depression comix

Story/Art © 2017 Clay

379 "What if I don't recognize myself?"

Published 38 Comments

Comments

    • Well, it’s more like you take a series of pills and it gradually gets better. And it’s less of a “feel better” than “being less mentally fatigued and be able to get things done”. I’ve used anti-medications during some difficult periods of my life, and they helped tremendously. The stigma against meds is pretty strong and I think it stops a lot of people from getting help.

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    • In my case the antidepressant didn’t so much make me feel better as prevent me from feeling my worst. Normally my emotions would tend toward an utterly dark abyss and stay there for hours while I thought about various ways to kill myself. The drug prevented that from happening, leaving me free to think about more positive things.

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  3. When they work. When you don’t need to keep changing them. When you have made absolutely sure nothing’s going on with your health to change your brain function, as both bad diet and the metabolic syndrome spectrum, including type 2 diabetes, can do.

    If only medical providers cared enough to check.

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  4. I was scared of medication for the longest time, too. Had these exact same fears, that it would change me into someone that isn’t me. Then I realized I was self-medicating with alcohol and already trying to change my brain. So I thought I may as well take something safer and more likely to help, rather than drinking to try to make my brain be quiet and numb my feelings.

    Long story short, first medication I was on wasn’t a good fit. Switched a year or two later to something else that works a lot better. It’s like…I had spent over half of my life in this constant haze and didn’t realize how bad it was until I was thinking clearly and felt…normal. When I hadn’t felt “normal” since I was 12. It really is a huge relief when you find the right meds.

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    • depression comix I’m sorry, I was speaking from personal experience, not from any overarching negativity to anti-depressants. I’ve experienced a pronounced suppression of emotional response on several different anti-depressants, enough that I worried for my own safety. They can be effective for others, but I haven’t responded well to them.

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    • I can understand emotions being suppressed, it’s an incredibly unnerving feeling, and for me it was like static in my brain. My first experience with meds was much like that and it scared me from taking them for years (and I even did a strip based on that) but my second experience with a different doctor was much better (I was pretty desperate the second time around). Also, I am fortunate to be in a medical system where I can change medicines and doctors without much expense. Everyone’s milage may vary, I guess.

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  8. My meds have made it so I can finally draw the comics i should have been drawing 20 years ago but I couldn’t because I was too busy being depressed and crazy. It didn’t kill my creativity at all, it made it so I could actually follow through on my ideas. It’s been so worth it.

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  10. I’ve been reading interesting studies (peer reviewed and verified!) recently about how therapists are noting that taking small doses of MDMA can actually help in talk therapy sessions (particularly group therapy or couples therapy), and others about the discovery (study still at early stages) about how a chemical compound in mushrooms may help slightly reverse the brain malfunctions that result from/in depression if used in a controlled setting. It’s early days yet so more research needs to be done before commercial and wide-spread use can be recommended… and in the proper care of a specialized MD… but there’s hope over the horizon…

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    • Saw a mention in Natural History of a double-blind study in which saffron (Crocus sativus) petals (not stigmas) appeared to be as effective as Prozac but with fewer side effects. There’s more happening all the time.

      Unfortunately, I have idiosyncratic reactions to many drugs that act on my central nervous system. Acetaminophen, for example, makes me drunk. Given the rare but potentially extremely drastic known side effects of common antidepressants, I’m just out here living with who I am and giving myself as much supportive care as I can…maybe someday there will be a saffron petal extract for me, but until then, I read here and just keep on keepin’ on.

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  11. For me, the meds helped me out of the pit of despair that made it impossible to create anything. It made it possible for me to take up things I couldnt do for years and today I’m more productive than I’ve ever been. We all respond differently to chemicals so I get that I’m one of the ”lucky ones” but medication could be the best thing to happen to a person.

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  12. I have taken a lot of different meds over the years. Some worked better than others but all of them were underwhelming. About two years ago I found the right combination and felt better than I ever had. Over the last several months it has been a steady return to my normal. My doctor gave me a referral to a local treatment resistant mood disorder clinic where this coming Tuesday I will get the sales pitch on the wonders of ECT. Even though I have read a lot about it, it still scares me more than any of the meds. I just want to feel less bad but I feel like it is a lost cause. I guess I will know next week just how desperate I am.

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  13. I can relate to this as I have felt the same in the past. But as I found, they don’t take away your personality, instead they help you to get through the dark times.

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  16. I’ve been trying for a few years to find meds that work and don’t give me bonkers side effects. First time taking anything was scary but now it just seems kind of hopeless because nothing ever changes.

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  17. Well, time to tell my story again, I guess. I had some antidepressants, because I couldn’t cope. And after taking them for a bit, I got to experience some nice dissociation. I was still sad and depressed. But there was another me who I got to watch, who did the things I wanted to do, did them better than me, and smiled sometimes, and people said it was nice things were working. But it wasn’t me. It was some actor in my body. And I was a ghost, watching.I couldn’t even stop taking the pills, because it wasn’t up to me. The guy using my body took them. Until he forgot. Shudder.
    I almost killed myself right away, because the only thing worse than being depressed is knowing you might not be ABLE to kill yourself and escape. Managed to stop myself from doing that. Tossed the pills. Will never try medication again.

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  18. They absolutely work well for some, but for me they were either a disaster or worked well…except for the permanent, insidious damage they did to my nervous system. If, after this much time and this many different meds, they couldn’t find something that worked for me, then it’s over. I’m a human, not an experiment that can be reset when it doesn’t go right. I now permanently have “brain zaps” and SPD. Please understand what you’re getting yourself into when you agree to try meds.

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  20. Thanks for this, Clay. I’m transitioning from one anti to another in hopes of improvement. It was a struggle to make myself ask because I was afraid for these exact reasons in the comic. Approaching week 2 now and hoping for noticeable improvement soon… Like so many comments have said, I just want to get to the point where I can create again.

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  21. I’m a bit sad to see so many anti-meds comments here, but I guess that’s expected – medication pretty much saved my life, I was completely unable to function and just thought about killing myself every single day, taking antidepressants didn’t make me “better”, but it gave me a bit more energy to get up in the morning and keep my life running.

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  22. My meds brought me back, tenfold. They brought so much “me” back I didn’t know what to do with it at first. But I’ve never been as creative as I was before the last depressive episode I had, and it’s been like 5 years. Obviously that’s brain or personality damage from the depression, I really don’t think my meds did this, and when I’m off my meds I don’t get “it” back anyways. But DARN I miss it sometimes…

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  23. I guess you need to find the drug for you.
    I’ve been taking pills most of my adult life, Sertraline and such, and I never looked at it as some kind of sos helper, just another part of my morning routine: wake up, wash my face, brush my teeth, take the pills, drink tea and so on.

    But then again, different people – different situations (and personalities).

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