Commentary from Published March 2, 2016
I got a bit of heat for this but I knew it was coming. It’s really uncomfortable to talk about negative things about depression in a way which is so unforgiving, but it’s one of the things I had to do for my sake. I don’t want depression comix to be a comic that puts on rose-coloured glasses about the illness and downplays its worst aspects. I have to be 100% honest in this comic or it means nothing to me.
I knew the illness had caused damage to my own life, and I hinted that it did damage to other people but nothing as direct as this comic. This comic came around when I had learned that during a job I took as a computer programmer and research assistant nearly twenty years ago I made a programming error. This was not found until I had left my job, which pretty much made this particular research I did incorrect, and all the other projects I had a hand in suspect. I learned of this very recently, when I came across a retraction for the experiment done in a scientific journal, and it said the result was due to a programming error. I do understand how serious a retraction is, not just for the work but also the reputation for those involved. The experiments were probably redone and thousands of dollars (maybe tens of thousands) wasted. And I know that during that time I was stuck in my own head, I cared little about anything and was just passing time because I felt everything was hopeless. It’s a long time ago but I know how deep in the pit I was at the time, and I’m pretty sure it at least played a part in not seeing that programming error.
There are other times I did damage too. Relationships that ran sour, people whose trust I killed. But it reminded me of how when you’re depressed it’s so difficult to focus on your work, your relationship, your friends, you family, and bad things happen when you can’t. Even though it’s all passive, it’s still damaging. All those people have to deal with the damage I did, thinking to themselves, “I wish I never met that guy.” It’s a hard thing to swallow that people hate me, but I do understand why a little better now.There are other times I did damage too. Relationships that ran sour, people whose trust I killed. But it reminded me of how when you’re depressed it’s so difficult to focus on your work, your relationship, your friends, you family, and bad things happen when you can’t. Even though it’s all passive, it’s still damaging. All those people have to deal with the damage I did, thinking to themselves, “I wish I never met that guy.” It’s a hard thing to swallow that people hate me, but I do understand why a little better now.
Unfortunately this comic ends in a dark place. What it should say — and I’ll add to this — is that this is why it’s so important to understand depression and get help with it. Recovering from it and seeing the damage isn’t pleasant, but it certainly helps stopping it from continuing.
After this strip I lost about 5 supporters on Patreon for it. I don’t know if there’s any connection, but I rarely lose that many supporters at once. It’ll probably be a while before I visit this dark territory again but I think it is necessary.
For the record, the woman is one of the friends who vanished in #275. The photograph in panel 2 is sketched from a real one (although it isn’t burned). The woman in the comic is a friend from long ago I pushed away because of depression. I hope she’s doing OK despite ever knowing me.
I knew the illness had caused damage to my own life, and I hinted that it did damage to other people but nothing as direct as this comic. This comic came around when I had learned that during a job I took as a computer programmer and research assistant nearly twenty years ago I made a programming error. This was not found until I had left my job, which pretty much made this particular research I did incorrect, and all the other projects I had a hand in suspect. I learned of this very recently, when I came across a retraction for the experiment done in a scientific journal, and it said the result was due to a programming error. I do understand how serious a retraction is, not just for the work but also the reputation for those involved. The experiments were probably redone and thousands of dollars (maybe tens of thousands) wasted. And I know that during that time I was stuck in my own head, I cared little about anything and was just passing time because I felt everything was hopeless. It’s a long time ago but I know how deep in the pit I was at the time, and I’m pretty sure it at least played a part in not seeing that programming error.
There are other times I did damage too. Relationships that ran sour, people whose trust I killed. But it reminded me of how when you’re depressed it’s so difficult to focus on your work, your relationship, your friends, you family, and bad things happen when you can’t. Even though it’s all passive, it’s still damaging. All those people have to deal with the damage I did, thinking to themselves, “I wish I never met that guy.” It’s a hard thing to swallow that people hate me, but I do understand why a little better now.There are other times I did damage too. Relationships that ran sour, people whose trust I killed. But it reminded me of how when you’re depressed it’s so difficult to focus on your work, your relationship, your friends, you family, and bad things happen when you can’t. Even though it’s all passive, it’s still damaging. All those people have to deal with the damage I did, thinking to themselves, “I wish I never met that guy.” It’s a hard thing to swallow that people hate me, but I do understand why a little better now.
Unfortunately this comic ends in a dark place. What it should say — and I’ll add to this — is that this is why it’s so important to understand depression and get help with it. Recovering from it and seeing the damage isn’t pleasant, but it certainly helps stopping it from continuing.
After this strip I lost about 5 supporters on Patreon for it. I don’t know if there’s any connection, but I rarely lose that many supporters at once. It’ll probably be a while before I visit this dark territory again but I think it is necessary.
For the record, the woman is one of the friends who vanished in #275. The photograph in panel 2 is sketched from a real one (although it isn’t burned). The woman in the comic is a friend from long ago I pushed away because of depression. I hope she’s doing OK despite ever knowing me.
Can totally relate to this. Depression not only decimates the sufferer, it inflicts damage on everyone close to them 🙁
This.
I am living this right now…
This is my life, except that I managed to keep the damage just to me. To this day, no one knows how much pain I’ve experienced when I was younger. I’ve suffered in silence for a long time.
I thought I kept the damage to myself as well. As I learn more about what happened to people in my past the more I learn that is wrong. Suffering in silence can still mess up other people’s situations in ways one can’t easily imagine.
This is so relevant it hurts..
I think a number of people are interpreting this in a way I had not intended, which is fair since I made it a little more ambiguous than I needed to. But the woman with the wheelbarrow is one of the friends who disappeared from the man’s life in #275, and the man is catching a glimpse of her cleaning up her own life because of the mess the protagonist made. In the original script, she actually mutters to herself in the last panel “I wish I never met that asshole” but I took it out because it was already too wordy. A number of people are assuming the woman is helping the main character clean up… I thought the burned photograph would represent the irreparable destruction in their relationship (people who end relationships often burn photographs).
So actually the point is, “Look at the fucking mess you’ve made” (or actually “look at the fucking mess I’ve made” since I drew myself into the strip and the people in this subset of strips are real people from my life). The more I climb out of the hole the more damage I realize I’ve done. Sure, moving forward is important, but moving forward does not dismiss the fact that I did some damage to people.
This strip comes from an incident that happened last week when I found out that during a period I was really in the depths of my depression, I made a programming error in a science experiment which was discovered after I left the position. I made it because I wasn’t on top of my game, I was so miserable I couldn’t make enough effort to triple check my work. In the end, the results had been published and had to be retracted in a science journal. This I found out fifteen years later. It got me to thinking how horrible it was for them to write the retraction, and how these mistakes affect the reputations of my employers. It got me to thinking of all the damage I have done over the years, and how many people in life must regret meeting me, and that was the impetus to do the comic.
But in short, the wheelbarrow person is not family, friends … it’s someone from the past who is still cleaning up the mess one made. I really hope not everybody feels like this. But for a long time it was easy to think that the damage I was doing was only to myself, but I’m realizing it’s not limited there. I doubt I will ever know the true extent of the damage done.
Thank you for this… and the strip is an accurate representation of what I am living through right now… thank you for all of your eotk.
Your timing is unbelievable. Just today I’m seeing some “never give up on friends with mental illness” things being shared around. As noble a sentiment as that is, sometimes you have to. You just have to. As much as I was terrified my loved ones would give up on me when I was sick, I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had. For the sake of their own health and sanity, and for their own lives. “Never” is a long time.
Glad I didn’t read this while I was suicidal. I probably would’ve gone to kill myself. I give myself enough of a guilt trip for existing. Well, what did I expect from a comic about depression?
This is a very good depiction of of one of the more damaging aspects of depression. I spent years in self-imposed isolation to avoid this very thing. While my family is supportive, I am still afraid of the damage I am causing in their lives. I have been very close to suicide and too often have found myself thinking it would be the best way to protect the people I care about from me
my heart hurts reading this but its so true! I feel like a burden to those who are there for me but I know suffering in silence wasn’t the answer anymore and most days I can’t even function without those closest to me
Sorry, but this one makes me feel even worse about myself than I do already. Wrong time to check this comic, I guess.
Here i found this http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/uog-dim030116.php
How do you manage to turn out such consistently excellent comics so regularly, considering the difficult topic!? Just saying thank you.
I solved this problem by not having anyone in my life in the first place. Anyone that cares, that is…..
And now I’m sad(der than before). 🙁
I feel this in my soul. Graduate school took what used to be a small inconvenience and made it a monster. The cracks are starting to show and it’s making my family and friends uncomfortable.
When I hit a dark spell, it just obliterates everything–I spend days exhausted, isolating myself, watching my grades fall, watching myself forget everything I learned. And I get angry at myself for letting it happen–if I were any good I would still succeed in spite of the depression. I had a year to prepare for my qualifying exam and I spent it physically ill, taking walks in the dark to make the ache in my chest go away, trying to fight a constant onslaught of racking sobs, hating my life and hating myself for not being able to turn it around, wishing I could close my eyes to sleep and never wake up again, brainstorming a permanent contingency plan for if/when things went irreversibly south. I had made this beautiful study plan during my first semester and I couldn’t adhere to it, and I had to face the judgmental looks of my advisors when I told them I couldn’t study and achieve passable results. I would hear my fellow students talking about the material like they were already experts, saying they were embarrassed for anyone who didn’t know it by now. I didn’t know it, and masking that alarmed clueless stare was easier said than done.
Now that I’m finally almost starting to feel functional again, it’s time to rebuild the trainwreck that has been this academic year. Just in time to realize how unprepared I am for my qualifying exam, which is now only a month away. Then that little voice in my mind starts again, “You idiot, you can’t possibly think that buckling down in these last four weeks is going to make up for the last nine months. You already can’t remember anything. You’re already too far gone to salvage anything–you are going to wipe out so hard. Maybe you should at least nail down those drug classes from pharmacology so you can refine that contingency plan.”
Life would be so much easier if I could just dedicate more brain power to studying and less on thinking that my incompetence and inability to cope should be punishable by death.
I realize it’s not quite related to the comic’s premise that one’s depression impacts others… but this was the only one I could immediately find that compared dealing with depression to a salvage operation in the wake of a huge disaster.