English
PANEL 1:
— The long face again? What’s the matter with you?
PANEL 2:
— You know, some people actually have it tough, and have real problems. Yet you always hear about them toughing it out.
PANEL 3:
— People live in poverty, live in war zones, and compared to them you live in heaven. So you should be thankful and happy for what you have ’cause they got nothing.
SFX: THUD
PANEL 4:
LABEL: GUILT
— Thanks. I needed to hear that.
— No prob. What are friends for?
— The long face again? What’s the matter with you?
PANEL 2:
— You know, some people actually have it tough, and have real problems. Yet you always hear about them toughing it out.
PANEL 3:
— People live in poverty, live in war zones, and compared to them you live in heaven. So you should be thankful and happy for what you have ’cause they got nothing.
SFX: THUD
PANEL 4:
LABEL: GUILT
— Thanks. I needed to hear that.
— No prob. What are friends for?
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My thoughts have always been that personal pain is relative. yeah those people in warzones have it “worse” from some perspective but i’m sure they think that others from them have it “worse” its all relative… Thats how I have to think about it,.. because the pain you feel right now can be the worst pain ever until a new worse pain comes around and the other one was easier by comparison.
I have said this to my mother, who suffers depression. I have also said this to myself, trying to brighten my day up. This is not helpful all the time. Gratitude is important, but it should be used in the context of ..”I am grateful for….a. b. c.” or when dealing with someone, “What are you grateful about?” in a sensitive manner. Depression is hard enough to deal with, there is not any use of putting people on guilt trips, so it helps to think about what you say before you say it.
This may sound mean but I have always thought that if beggars and war zone people have it ‘worse’ then why aren’t they dead? Like why am I the one contemplating suicide and not them? Because if they really did have it worse than me, they would be dead from suicide already.
What if the gratitude shtick is coming from your therapist?
Appreciating what you *do* genuinely have that is good in your life is important when you’re depressed, but it rarely feels good to have someone compare your life to someone else’s.
It’s sort of like comparing your broken arm to someone else’s gunshot wound to the gut. Both still hurt a hell of a lot, so why compare?
It’s a reply 8 years later… but I think “gratitude” is a perfectly fine affirmation exercise… if it is used as one. Used as a “shut up and smile” bullying tactic, it sucks ass.
You should always be thankful for what you have that’s positive in your life…But when I hear people say this to someone or when someone says it to me (or I know they are thinking it about me), it doesn’t usually help. Because no matter what one person is living through, they’re ability to tolerate and deal with it is different then the next person’s. One person could lose their parents and be perfectly fine, where as someone else could be called “weird” at school and have a mental breakdown because each person has different resources and different mindsets and different views of society and support from other people. If a person is raised and truly believes that how they are viewed by other people doesn’t matter, then it’s unlikely to affect them if they go out and have people stare or comment negatively about or to them. And if you go out with people who care about you and act like you in some way, even if you still feel vulnerable, you’ll have someone to back you up and get you back to feeling at least semi human if you have a bad encounter. But if you’re alone and you’re strange, and then people pick on you, it can be very isolating. And I don’t think many people understand that.
You can also easily be alone in a crowd of like minded people too. It really all just depends on what You feel. But telling someone that they have no real problems is very belittling because even if it seems that someone is on top of the world, if they are acting depressed or are even flat out telling you that they ARE depressed, then they clearly have more problems then you realize. And yeah, there may easily be someone in a worse situation then you, but that doesn’t mean that they mentally feel that they are.
I hate when people do this. It’s like they can’t be bothered to actually give a damn and try to help in a constructive way and, if you’re at all like me, hearing that not only do your problems not matter but that everyone else’s are worse just makes me feel worse because now, not only am I thinking of how shitty I feel, but Ialso feel bad for everyone else and then I feel guilted into putting on a face… Or, at least, I did feel like this when I was constantly struggling. I’m much, MUCH better now. However, it took me a long time to be okay again and reading these comics is showing me just how much of that hell I remember. It’s not fun and I hope that anyone and everyone going through any part f this or any other mental illness finds the help they need soon and can slowly but surely feel better.
With much love and hugs (wanted or not)
~Clara
Ash Beckham had a great TEDx talk about people’s closets (not just being gay – the difficult discussions we all hide from the world) and in it she states that hard is not relative. There is no scale of hardness – one person’s declaring bankruptcy is not more or less hard than another person finding out that their child has been hiding who he or she is out of fear. There is no “harder” there is just “hard”.
Wish people without depression could understand that while they may not understand WHY things are hard for those with depression, they are hard and trying to put it in relative perspectives makes it worse, not better.
Sorry, not sorry. Speaking as someone who’s BEEN to warzones, it really is so much worse than anyone can imagine.
So that makes it okay to belittle the suffering of other people?
Oh good, you just went to a warzone. You didn’t become one. And you made it out of the warzone without killing yourself! If you told me I could cure my depression by going to a warzone, I’d give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen? I might die? HA!
do you know that i envy the people who go to war, get captured, are abused, tortured, raped, and lose limbs?
and then with a miracle may die or maybe released as abominations?
at least their suffering ends while my brain keeps the cycle on repeat everyday
death is more merciful than living!
You need to go to school and stop crying
21 http://t.co/H1JyCcqLLb via @depressioncomix
“Friends”
It really annoys me when people say something like that. I don’t have depression but I have my own problems to deal with and I used to say this to myself all the time. “Be thankful, someone else has it worse. You’re being an ungrateful idiot.” However I realized something. Someone else’s struggles should not belittle another’s. Their pain does not invalidate yours. Be grateful for what you have and deal with your pain however you can. But the “some people have it worse” is a slippery slope. You can ride it all the way down to the lowest point in your life until there is no one who has it worse than you.
I hate it when people say that..
One of my friends once said that to me..
But well I think so too. I AM pathetic for feeling and thinking this bad. I was so close to attempting suicide more than once.. but well until this ends, I guess I’m gonna try and brighten the day for everyone else and work without any thanks or credit.. because neither do I deserve it nor should I get any. It’s alright. Also I don’t want to be greedy or anything..
you remind me when my parents tell me to be thankful for the stuff i have because others do not own what i own …
don’t they understand it’s literally the same as saying “you can’t have more greater stuff because others own them too”?! sheesh!
do i have to be deprived of EVERYTHING to be pitied?! for hell’s sake!
In these past comics ive thought of the lady as his mom because my mom says this to me and my friends just ignore my problems.
i thought she was his wife …..
with friends like you who needs enemies …..
you are guilty for feeling bad and not thinking about those who are beneath you, is literally like saying
you aren’t allowed to be happy because others are happier than you …..
give me a mask to hide my disgusting face away from your eyes please!
I was at a hospital for a while and, after a few days, actually feeling a little better. Then a nurse woke me up and said I had no reason being there, since the other patients were all war escapees and stuff…it just destroyed any progress I had made and left another scar in my soul…
If someone said this to me I would smack them. yeah, people have it worse, but depression is not an easy thing to go through. I was one of the lucky ones to get help.