and a chance it will get worse, but not wanting to die…… fear of it for instance can help you stay alive. i dunno. I just know my low pain tolerance has helped keep me going.
As one who’s been there, being dead is boring. Someone really needs to fix the UI so that the buttons on the viewer are at least visible if not labeled. Seriously is “zoom in” and “zoom out” all that freaking hard to do? You had 13 billion years to get it right.
Yeah, but if you’re that far gone, then any reason to keep going is a good one, right?
Chris
It’s not so much about there being a chance of it getting better or worse as long as you’re alive, but that if you’re dead, there is definitely NO chance that things will improve.
I like people like you… at least based on this one comment, further judgement is reserved for basis on future comments depending on persistence of relevant memory.
It’s a hell of a pressure to put on someone who are themselves emotionally healthy.
So how much pressure would Billie feel? Probably enough to either get crushed, or turn into a diamond.
Geneseepaws
Vote Billie for “Crazy Diamond”. For all of me you can skip the poet, piper, and prism, and go straight to binging the sparkle and shine back to Ruth’s eyes.
Billie thinks Ruth is saying that she doesn’t want to die because of the depression, it’s actually because Mary is standing in front of her with a uzi.
I think it’s because they had an unspoken suicide pact; they were holding on because what Mary had done needed to be addressed. But now that there’s no reason for spite here, Ruth is scared, and depressed, and unsure of help, so her brain made a logical, if irrational, jump to ‘we completed the mission, now we’re going to go through with it oh god I didn’t think we would do it’.
This is how it sometimes ends up working when you’ve been battling depression for awhile while mired in the bottom of that deep dark hole. You can feel numb for years and so it can be a genuine shock to cry, to want to live, to genuinely start imagining a future and yourself in it rather than just trying to force yourself through each and every day.
So, to see Ruth at that step, clawing out of that hole and genuinely, for the first time in this entire comic, not want to die. That means something. That means a lot. I’m so happy for this asshole.
Yup. Sadness/crying are actually not specifiers of depression or measures of its severity because they occur equally in people that are or are not depressed. Anhedonia, the inability to feel joy, is a diagnostic symptom.
That’s what my textbook says, anyway. Personally I felt my emotions weathering away until I felt numb most of the time. But that’s the trouble with brain diseases, they’re as complex as people’s brains.
FWIW, I’ve experienced all of this, except the recovery part. I’ll be going to the doctor in a couple weeks, and hopefully I won’t ‘neglect’ to mention my depression again. 😐 (That would be the anxiety kicking in; I have both, and talking to authority figures flares my anxiety to the point I can’t think or remember things. 🙁 )
BBCC
Good luck!
If you’re worried you might forget, maybe writing a reminder on your hand before going will help?
Betty Anne
XD It’ll be on paper this time. ^^; I actually took a list of “what hurts” and “what doesn’t work right” with me last time, but I put my anxiety and depression at the bottom of the list, and I realized after I got home my doctor might have thought it was caused by everything else, which is why he didn’t ask, and of course, I forgot. ^^; A physical therapist he had me see was able to resolve my chronic neck/back pain, and I’ll be able to tell him the omeprazole really didn’t seem to do shit for the gastro issues, so it’ll be basically the only thing left on the list. ^^;
BBCC
That’s good! I hope it goes well.
SteveMcGuyver
man–i’m sorry, dude.
at the risk of throwing unsolicited advice at you: is it possible
that sending them an email or note or leaving a voicemail might
circumvent your anxiety?
I thought I might have bipolar when I was a teen, because I utterly loathed myself and didn’t want to be alive to the extent that it felt more like I was.actively choosing not to top myself at any given moment rather than actually living – but I still had feels. And the happy times kinda felt more like I was bungee jumping and on a massive adrenaline kick than something balanced, sustainable, reliable…
When I was older I decided I had ‘just” been suffering from a form of learned helplessness/self-hatred rather than chemical depression. Then after a hellish year when my SAD kicked up a notch from ‘whaddaya mean, people don’t hibernate?’ to ‘why exactly am I still alive? It would be so EASY to just do something about that…’ I worked out that, nah, I still feel things when I’m depressed – might not process it particularly well and the intrusive thoughts might try to twist everything up and make good things bad – but I don’t do numb. Back then I just literally didn’t know how to be happy and that’s why it felt so unstable. (Plus if the happy is caused by being with friends doing something nice, but you cannot see a single likeable thing about yourself, it’s hard not to think that your friends are only being your friends coz if they tell you to go away and leave them alone and you kill yourself they would feel bad; it makes it hard to believe those positive feelings are actually founded on something real, trustworthy, etc. Pretty certain being able to point at being happy and explain why this makes you a pathetic fool and a burden to people you care about is kinda indicative of deep-seated depression – although this is not a diagnostic criteria!)
Also, now I know intrusive thoughts are a real, actual thing and that makes it a lot easier to knock them down. When you’ve never heard of them and have them constantly hounding, jeering, mocking and twisting things, when they know your arguments before they’re fully formed… it’s not good.
deathjavu
I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to pin down what it was that I had. I saw this and this which matched that, but I know that medical student’s disease is a real thing, so could I really trust my analysis, but who else has any perspective on my life, on and on and on. I had a hundred imaginary conversations with a hundred imaginary psychiatrists, and it was one big neurotic circlejerk that went nowhere.
In the end I had a friend that told me wanting to die doesn’t occur to healthy people, it only occurs if you are very ill. And ill people should see the doctor. And I did, and things are better.
Interestingly, they’ve found that painkillers (especially strong ones) tend to numb emotional responses as well as physical ones.
Add that in when you consider that long-term pain tends to cause depression (ya think?), and it causing depression is even less of a surprise.
deathjavu
Yep. There is large overlap in the brain regions associated with painkillers, emotional pain and physical pain. So when someone says something hurts emotionally, they’re not just being a wuss- neurology has discovered its pretty similar to more traditional pain.
360 thoughts on “Don’t”
miados
sometimes not wanting to die is more important than wanting to live.
carl320
As long as you’re alive, then there’s a chance that things will get better.
miados
and a chance it will get worse, but not wanting to die…… fear of it for instance can help you stay alive. i dunno. I just know my low pain tolerance has helped keep me going.
Cerberus
If it gets bad, I offer this resource. It’s talked me off many a ledge in the past:
http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/
Cerberus
Also *hugs* freely offered.
miados
to be honest lately i have been craving hugs, but online it is….. not the same even if the intention is good.
Cerberus
Curse you screen and physical distance!
Slartibeast Button, BIA
They’re working on the peripherals for that.
miados
just so long as your mom doesn’t make it to costly hanners.
tirachokko
*creeper time* where are you? Maybe one of us can organize hugs
tirachokko
lmao why do I feel like was fitting that the icon thing is Joyce, that Joyce would say something like that at one point
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Now I am picturing a Hug-Exchange app as the next big thing in the gig economy.
chris2315
It’s okay, maybe this gif will help.
Opus the Poet
As one who’s been there, being dead is boring. Someone really needs to fix the UI so that the buttons on the viewer are at least visible if not labeled. Seriously is “zoom in” and “zoom out” all that freaking hard to do? You had 13 billion years to get it right.
Viktoria
There’s also a chance things will get worse.
carl320
Yeah, but if you’re that far gone, then any reason to keep going is a good one, right?
Chris
It’s not so much about there being a chance of it getting better or worse as long as you’re alive, but that if you’re dead, there is definitely NO chance that things will improve.
Chris
Dum vita est, spas est – Where there’s life, there’s hope.
DinaWho
Don’t cry, Sarah Jane…
Aeron
It’s the human POST screen when you start a computer. If that still works, everything else can be fixed.
ety
I like people like you… at least based on this one comment, further judgement is reserved for basis on future comments depending on persistence of relevant memory.
miados
im tired it took me way to long to realize that what i was thinking of was pots not post
AnvilPro
Sad face
Mr. D.
This whole thing has been depressing.
Good job! True Art Is Angsty, after all.
Doctor_Who
Ruth’s eyes grew to Joyecian levels in those first few panels.
inqntrol
Yeah, but they didn’t come with a smile.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
I was initially thinking you meant as in the literature of James Joyce, but then…
Fart Captor
:'[
Fauna Sarcastic
same
Mr. Mendo
…and THERE’S the feels!
miados
and then tomorrow billie is told that visiting hour is over.
lejwocky
and then the mass production evas show up
Pablo360
And then Dorothy is mind-controlled by the Head Alien II.
ziggy78eog
And then the Soul Gems of all of Madoka’s friends become corrupted, and they all turn into witches.
Pablo360
And then Marine La Pen becomes President of France.
Undrave
TOO MUCH FEELS!!!
chris73
No pressure Billie
blargy blargsson
I mean, my heart breaks for Ruth too, but it’s a hell of a thing to put on Billie.
StClair
Yes.
Emperor Norton
It’s a hell of a pressure to put on someone who are themselves emotionally healthy.
So how much pressure would Billie feel? Probably enough to either get crushed, or turn into a diamond.
Geneseepaws
Vote Billie for “Crazy Diamond”. For all of me you can skip the poet, piper, and prism, and go straight to binging the sparkle and shine back to Ruth’s eyes.
Stephen R. Bierce
*plays David Bowie’s “Never Let Me Down” on the hacked Muzak*
Slartibeast Button, BIA
*sneaks in to cue up “Never Gonna Give You Up”.
merbrat
*applauds* Roll that Rick!
Geneseepaws
Playing “Shine on Brightly,” by Procol Harum.
River
This…this hit really close to home. I remember thinking the same thing as Ruth and looking about as scared
3-I
I had this moment earlier this week!
JoyceParty
Veni veni venias~
Dellaran
… ne me mori facias!
Kryss LaBryn
Semper ubi sub ubi!
Silly Name
SEPHIROTH!
Some1
Billie thinks Ruth is saying that she doesn’t want to die because of the depression, it’s actually because Mary is standing in front of her with a uzi.
Lamia
I think it’s because they had an unspoken suicide pact; they were holding on because what Mary had done needed to be addressed. But now that there’s no reason for spite here, Ruth is scared, and depressed, and unsure of help, so her brain made a logical, if irrational, jump to ‘we completed the mission, now we’re going to go through with it oh god I didn’t think we would do it’.
Cerberus
This is how it sometimes ends up working when you’ve been battling depression for awhile while mired in the bottom of that deep dark hole. You can feel numb for years and so it can be a genuine shock to cry, to want to live, to genuinely start imagining a future and yourself in it rather than just trying to force yourself through each and every day.
So, to see Ruth at that step, clawing out of that hole and genuinely, for the first time in this entire comic, not want to die. That means something. That means a lot. I’m so happy for this asshole.
Eukie
Ruth has replaced her desire for a suicide pact with Billie for a desire for Billie to not let her die. That’s a definite improvement.
Sambo
Yes! “I don’t want to die” is much better than “someday, when people have forgotten about me, I’ll slip away quietly”!!!!!
Cerberus
Way better!
deathjavu
Yup. Sadness/crying are actually not specifiers of depression or measures of its severity because they occur equally in people that are or are not depressed. Anhedonia, the inability to feel joy, is a diagnostic symptom.
That’s what my textbook says, anyway. Personally I felt my emotions weathering away until I felt numb most of the time. But that’s the trouble with brain diseases, they’re as complex as people’s brains.
Betty Anne
FWIW, I’ve experienced all of this, except the recovery part. I’ll be going to the doctor in a couple weeks, and hopefully I won’t ‘neglect’ to mention my depression again. 😐 (That would be the anxiety kicking in; I have both, and talking to authority figures flares my anxiety to the point I can’t think or remember things. 🙁 )
BBCC
Good luck!
If you’re worried you might forget, maybe writing a reminder on your hand before going will help?
Betty Anne
XD It’ll be on paper this time. ^^; I actually took a list of “what hurts” and “what doesn’t work right” with me last time, but I put my anxiety and depression at the bottom of the list, and I realized after I got home my doctor might have thought it was caused by everything else, which is why he didn’t ask, and of course, I forgot. ^^; A physical therapist he had me see was able to resolve my chronic neck/back pain, and I’ll be able to tell him the omeprazole really didn’t seem to do shit for the gastro issues, so it’ll be basically the only thing left on the list. ^^;
BBCC
That’s good! I hope it goes well.
SteveMcGuyver
man–i’m sorry, dude.
at the risk of throwing unsolicited advice at you: is it possible
that sending them an email or note or leaving a voicemail might
circumvent your anxiety?
Miri
I thought I might have bipolar when I was a teen, because I utterly loathed myself and didn’t want to be alive to the extent that it felt more like I was.actively choosing not to top myself at any given moment rather than actually living – but I still had feels. And the happy times kinda felt more like I was bungee jumping and on a massive adrenaline kick than something balanced, sustainable, reliable…
When I was older I decided I had ‘just” been suffering from a form of learned helplessness/self-hatred rather than chemical depression. Then after a hellish year when my SAD kicked up a notch from ‘whaddaya mean, people don’t hibernate?’ to ‘why exactly am I still alive? It would be so EASY to just do something about that…’ I worked out that, nah, I still feel things when I’m depressed – might not process it particularly well and the intrusive thoughts might try to twist everything up and make good things bad – but I don’t do numb. Back then I just literally didn’t know how to be happy and that’s why it felt so unstable. (Plus if the happy is caused by being with friends doing something nice, but you cannot see a single likeable thing about yourself, it’s hard not to think that your friends are only being your friends coz if they tell you to go away and leave them alone and you kill yourself they would feel bad; it makes it hard to believe those positive feelings are actually founded on something real, trustworthy, etc. Pretty certain being able to point at being happy and explain why this makes you a pathetic fool and a burden to people you care about is kinda indicative of deep-seated depression – although this is not a diagnostic criteria!)
Also, now I know intrusive thoughts are a real, actual thing and that makes it a lot easier to knock them down. When you’ve never heard of them and have them constantly hounding, jeering, mocking and twisting things, when they know your arguments before they’re fully formed… it’s not good.
deathjavu
I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to pin down what it was that I had. I saw this and this which matched that, but I know that medical student’s disease is a real thing, so could I really trust my analysis, but who else has any perspective on my life, on and on and on. I had a hundred imaginary conversations with a hundred imaginary psychiatrists, and it was one big neurotic circlejerk that went nowhere.
In the end I had a friend that told me wanting to die doesn’t occur to healthy people, it only occurs if you are very ill. And ill people should see the doctor. And I did, and things are better.
SteveMcGuyver
shit, dude. that sucks.
i really hope things are better now–but, in case they aren’t:
http://psychcentral.com/lib/suicide-helpline-suicide-resources/
take care of yourself–please.
Kryss LaBryn
Interestingly, they’ve found that painkillers (especially strong ones) tend to numb emotional responses as well as physical ones.
Add that in when you consider that long-term pain tends to cause depression (ya think?), and it causing depression is even less of a surprise.
deathjavu
Yep. There is large overlap in the brain regions associated with painkillers, emotional pain and physical pain. So when someone says something hurts emotionally, they’re not just being a wuss- neurology has discovered its pretty similar to more traditional pain.
foamy
That is a terror I am familiar with. It is, perversely, a good sign.
StClair
Well said.
(And shown.)
Falcon