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Ive spent the past 3 weeks in this place…
Omg but then imagine being in the hospital, able to eat or drink NOTHING for almost 3 days. Only a single sip of water with your morning meds. A thought that actually went through my head “That bitch can just shut her mouth. She’s all “oh look at me I can eat a turkey sandwich whenever I want!” efffff you!
that’s just inhumane
It was really awful. All they gave me was one of those sponge things to rub around my mouth. “Pretend it’s s Popsicle.” I’ll give you something you can pretend is a Popsicle….
I really don’t know how we’ve survived as a species this long…
You and me both. It makes me want to be the biggest advocate ever.
Just don’t turn into an asshole about it 😛
You know how I feel about “Advocates”
The thing is, modern medicine has done some very amazing things…and my nursing care was really great…but healthcare is a business. The human side has dissolved. There’s no real listening to the patients anymore.
Doctors used to listen to patients. A strange things happened. Patients acted like they actually knew what was wrong. So very laughably wrong. And of course they died, trying their home remedies to cure what they thought was the issue. And the doctors got blamed for it. So they stopped listening to the patients, and survival rates went up. Problem is, mental issues aren’t quite like physical ones, and we can’t x-ray your depression to see if it’s really broken or just sprained and how many screws you have loose. Sucks.
I’ve done both – the nill by mouth whilst awaiting surgery and the not caring for food or drink during some really dark times. Both were appalling but I could see the light on the former.
Three days??? What?????? Why?????
I had a colon infection and they thought I was young and had enough reserves to go without
Yea: https://t.co/2Mldfx4NiO via @depressioncomix
It’s been this way for years, I’ve broken off from the three square meals and instead only eat when I’m hungry which only equates to around once every sixteen hours or more
Oh no… food! That *is* important.
I don’t eat much but am an ADD girl not a depressed girl. Know any ADD comics?
do you read much?
It’s good to know I’m not the only one who occasionally hates food. Eating it, obtaining it, not having it and getting hungry…sometimes I see it as the biggest but most necessary hassle of them all.
Interesting strip, these are often vey thought provoking. I just wonder, though, why there are so many comments in which people talk about themselves? I know it’s good to self reflect, but I (speaking from the position of a person with depression) feel that these can be enjoyed/acknowledged/read etc without the “it’s all about me” mindset. So yeah, does anyone else see what I mean? Do you read this and go “that make me think/smile/sad etc, even though I don’t have that specific feeling myself.”
Yes, but on the other hand the only point of view one can comment from without overgeneralizing is one’s own experience. It’s safer to mention only personal experience since then there is no assumptions made about the prevalence of the phenomena. Mentioning that it really hits home also gives boost to the important message of the comic: you’re not alone with this feeling.
I must admit that I’d often like to comment from the daily distanced point of view of a professional, but tend to “soften” the message with my personal experience from my own depressive episode.
I do appreciate all comments, especially the ones in which people relate the comic to their own experiences. It really helps with confirmation and validation. A lot of these comics are experiences I throw out there wondering if people out there feel the same, and I am extremely grateful for the feedback I’ve received so far.
I really appreciate these! I relate to them often and actually like to use them as a way to show people close to me what I am dealing with. So Thank you!!
People talk about their experiences here because the creator has made it clear that this is a safe space where sharing is welcome. Very few places in the physical world or on the Internet are safe enough for people to feel comfortable talking about their mental health. So of course people are going to jump on such a rare opportunity to speak without persecution. It’s not being “all about me” at all. I’ll bet pretty much everyone here has had an experience where they tried to talk about their situation somewhere else, only to get shut down by people who refused to listen or who took it as an opportunity to attack the victims for daring to not be neurotypical.
As down as I often feel, I sometimes actually WISH I felt disinterested in food like many depressed people do. Because through thick and thin, one thing that doesn’t go away is my endless appetite. Which is bad, because I eat way too much, which in turn leads to stress about weight and whatnot.
Disinterest in food is often just one aspect of detachment. Colours are pale, food is bland, music is just noise, books and shows are boring, and actions seem pointless. Even pain is dull and distant.
When I was at my worst, time would slow to a crawl. I would sit motionless, staring straight ahead until I could no longer see. If someone spoke the sound would echo in my mind, devoid of meaning. I lacked the volition to move or speak. My mind went dark, and all I could think about was death.
Be careful what you wish for.
With depression it can go either way. I did a comic on the other way way back.
Yes to this. Food makes no sense to me.
This, although now I can go without eating anything for days on end and only really feel like I need to eat after a few days. This has been going on for about a month and a half.
I do have issues with my weight, people have called me fat when I was little, so I became a skeleton in high school – more afraid of losing friends than afraid of looking skinny I suppose. Well, after getting self conscious about being too skinny I started eating more and went overboard, getting a little overweight – so now I’m back on the feeling weak train until I like the way I look I guess.
In high school, it was never really about getting skinny – more about being too scared to eat in the dining hall because I was on school dinners and my mates weren’t (I thought they would leave me if I ate). So instead of having school dinners I would meet up with friends and have a small packed lunch that I made from home without telling my Mum. Now our school meals were big, so when coming home you would only really need a sandwich to do you, so Mum wouldn’t make us a dinner. So, on school days all I would eat were sandwiches and all the while I was really active – so I really did look skeletal – even though all my mates saw me eat I never got enough.
Thought this was a fairly accurate portrayal of depression. https://t.co/hK1pHXR31V
It’s the opposite for me. I can’t stop eating.
depression comix #55 discusses this. With depression, it can go to either extreme.
Sucheta reminded me of our conversation
??
Why do we have to eat…
Dnt eat then..?
This was ur point…
I always want to eat…
Lol..then eat?
As an adult human of average height and build, I’ve weighed anywhere from 80 to 250 pounds. When severely depressed, this comic is exactly correct – eating is just another effortful activity with no reward other than people saying, “You’ve got to tell me what you’re doing to lose so much weight!”. On some meds, it’s like there’s no appetite “off” switch and the intrinsic reward of eating is magnificently addictive.
but cooking takes effort and i don’t feel like making any effort right now…
that feeling can still come, and i often wish i could just not get hungry.
when depression was awful i’d have problems with eating though.
just the thought of food would make me want to throw up, trying to eat more than a bit of even my favorite food was impossible.
luckily never lasted more than a week, but living on coke and chocolate (because chocolate was interestingly edible) was awful.
no idea how depression managed to cause that, but it did. mostly in stressful and/or regretful situations.
perhaps some of the same as when mourning animals starve themselves.
A couple weeks ago I was in a really bad state. I didn’t eat for almost three days. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to eat. I just wasn’t hungry. I lost 7 lbs in that period. On day three I tried to eat, not it if hunger but because I knew I needed to. I took a couple bites and then dumped it. It was good I normally liked and it just tasted awful to me.