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Hah, that third panel. Oh man.
Yeah, it hits like a tank shell, doesn’t it?
truthiness
When I hear the term “high functioning” applied to me, I can’t help but believe they have low standards and wonder what will follow that lead-in. I feel my mask is more like a “masque”, a low-budget mimic of a high quality production. I’m really not that convincing of an actor, but I guess they don’t look beneath the surface before they let loose and trigger my “you’re crap” line of obsessive-compulsive thinking.
I don’t like the high-functioning label because it somehow invalidates my experience; if I’m high-functioning, I don’t really have depression as bad as someone else hwo is at a lower level. It seems like judging people who use the handicap parking spaces for not having a visible condition.
So right
High-functioning sounds like a good thing when you forget the context. “Almost normal.” “In remission.” “They’ve regained almost 80% of their original lung function.”
I think something closer would be adequately-maintained. You know? Any of the descriptions for us should also apply to a car that runs, but questionably. May take a little extra coaxing to get it on the road a few days of the week. We’re running, we’re higher maintenance, but you can’t say we’re high-performance. But when we’re adequately maintained, we look like we’re running normally.
[insert under-the-hood metaphor here]
My lovely bipolar depression kicked in last Thursday night. This is exactly me in a nutshell right now.
The curse of being high functioning, people just can’t imagine what it is like inside our heads.
My boyfriend stills believing that someway I’m perfect and that my depression is no reason to stay awake all night wishing my death and hating myself
I can’t say how much did I love this.
Nice one … It is difficult to be a friend and to care about other people’s problems when you feel like such an empty shell. People who come to me for support don’t see that I’m faking life, and I’m too afraid to let them see reality.
If I was high-functioning or beautiful or smart or anything, I’d relate to this, but yeah. It’s good to see the fact that people who seem “perfect” are not perfect and can be dealing with problems we couldn’t even begin to fathom.
That’s the fallacy, though. Anyone, no matter how they seem, can suffer equally hard.
Sufferers intimately know that appearance and status are not immunity. As Clay has illustrated through the years, it’s always others who give that myth its strength.
And this is where we become surreptitious, using the preconceptions of those in front of us to hide our pain, switching from one method of perceptual manipulation to the next as we go from one person or group to the next.
That third panel…. On work they say youve been so quiet the last months, you`re not laughing the last months. Its just the meds that keeps me barely from breaking apart. Why it must be so hard to exist?
So true.
I should probably wait for an comic about self harm to ask but I was wondering if anyone cuts or burns themself ( I heat metal and put it to my flesh) not for the endorphins but to hopefully leave scars so you can have a big warning sign proving you aren’t ok.
I don’t know. I tear my skin apart because I have terrible acne on my face and breasts even though I know the scars will only make me feel just as bad. Sometimes I do it even if it hurts so much that I’m forced to cry reflexively without really cringing. I ask myself why I want to hurt myself and I guess some of it is the endorphins but the rest may just be endurance punishment while I try to remove the flaws… as if getting the pus out will solve anything. I guess it’s stress relief. But I mean, I don’t need to prove I’m off although I do sometimes fear people won’t believe me if I say anything. I was seeing a therapist for awhile and she was good. I only stopped because I quit my job and then we didn’t have the money for my visits but I intend to go back when I get hired somewhere. (I know it’s better to have something already lined up before quitting but I couldn’t take that specific work environment anymore. I don’t regret quitting; I only regret that my depression makes getting myself into job hunting mode so hard and I’m terrible in interviews now.)
Oh look there’s a nail right there. It just got hit right on the head.
YES GODDAMMITT YES YES YES
Perfectly depicted