Even when you’re getting all the help you can, sometimes it’s just sitting back there, slowly muttering like some sort of broken recording. Take care of yourselves everyone.
I apologize for a comment that appeared here calling people with depression “dumby” [sic], that comment has been deleted and the poster banned. This is a safe and respectful place for those who want to talk about depression.
Not here to say get over it, not here to say it’s easy to get out of but I am here to say that we all can live and work through it. I decided to do 7 days of self love and affirmations. The voice didn’t go away but it did get smaller. CHOSE TO LOVE YOURSELF even when you feel unworthy. If you haven’t heard it or felt it in awhile I will tell you now I love you and please if you need someone to tell you this constantly like my status and I will make an effort to tell you this more often… I love you all because we all are strong and beautifully imperfect!
I been there too. I clearly started the statement with disclaimers…I fight my depression daily and I’ve had months of not being able too push through… We’re all fighting I just decided to try and shine a little light. There was no ill intentions in my post.
My depression is aimed and ready to point out the negative opposite as soon as someone tries to give me advice to feel better. “Nope. That won’t work because-” “Already tried that and failed.” “Making a list? You won’t remember to read it.” “Nope, you won’t be able to stick to that.” It’s exhausting and self-defeating.
Melanie Eaton The problem is you’re assuming that I can come up with positive things about myself. If I can’t even get into that frame of mind, how do I start? Medication and therapy. Doing one out of two right now.
Positive affirmations can definitely help! My therapist taught me to try and spin every negative thought. The trick is you have to trick your brain into rewiring itself. Its SO difficult, it takes time and practice. I’m still not there completely but it’s something to keep working at. Start by listening to the thoughts and try to spin it the opposite direction. When your brain says I can’t do this, tell your brain I CAN do this. And keep trying to say it, over and over. If you need to make a list but your brain says I wont read it anyway… say I WILL read it, and post it right at eye level somewhere you know you will see it. You have to do it even when you dont believe in it yourself. Meds + therapy and coping mechanisms has brought me back from the brink of suicide. It’s possible and you CAN do this! <3
I disagree with the hopelessness in this message. We have the ability to reprogram our thoughts and constantly renew our minds to have a new thought process. It’s one hell of a task but it is achievable. Also, some depression is caused by chemical inbalances and/or deficiencies which can be treated. We arent hopeless. If we believe that then there is no hope for a cure.
This comic resonates with my depression experiences pretty strongly. A lot of people really don’t understand how powerful depression is, and this is a good explanation for it. I don’t see this as hopelessness. This is more like explaining that the task at hand is much more complicated than the person giving advice was aware of.
The message in this comic and the other 404 comics before it is to express what it is to live with depression. It’s not about giving people false hope or patronizing messages. If this comic isn’t suitable for you please don’t read it. This space is a safe place for people to talk about their illness and *not* be told they are not trying hard enough.
I understand where you are coming from. I just don’t like to give depression so much credit. Sometimes we can make it sound incurable but that is another lie depression feeds us. I struggled many years to get out of that spiral and it’s work everyday but I now realize it can be overcome. Some of us don’t make it but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
depression comix as someone who suffers with both anxiety and depression I would NEVER just assume people arent trying to get out of depression. I do however like to help by offering a message of hope despite the current circumstances. I am a believer in ones ability to overcome. I would never patronize a depressed person.
@Melanie Eaton: Positive affirmations can help. Learning self-love can help. But not for everyone, and not in every depressive episode. Your depression and my depression are not the same, and it can be harmful to assume that because you have depression, you know what other people with depression need to be doing. Sometimes seeing something I didn’t create that expresses a bit of what it’s like inside my head really, really helps. Because one of the things that depression tells me, constantly, is that I am alone. Even when I’m with friends and family who love me, the inside of my head tells me that I am totally alone, that I will always be totally alone, and that I deserve to be totally alone. So these comics aren’t hopeless to me. It’s like somebody reaching out a hand and saying, “I get you.”
Melanie Eaton It is because of messages like you are giving that I was able to get out of my pit. I agree with what you are saying. I also know that while in that pit we sometimes can’t hear the message…but we are hearing it. That can start to then be what we hear when we start to fight for ourselves. If someone like you had not said anything, I could still be where I was…or dead. Thank you.
Depression often makes it impossible to feel hope. A depressed person may literally have no hope of a cure, i.e. they feel that a cure is impossible. That doesn’t mean it actually isn’t possible, it just means that they don’t (or can’t) believe it’s possible. An important step in my recovery was to recognize that how I felt about something had no bearing on whether it was true. For a long time I believed the horrible lies my depression told me because they felt as though they were true.
There are truly ways to manage. I got professional help. I was a severely overweight shut in and trauma survivor. I’ll always have depression amd manic episodes but there are things you can do to manage and have a quality of life. I fight every day. It’s okay to be where you are at and feel hopeless. We all do sometimes….but we still have to be responsible for treatment just like if we had cancer.
Nobody chooses to be depressed. Its not something we can turn off and its not as easy as you can hope yourself better or block out.
I see my depression as an immortal monster trapped inside me. I can’t kill it, because its a part of me, but what I can try to do (not really succeeding at the moment I grant you..) is to remove myself from situations that might make it angry. Allow it to become quiet so that I can find some peace.
I also found it helpful to anthropomorphize my depression. I’m not sure you can ever completely get rid of it, but for me it lurks in the background. Its goal is to destroy me. I am able to fight it for three reasons: 1. I know that it can’t achieve its goal. If it were to attack it would deprive me of volition, so that by the time I felt destructive enough to take action I would be incapable of it. Long before it got that bad I would get a prescription for a drug that renders it powerless. 2. It is a coward, only attacking me when I am already weak. I will not be ruled by a coward. 3. I know that the horrible things it tells me are lies. I no longer believe them. And so it lurks, sulking, knowing it can never win.
I was laid off a week and a half ago…the day I signed my lease to move closer to work. I hate this apartment, I hate myself for not looking for a job when shit started to go down at work but I thought it wasn’t going to happen so soon to me. I don’t want to job hunt because I don’t think I will get a better job. So I’m just decorating this apartment that I hate because then I don’t have to think about getting a job, but I know Sept 1 is gonna come fast. ?
Apply for unemployment benefits and hang in there ❤️ I personally have been struggling to find a job for the last 5.5 months so I know how scary it feels. Try to have hope that you’ll find something as good as the last job if not better. You’ll never find it if you don’t try. And trust, me that’s my exact problem, is that I’m scared/too depressed to try. It’s done nothing but deepen my lack of self esteem and drained my partner’s resources.
That’s rough and I know how hard it can be to look since you have to face the empty void or multiple rejections when you’re already upset and feeling like shit… (And in an apartment that you hate, I feel you on that… been in a place I hated since day one before and it’s terrible.) If you can push through it though, try to apply little by little. It’ll be better than nothing. I wish you luck on getting a new job. Even if it isn’t better, hopefully it can be just as good or close enough.
What’s frustrating to me is that the depression that began as a genetic predisposition and emotional abuse coming from an external source has evolved to become an internal source now that I’m finally 99% rid of the external one.
maybe you should try in life then not sweat what you can’t control. cuz, ya know, it’s worked for me and millions and billions of others. Find me a depressed person who works out, in shape, holds a job, has a HEALTHY relationship with life/death/existentialism and accepts they will one day die and sometimes reaching for PERFECTION leads to dissapointment and THAT’S OKAY.
You won’t find me a depressed person like that. They make healthy efforts and choices. Blah blah me me. I hate depression enablers.
Nathan Szafranski I know it’s a year later, but if it’s any help, I personally go to therapy monthly and take medication to deal with it, as well as my Asperger’s Syndrome. However, I do understand that it’s different for everyone with depression, as far as I know.
My advice, if anything? Do whatever you KNOW makes you happy, and talk to people you KNOW you can trust to tell your problems to.
A superficial reading of this: “With an abusive relationship to another person, one can just walk out. But how does one walk out on an abusive relationship to oneself?”
(The trouble with this framing is that it makes ‘just walk out’ sound like an easy or trivial option. That is of course not the case, especially given the lasting trauma that an abuser can inflict. I think there is a difference, but it’s not anywhere as neat and tidy as this gloss would make it sound.)
Superficial readings usually LOSE detail, not ADD it. It says nowhere in the strip about the ease of leaving an abusive relationship. It doesn’t even imply “one can just walk out.” Basically these are details you added yourself. The character is talking about the logistics of leaving an abusive relationship with yourself, because it is literally impossible to leave yourself, it’s not even a matter of difficulty.
As for how I feel about the ease of leaving an abusive relationship , I just did a strip a month ago on this very topic on why it is difficult to leave an abusive relationship — https://www.depressioncomix.com/posts/402/ .
In retrospect, ‘superficial reading’ is not what I meant so much as ‘knee-jerk response’ i.e. how I myself reacted (and the problems with that reaction). I actually do very much agree with the ‘depression is an abusive relationship with oneself’ notion; it just also seemed worth underscoring how hard it is to leave _any_ abusive relationship, with oneself or otherwise.
Fukken WORD.
The voice is especially loud when I see someone else succeed or have a good life. “I am nobody”….”I hate myself”…
This came on a good day for me. Thank you <3
thanks for another post!
Spot on!
Even when you’re getting all the help you can, sometimes it’s just sitting back there, slowly muttering like some sort of broken recording.
Take care of yourselves everyone.
It’s the repeated echoes of everything emotionally and verbally abusive that’s been said to you by family and friends.
THIS. Not a fan of those echos.
Only one way to leave that relationship.
Yes, but Satan’s not taking any more firstborn in exchange for wishes. Day care costs, yanno?
Thanks for drawing PoC in your comics!
It’s something the community is still working on but normalizing it much appreciated!
Thank you, and if you have any suggestions how I can make it better please tell me any time.
Peace.
Relatable
Skylar Helvey oh fuck
Morgan Ann
Better question: how do you heal such a relationship?
I really, really don’t think it’s lying to me
It tends makes one into the awful person it says you are.
*tends to make
Chicken, egg…
I apologize for a comment that appeared here calling people with depression “dumby” [sic], that comment has been deleted and the poster banned. This is a safe and respectful place for those who want to talk about depression.
Arton Agroni
I have no words….. a abusive relationship with oneself…. wow.
That’s exactly what it is.
I was not prepared to be learnt!
Cármen Veloso Adriana Pereira Luzia Ludovino Verónica Silva
That’s a really good comparison.
Maria Bamford has a routine about being in a abusive relationship with yourself!
Ouch! You so nailed it! I was so braced for her friend to tell her to “snap out of it” or some bullcrap. So glad she didn’t!
Cody Mac Isaac
I have never heard it explained so perfectly, great job as always
Not here to say get over it, not here to say it’s easy to get out of but I am here to say that we all can live and work through it. I decided to do 7 days of self love and affirmations. The voice didn’t go away but it did get smaller. CHOSE TO LOVE YOURSELF even when you feel unworthy. If you haven’t heard it or felt it in awhile I will tell you now I love you and please if you need someone to tell you this constantly like my status and I will make an effort to tell you this more often… I love you all because we all are strong and beautifully imperfect!
And what happens when the voice screams to not even bother? It’s good you’ve been in a headspace where you could, but not everyone can.
I been there too. I clearly started the statement with disclaimers…I fight my depression daily and I’ve had months of not being able too push through… We’re all fighting I just decided to try and shine a little light. There was no ill intentions in my post.
Although I am glad you’re doing something, my advice is always to seek professional help.
Oh one can leave it…
My depression is aimed and ready to point out the negative opposite as soon as someone tries to give me advice to feel better. “Nope. That won’t work because-” “Already tried that and failed.” “Making a list? You won’t remember to read it.” “Nope, you won’t be able to stick to that.” It’s exhausting and self-defeating.
You got this! Attack those thoughts w positive affirmations and encouragement. Flood your mind w motivation and good thoughts.
Melanie Eaton major depression can’t be cheerleaded away. It’s a medical condition, which is best resolved with medical intervention.
Melanie Eaton The problem is you’re assuming that I can come up with positive things about myself. If I can’t even get into that frame of mind, how do I start? Medication and therapy. Doing one out of two right now.
Positive affirmations can definitely help! My therapist taught me to try and spin every negative thought. The trick is you have to trick your brain into rewiring itself. Its SO difficult, it takes time and practice. I’m still not there completely but it’s something to keep working at. Start by listening to the thoughts and try to spin it the opposite direction. When your brain says I can’t do this, tell your brain I CAN do this. And keep trying to say it, over and over. If you need to make a list but your brain says I wont read it anyway… say I WILL read it, and post it right at eye level somewhere you know you will see it. You have to do it even when you dont believe in it yourself. Meds + therapy and coping mechanisms has brought me back from the brink of suicide. It’s possible and you CAN do this! <3
I disagree with the hopelessness in this message. We have the ability to reprogram our thoughts and constantly renew our minds to have a new thought process. It’s one hell of a task but it is achievable. Also, some depression is caused by chemical inbalances and/or deficiencies which can be treated. We arent hopeless. If we believe that then there is no hope for a cure.
This comic resonates with my depression experiences pretty strongly. A lot of people really don’t understand how powerful depression is, and this is a good explanation for it. I don’t see this as hopelessness. This is more like explaining that the task at hand is much more complicated than the person giving advice was aware of.
The message in this comic and the other 404 comics before it is to express what it is to live with depression. It’s not about giving people false hope or patronizing messages. If this comic isn’t suitable for you please don’t read it. This space is a safe place for people to talk about their illness and *not* be told they are not trying hard enough.
I understand where you are coming from. I just don’t like to give depression so much credit. Sometimes we can make it sound incurable but that is another lie depression feeds us. I struggled many years to get out of that spiral and it’s work everyday but I now realize it can be overcome. Some of us don’t make it but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
depression comix as someone who suffers with both anxiety and depression I would NEVER just assume people arent trying to get out of depression. I do however like to help by offering a message of hope despite the current circumstances. I am a believer in ones ability to overcome. I would never patronize a depressed person.
Melanie Eaton If you don’t want to assume people aren’t trying and you don’t want to sound patronizing then you should change your message.
@Melanie Eaton: Positive affirmations can help. Learning self-love can help. But not for everyone, and not in every depressive episode. Your depression and my depression are not the same, and it can be harmful to assume that because you have depression, you know what other people with depression need to be doing. Sometimes seeing something I didn’t create that expresses a bit of what it’s like inside my head really, really helps. Because one of the things that depression tells me, constantly, is that I am alone. Even when I’m with friends and family who love me, the inside of my head tells me that I am totally alone, that I will always be totally alone, and that I deserve to be totally alone. So these comics aren’t hopeless to me. It’s like somebody reaching out a hand and saying, “I get you.”
Melanie Eaton It is because of messages like you are giving that I was able to get out of my pit. I agree with what you are saying. I also know that while in that pit we sometimes can’t hear the message…but we are hearing it. That can start to then be what we hear when we start to fight for ourselves. If someone like you had not said anything, I could still be where I was…or dead. Thank you.
Depression often makes it impossible to feel hope. A depressed person may literally have no hope of a cure, i.e. they feel that a cure is impossible. That doesn’t mean it actually isn’t possible, it just means that they don’t (or can’t) believe it’s possible. An important step in my recovery was to recognize that how I felt about something had no bearing on whether it was true. For a long time I believed the horrible lies my depression told me because they felt as though they were true.
There are truly ways to manage. I got professional help. I was a severely overweight shut in and trauma survivor. I’ll always have depression amd manic episodes but there are things you can do to manage and have a quality of life. I fight every day. It’s okay to be where you are at and feel hopeless. We all do sometimes….but we still have to be responsible for treatment just like if we had cancer.
Btw…by setting the example we give others hope.
Very true
Meagan McNeelyy
Breana Hack
Mike Hampson
Daryl Buie
Nobody chooses to be depressed. Its not something we can turn off and its not as easy as you can hope yourself better or block out.
I see my depression as an immortal monster trapped inside me. I can’t kill it, because its a part of me, but what I can try to do (not really succeeding at the moment I grant you..) is to remove myself from situations that might make it angry. Allow it to become quiet so that I can find some peace.
I also found it helpful to anthropomorphize my depression. I’m not sure you can ever completely get rid of it, but for me it lurks in the background. Its goal is to destroy me. I am able to fight it for three reasons:
1. I know that it can’t achieve its goal. If it were to attack it would deprive me of volition, so that by the time I felt destructive enough to take action I would be incapable of it. Long before it got that bad I would get a prescription for a drug that renders it powerless.
2. It is a coward, only attacking me when I am already weak. I will not be ruled by a coward.
3. I know that the horrible things it tells me are lies. I no longer believe them.
And so it lurks, sulking, knowing it can never win.
I was laid off a week and a half ago…the day I signed my lease to move closer to work. I hate this apartment, I hate myself for not looking for a job when shit started to go down at work but I thought it wasn’t going to happen so soon to me. I don’t want to job hunt because I don’t think I will get a better job. So I’m just decorating this apartment that I hate because then I don’t have to think about getting a job, but I know Sept 1 is gonna come fast. ?
Apply for unemployment benefits and hang in there ❤️ I personally have been struggling to find a job for the last 5.5 months so I know how scary it feels. Try to have hope that you’ll find something as good as the last job if not better. You’ll never find it if you don’t try. And trust, me that’s my exact problem, is that I’m scared/too depressed to try. It’s done nothing but deepen my lack of self esteem and drained my partner’s resources.
That’s rough and I know how hard it can be to look since you have to face the empty void or multiple rejections when you’re already upset and feeling like shit… (And in an apartment that you hate, I feel you on that… been in a place I hated since day one before and it’s terrible.) If you can push through it though, try to apply little by little. It’ll be better than nothing. I wish you luck on getting a new job. Even if it isn’t better, hopefully it can be just as good or close enough.
But you can get rid of it and make it shut up ?
Buy a bigger bottle of tequila?
Chance Shew
Brittany relate?
Unfortunately very much so
Tasha, you see this?
SO sad and true.
What’s frustrating to me is that the depression that began as a genetic predisposition and emotional abuse coming from an external source has evolved to become an internal source now that I’m finally 99% rid of the external one.
maybe you should try in life then not sweat what you can’t control. cuz, ya know, it’s worked for me and millions and billions of others. Find me a depressed person who works out, in shape, holds a job, has a HEALTHY relationship with life/death/existentialism and accepts they will one day die and sometimes reaching for PERFECTION leads to dissapointment and THAT’S OKAY.
You won’t find me a depressed person like that. They make healthy efforts and choices. Blah blah me me. I hate depression enablers.
Just a reminder that this is a moderated forum and telling people to kill themselves will result in a ban.
Are you kidding me? Did someone say that? Holy crap
Michelle Anselm it’s 5am here and I got out of bed just to deal with that. Unbelievable.
depression comix I am so sorry you had to. I am glad that you did.
The question remains, how do we break an abusive relationship with ourselves?
Thank you for keeping this a safe place
Nathan Szafranski I know it’s a year later, but if it’s any help, I personally go to therapy monthly and take medication to deal with it, as well as my Asperger’s Syndrome. However, I do understand that it’s different for everyone with depression, as far as I know.
My advice, if anything? Do whatever you KNOW makes you happy, and talk to people you KNOW you can trust to tell your problems to.
Sean Gelish Other than seeing my family smile, I know little that brings me joy on it’s own.
When I indulge myself, without sharing it with another, it feels hollow.
… oh but there is a way to ‘break up with yourself’… and it runs like a malware script in the back of my head all day long… how do i anti-virus…
It takes Determination pain staking determination, but eventually it does get easier, speaking from experience 😉
I dont know how to seperate myself from it
This is one of your better comics for being descriptive of the problems.
“An abusive relationship with yourself”.
Well done.
Ray O’Rourke
A superficial reading of this: “With an abusive relationship to another person, one can just walk out. But how does one walk out on an abusive relationship to oneself?”
(The trouble with this framing is that it makes ‘just walk out’ sound like an easy or trivial option. That is of course not the case, especially given the lasting trauma that an abuser can inflict. I think there is a difference, but it’s not anywhere as neat and tidy as this gloss would make it sound.)
Superficial readings usually LOSE detail, not ADD it. It says nowhere in the strip about the ease of leaving an abusive relationship. It doesn’t even imply “one can just walk out.” Basically these are details you added yourself. The character is talking about the logistics of leaving an abusive relationship with yourself, because it is literally impossible to leave yourself, it’s not even a matter of difficulty.
As for how I feel about the ease of leaving an abusive relationship , I just did a strip a month ago on this very topic on why it is difficult to leave an abusive relationship — https://www.depressioncomix.com/posts/402/ .
In retrospect, ‘superficial reading’ is not what I meant so much as ‘knee-jerk response’ i.e. how I myself reacted (and the problems with that reaction). I actually do very much agree with the ‘depression is an abusive relationship with oneself’ notion; it just also seemed worth underscoring how hard it is to leave _any_ abusive relationship, with oneself or otherwise.
Exactly! 100% true
“Depression is like being in an abusive relationship with yourself.” I needed to hear that. Thank you