowing that others can pinpoint almost precisely the same thoughts that I have makes me feel better about my depression. I was wowed by hyperbole and a halfs' take on it a few months back, and now this. Some of these are remarkably on point.

I'm the sort who goes through multi month stages, sometimes years, of intense depression, suicide ideation and all. I still do the minimum to get by, but then I essentially lock myself up in a dark room with thoughtless distractions to pass the time.
I've learned over the years that there are some things I can do to make myself feel better. Force myself to take a shower. Go to the gym. Go outside. Do something nice for someone else. Find something, anything, to distract myself and not think. These are small things (of herculean effort) that have small effects and sometimes there is no way I can even force myself to do one of these.
I hate the depression. It's robbed me of a lot of my life. At the same time, I know that I just will not do the big things that may help. I've bought the books. I won't do the exercises. I've tried therapy. I won't again. I've tried the pills. I definitely wont again. The problem is this little mental illness of ours is so self sabotaging that it often refuses to allow us to help ourselves. This inability to do anything just adds to the pile of self loathing.

Reading that I am not alone, that I am, in fact, one of many thousands, lifts this burden of guilt and uselessness from me. It's not just me that's broken. A lot of people have this. It's starting to seem like broken is the new normal.

Reading things like this has probably done more for me than most anything else I've been able to do over the years. It helps me to think more logically when that wall of emotion (or lack of) hits me, and helps me to partition it as this "thing" that I'm dealing with rather than feel that depression is everything that I am, and that makes it easier to do the things that will help me. I can put it in a box and have to carry it with me everywhere I go, but I don't have to spend my life deep inside the box with it, if that makes more sense...it changes the size of the box.

Thank you for posting this.

*I am currently on an upswing. Opinion may change when the dark heavy cloud rolls in again.
posted by newpotato at 5:33 AM on August 11, 2013 [3 favorites]


Thanks very much, newpotato. As a fellow traveler, I can relate to just about everything you wrote here. Sounds just like me, except there haven't been any upswings for an incredibly long time. (But borderline abject poverty can do that to you as well.) I just wanted to say how much I liked and felt an attachment to your post.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 3:36 PM on August 11, 2013


Thank you, SOS (epony-oh no!), it's nice to know that something I wrote resounds with someone. I can only say hang in there, and may your box grow ever smaller...
posted by newpotato at 9:10 AM on August 12, 2013


First, bleep-blop, read the damn link before you decide to shoot your mouth off in an incredibly insensitive and, yes, actually racist-against-white-men way.

What makes you think I didn't read the link? I think you took my comment the wrong way; it was a pretty focussed response to someone else, not a general comment about the link.

Second, as someone who's been down into that hole pretty damn far and made it reasonably far back up the other side

See, like, none of this "first, second" stuff relates to anything I said. I'm glad you're doing better, I just don't know why you're springboarding off of my comment. But it's okay, whatevs.

And if you thought I was racist and sexist against white men, I guess I'll just have to live with that shame, and hope that I did no real damage to their downtrodden and precarious social status.
posted by bleep-blop at 4:57 AM on August 13, 2013


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