Commentary from June 6, 2017
This is going back to a riff on how appearance matters too much in forming people’s view of suffering. If you appearance is good you can’t be suffering, but if it’s not you’re not trying hard enough, and none of this really helps the underlying illness. I’ve done similar strips before, but I think this one says it the most directly and efficiently. Sometimes this comic feels a bit repetitive, and a lot of that has to do with me finding a better way of saying something than I did before. This is one of those times I believe. But instead of using the same character as I have for previous strips on appearance vs. therapy, I changed it to this character, because she has a more interesting dynamic and appears more natural in both situations. It was fun to draw the differences between the two panels.
Bow howdy do I know that feel.
Yep, how I dress has little to do with how I feel on any particular day, it just means that’s what I grabbed from the closet or drawer when I got dressed.
I seem to be lucky, my doctor understands the concept of “high functioning.” I know several people who have described this situation happening to them.
+1
I’ve had one of my shrinks do this too, judging my mental state based on my appearance. I couldn’t possibly struggle that much if I managed to wash my hair that one day a week when I had to leave the house for an appointment with her, right?
Well at least he didn’t tell her to diet or exercise. How many have suffered from that diagnosis? “Oh your depression must be a food disorder…”. Time to bring truth to mental health.
While I don’t think depression is caused by a lack of exercise, I’ve found that exercise seems to help with the symptoms — if you have enough volition to exercise in the first place. Dead-end manual labour jobs are crappy, but at least they get you out of the house and doing something useful.
I had one of those. It was early enough in my therapy that I tried it. The doctor was surprised that I’d actually listened to her, and bewildered that I had no improvement even though I’d lost weight.
hooray it’s one of my parents…? ><;;;
Some people even give me this treatment when my hair dries neat or a little messy. It’s nuts, and it hurts.