depression comix

Story/Art © 2017 Clay

83 "It's selfish."

Published 17 Comments

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Comments

  2. I have a friend that committed suicide 17 months ago. When I first found out I wanted to scream, to hurt him as much as he hurt me, but with my depression getting worse and wanting to die every day. Now I want to ask him why he didn’t take me with him. I want to ask him if we’re really going to Hell. I just want to see him again, to talk to him one more time. Even just to hug him and cry with him.

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  3. This is what I hate most, because I can’t it help how I think and yet everyone is like just be happy don’t think like that just stop it.

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  4. I have always felt that basically guilting/forcing someone to stay alive against their wishes (whether it be deep depression or illness) is just as selfish, if not moreso than allowing that person the release/end that they want. It’s a cruel torture masked as kindness, bred from selfishness and emotional self-preservation. Just because YOU don’t want to be sad about someone’s death or miss them, they must hang on and suffer? I’ve been telling people this for ages, and while some people are more accepting with the idea of euthanasia, suicide due to mental illness for some reason just doesn’t register as valid.

    Yes, help should be available, and everything should be done to help someone facing the ideation of self-termination. No one deserves to feel so low that they see no other option, and though I’ve been there before in ways, I agree that it isn’t or at least shouldn’t, be the answer to handling whatever has brought on the ideations.
    But we ALSO don’t deserve to be shamed or further stigmatized for feelings we don’t exactly have control over, even with medical and therapeutic intervention a lot of times. It IS sad when an attempt is made, and especially if success is achieved, as it should be. But just as we spout platitudes about those lost to long-term illness that “at least their suffering is over,” the same should be considered for anyone who suffered in a less obvious way for so long before death.

    I want to blow this strip up into huge posters and just put them everywhere for people to see and maybe understand the perspective those of us who have suffered mentally and emotionally regarding suffering and ending it.

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  5. The reason that euthanasia for mental disorders doesn’t register as valid is because it’s a monstrous idea. These people, through no fault of their own, feel such intense sorrow and despair that they want to kill themselves, and you seem to think the solution is to help them die.

    I agree that depression should not be stigmatized, but suicide should be, because it’s a very bad thing. The best reason to continue living isn’t to keep friends and family from feeling sad. It’s to keep the person alive long enough that they might recover. Depression is a treatable illness, one from which the majority of people get better.

    There have been times that if euthanasia had been as simple and socially acceptable as making a dental appointment, I would have made the call in a heartbeat. I’m very glad now that it wasn’t an option. I only wish that getting treatment had been that easy.

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    • Are you kidding me? Your argument sounds like it was made by a self-righteous politician desperately trying twist somebody else’s words to suit their own agenda. Euthanasia and suicide are only the same thing if you completely ignore the concept of consent and the fact that euthanasia implies that the individual didn’t actually want to die. There is absolutely no possible reading of this comic that could imply support for euthanasia or the mentally ill without incorporating blatant lies.

      And this comic promotes helping the suicidal die how? You’d have to be completely willfully ignorant to read it that way, the only implication is that we shouldn’t crap on people who make the decision to kill themselves because we SHOULDN’T, for many reasons but not least of which because negative reinforcement doesn’t work when a person already sees themselves as the scum of the earth.

      I agree that suicide as an action should be stigmatized, but stigmatizing the individuals who do it is, as you put it, monstrous. And, if suicide is to be stigmatized, it should be portrayed as an act that is beneath you and will prevent you from getting to experience the good moments you could have had, it should NOT be portrayed as an act that will make you a selfish monster because it will not, and that’s all that this comic is arguing against.

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      • I don’t think Agarax was attacking the comic; just expressing their views which are tangentially related to the comic …

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  7. I don’t like this argument; appeal to hypocrisy just rubs me the wrong way, not to mention it’s logically invalid. The other strip about suicide being selfish was way better; it’s true that many suicidal people feel that way because they -care- about those around them, not because they don’t.

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  8. The problem isn’t that other people expect me to hang around, despite my pain. The problem is that I genuinely feel their pain would be less if I went.

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  9. This is what my friends told me… and whenever they told me this kind of stuff either i get worst or all the things they say are just empty words..

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  10. My friend and I are both undiagnosed with depression, but it’s two different aspects. I have a lot of problems trying to find a line between reminding him he’s cared about and has friends, and guilting him into not harming or killing himself. It really sucks…

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  11. I love how this comic trivialises the terrible grief felt by those who have lost a loved one to suicide as “get(ting) sad”. How selfish of them to torment themselves the rest of their lives by wondering why they couldn’t help their loved one. If they develop depression afterwards, well that’s their own fault for being navel-gazing assholes. I’ll be sure to send this comic to my friend’s parents so they understand that being beside themselves with grief is just selfish wallowing.

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    • You missed the point completely.

      The suicidal character’s understanding is completely biased by the condition. Often, the suicidal person cannot understand the grief caused by their actions. This comic is not to judge, but to illustrate what goes on through a suicidal person’s mind, as I was once there. I’m not anymore, and I don’t agree with these thoughts, I do feel that I have to acknowledge that they existed.

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  12. I don’t understand why your (the ones left behind) sadness is more important than mine? Why your pain is more significant than mine? That’s what I think is selfish, forcing me to live in pain and suffering so you don’t have too.

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