depression comix

Story/Art © 2017 Clay

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  2. It’s not letting me share this post to my comic book group so i shared the pic and then cut and pasted your text, plus tagged your page. I’m not the person you referred to but i think i may have found you via a repost of their post. Glad i did, all the same.

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  4. Relatable comic. I felt this way between 2012 and 2016 when the rise of obesity and heart disease related deaths happened in the black community. I mean even now with covid more than 70% admitted to hospitals where overweight. Crazy world we live in

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    • I don’t understand your comment. Are you saying that overweight people don’t care about health outcomes?

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      • Yeah, I’m confused by this, too. It’s incredibly shaming in a place where there shouldn’t be. Especially given the fact that most obesity is tied to living in poverty and food deserts.
        And the fact that depression comix is agreeing with it… leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

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        • This is not a place where i can really say much, but “we definitely need to care more” is the most vanilla response I could come up with without actually taking a position.

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        • It didn’t sound like fat-shaming so much as empathy for the fact that obesity carries with it significant life changing health risks and a much reduced life-expectancy. Add to that the correlation between poverty and obesity/health, malnutrition as well as obesity and depression and well… yeah I agree, we (society) need to care more. Unfortunately we’ve seen what that character actually does in real life.

          Clay, your response was solid, loving and I don’t think you need to worry that it was fat/body shaming. I offer empathy for those who can’t see its supportive value.

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  6. Robin is correct completely, people with depression wish to simply die and let the pain go away, but after this pandemic began and we followed the rules, many people’s lunacy was revealed; showing you the true color of the world, and how disgusting for real humans are.
    those selfish rule breaking, terrorists, who attack everyone who opposes them, and fight off the ones who hold the law, and now everything is about political wars.. in all honesty what is happening makes you truly wonder.. were we cursed the moment we were born on this hell?!
    the idiot speaks and they are listened to, the sane speaks and they are ignored!
    justice is degenerate, and lunacy is justice! nobody cares about death anymore, in fact it’s just another daily happening.
    people are dying left and right without knowing why they are even being killed!
    everyone is a liar, all the news are fake, and control is all through fear , and deception …. truly this hell is not worth neither living on, nor existing!

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    • If I owned this world as well as Hell; I’d rent out reality and live in Hell. For one simple reason:
      There are no innocent victims in Hell.
      On Earth that appears to be all we have.

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  7. Suicidal people are “selfish” and have to “stay alive for other people”? Perhaps if those other people were a bit nicer to their fellow human beings, there’d be a lot fewer folks who want to end it all to get away from the abuse. Just a thought.

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  8. I would only add this – and keep in mind this is coming from someone who has spent a year in complete isolation and misery knowing full well nothing will ever get better.
    The people supposedly represented in this comic as “doing the right thing” are only doing it for their own selfish reasons. Those who are wearing masks and “social distancing” are every single bit as selfish as those that are not. They only want to protect themselves and no one else. They say they are doing it to save other lives. They are liars. They don’t care about other people’s lives. Not one single bit.
    I know this because hundreds of millions of Americans are facing death from other means besides the virus. Poverty. Starvation. What are you all doing to supposedly save THOSE lives? Nothing. Food banks are empty. No one is donating a single dollar or scrap of food to help others. They want those people to die. I know. I have been told so by liberal people I thought were friends and allies. They outright told me “We need millions to starve in order to bring about socialism.” That was when I lost all respect and hope for people.
    And what if, by some 900 trillion to one miracle this pandemic ends, what then? You all talk about celebrating and all the movies you’ll get to go to. But the vast majority of Americans will still be in insurmountable poverty. No hope of ever getting jobs again. Never again being able to guarantee they will have food on their tables. Again – who will help them? Who will make the sacrifices to save their lives? Again, the answer will be no one. Got to save that money for the movie theaters, after all.
    This past year has shown me humanity is nothing by selfishness and greed – on BOTH sides. People would yell at others to think about others but they themselves would never help others if it isn’t convenient to them. If I died of covid, you’d all politicize my death, but if I starved or committed suicide… you wouldn’t care at all.
    I will never again have any faith in any human being no matter what the future holds.

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    • Chris Lee Moore suggesting people are doing the right thing for selfish reasons is bullshit. I have been wearing a mask every day for more than a year to protect others, because its my civic duty. Do not project your inability for altruism on others.

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    • I will again ask how much you have done to help the millions trapped in poverty as a result of this – now and if/when this ever ends. Funny how you do not care about “civic duty” to help those who are suffering from things OTHER than covid. Do not try to project your claims of altruism when it only applies to things that are not a burden or inconvenience to you.

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      • There are plenty of people in this world who donate, volunteer, work in public service, and just go out of their way to be nice on a daily basis. EVERYONE has a limit of how much they can do (whether altruistic or selfish), and justifiably have boundaries to protect themselves and engage in self care. Ripping on those who are at least trying to help is beyond selfish, but seems bent to encouraging the destruction of society.

        As an aside, toying with the idea of genetic altruism, for those that would argue that altruism doesn’t have a genetic imperative, all life on earth is related on some level. (right-handed chiral DNA and all that). While we are typically more altruistic to our closer genetic relatives, altruism as a ‘selfish’ way of encouraging the propagation of life still seems valid. So while some may argue that “pure altruism” does not or can not exist, for all practical purposes it is indistinguishable from what is practised in our lives, which makes the point rather moot. Still can’t stop being nice from feeling good. And since it’s about the only way I can see us making this world a better place, I’m gonna keep doing it (during those times I find the will). If it makes me feel good, that will be an unfortunate side effect. Oh well.

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    • You don’t know anyone who gives good to the hungry? No one who donates to food pantries? You don’t know anyone who works to build social service accessibility? People are doing the work. People all over the country and the world are doing good things to help others all the time.

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    • I wear a mask and socially distance primarily to protect others. The fact that it also protects me doesn’t make it selfish, any more than wearing a seat belt or a bicycle helmet is selfish. But even if it were, so what? I would much rather have people doing the right thing for selfish reasons than doing the wrong thing.

      Your claims that no one gives to charity or cares about anyone else is bogus, and I expect due to psychological projection. A common symptom of depression is the feeling that no one cares about you. It’s a short step from that to “no one cares about anyone else”, which leads to a self-reinforcing cycle of only seeing and expecting the worst in everyone.

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    • @Chris Lee Moore … This is not true of … Quite a few people. *I* have already had Covid, so I do not fear getting it (even though I am intelligent enough to know that viruses mutate and will be able to get any mutation). I still wear face coverings because it *is* the right thing. They don’t protect *me* from getting it and yet I am still doing it (as are a lot of other people). Please explain how *I* (and they) am selfish? And while it is true that millions to billions of people are living in poverty, *my* experience this past year is that people are either 1) not giving at all because THEY are struggling with poverty themselves or 2) giving what they can because “every little bit helps”… It is true that there ARE a massive amount of people that don’t and won’t give to help others and those are *usually* the same people who WON’T wear a mask or keep “forgetting” (because it isn’t like we have been doing this for the past year)…

      My point is, *you* are blanketing the entire scope of humanity and, more specifically, Americans as selfish a**hats who don’t care about anyone other than *their* circle of people (if that)… But you are WRONG. There ARE people who are giving and helping others with what they can. Just because *you* can’t see it doesn’t make it false. *I* see it every day. I see it in the vast number of people donating money and goods in my store to HELP those who don’t have. And while the AMOUNT of money and supplies each person brings in may have lessen, the amount of PEOPLE donatating has risen.

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  9. This resonated with me. It also furthers my thought that while depression can have physiological origins, for many it can be living in an environment that a person knows at a visceral level is wrong. About 15 years ago, I was diagnosed as bi-polar however my symptoms never really subsided with meds. Finally, after meeting with one of the top psychologists in the region (the dean of the college of psychology at the University I was attending at the time) properly diagnosed me as being gifted (IQ 180) and I was not bi-polar, I could just read people that well and that fast that I could determine they core with very little information and when it is bad, I will become sad as it further confirmed my conclusion that most are not good. It was later confirmed when I was going through Federal interview and interrogation training that including criminal profiling. My intuition was right on the money during microgesture and neurolingustic sections. There are good people out there, just have to find those rare gems. Frankly, I think we are moving towards a cognitive speciation event and hopefully the people pushing for a brighter future will win out. In the tech arena there are a few that are working towards that end. I am currently working on my Doctorate now, just started a blog and working on a book hoping to reach people by calling out the problems. Sorry for any typos, doing this on my phone.

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  11. I think it might be my post you saw? I nabbed it from someone else on Facebook, because they’d shared it to their friends only so I couldn’t click “share”. If that’s the case – and even if it’s not, because my post has blown up – I’m very sorry for that, and (actually before coming to the comments) just now linked this page at the top of the post! I hope that’s okay, and please let me know if it’s not.

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  12. I’m sorry you feel this way but it isn’t the reality of the situation. It is just how you’ve been told to feel by the media. People are not being selfish for breathing fresh air. Covid death rate is less than half a percent of the people who catch covid (0.04%) and, according to a CDC study that just came out, mask wearing and restrictions only improved covid outcome by 1.8%. That’s hardly anything. Meanwhile people are commiting suicide because of these lockdowns. We are losing a lot more people from suicides and drugs than covid. The people not wearing masks realize all this.

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    • https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm
      Studies have confirmed the effectiveness of community mitigation measures in reducing the prevalence of COVID-19 (5–8). Mask mandates are associated with reductions in COVID-19 case and hospitalization growth rates (6,7), whereas reopening on-premises dining at restaurants, a known risk factor associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection (2), is associated with increased COVID-19 cases and deaths, particularly in the absence of mask mandates (8).

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    • Mari Brown I took a screenshot of the CDC study you just posted and I circled exactly where it said 1.1% reduction. However, it won’t let me post pictures here. If you want I can message you it.

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    • All the pro-plague people like to say “breathe fresh air” at some point in their arguments for spreading plague. It reminds me of the bouquets of flowers rich people carried during the Bubonic Plague. Spoiler alert: plague spreaders now understand as much medical information as the people did in the middle ages.

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    • Emily Hansen do you understand what those numbers mean or are you just blindly reading numbers and hoping readers will think 1.1 is a small number?

      A 1.1% increase in COVID cases in America alone is 3.52 MILLION more people getting covid. But that’s not even the scary statistic in that table you clearly don’t comprehend. If you’ll let your eyes drift two columns to the right you’ll find that the DEATH rates under open dining policies increase 3%. That means that indoor dining spreads covid, and also kills people faster in those conditions. If we only counted that extra 3.5 mil who got covid, that’s an extra 105,000 human beings dead on top of the people who’d die from it no matter where they got it, on top of the people who will die from preventable causes because the hospitals are choked with 3.52 million idiots like you who thought sitting down at a greasy diner to grab a burger was more important than keeping your neighbors alive.

      The fact that you are so unforgivably wrong and asinine when looking at data that completely contradicts you after a YEAR of this is appalling. People have died, families have been devastated, and all you can do is apply a gradeschool understanding of the number 1.1? How dare you. You should be ashamed of yourself.

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  13. It frustrates me while I’m at work and I see the number of people coming into the store in their familial or friendship hordes, those not wearing a mask who are not medically exempt, and those who think personal space and Covid is a silly myth. Like, people have died from this pandemic and there are some ignoramouses who aren’t taking it seriously at all. I feel like I’m being shamed for being too empathetic and caring towards other people.

    I can especially relate to what the woman said about being suicidal. I nearly took my own life but I decided to not go through with it. I still have the odd thought about how death would be a kindness as opposed to living but I’ve made too many attachments to some good people to do such a thing.

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    • I feel drawn to your comment for some reason. I can say that every incident of suicidal ideation or attempt has had jack all to do with what I was experiencing in reality and some asinine concept of selfishness and everything to do with the fact that my depressed brain tells me death will stop my hurting. It’s a lie.

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  17. As tempting as it was to celebrate my 40th birthday in lockdown with a bleach martini I held onto something that got me through.

    Fuck. These. Selfish. Pricks.

    I’m not dying over anything ex-dictator Mayor McCheeto Head and his jack booted hate monger cultists inspired. Their selfishness, cruelty and fear managed to turn an emergency into a catastrophe.

    So *fuck* them. I’m using the same coping mechanism I used to survive my childhood:spite.

    Because whilst we’re all stuck in Darwin’s waiting room, there is something called “Survival of the fittest”: which suggests that fit in this case means adaptable.

    Those of us who are smart enough to actually believe the science and take precautions: even if it’s for “purely selfish” reasons (aka: survival), we are adapting. We *will* survive.

    You know what happens to those life forms who cannot (or, in a form of insanity exclusive to humanity, won’t) adapt?

    Extinction.

    And they are welcome to it.

    Long live the biological imperative. That reptile brain that drives us to survive at all costs: without consideration of politics, beliefs and, shockingly, personal gain.

    Because one of the most important parts of that imperative is the ability to work in a tribe or a pack. Evolution did not design us to be solitary creatures. Humanity was designed to cooperate on a very small scale. One’s family, one’s tribe. We were hardwired to take into consideration the needs of those closest to us in order to both protect and receive protection from them.

    The fact of the matter is that if our ancestors had attempted to live by the same self serving mentality that anti maskers strive to embody, they’d have all been Sabretooth tiger chow by week’s end.

    Humanity would not exist if humans like the crowd featured in the comic had been running the show.

    Right now, it’s been us playing the long game. Because when this finally ends – and it will end – it will be a new world. Where those who adapted survived and those who refused to:

    Karen with her Strawman arguments,

    nihilists who refuse to believe it will ever get better so why bother,

    and the hopelessly self absorbed who by their actions have made it abundantly clear that they would rather half over a half a million people die rather than make even the slightest concession to the facts

    Did *not* survive.

    And I’m really okay with that.

    Because if evolution has taught us anything it’s this:

    Stupid should hurt.

    Welcome to the new world.

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    • The unfortunate part of that, is that due to necesary contacts, there are many many people in the pro-active camp being killed due to transmission in the anti-masker camp. Because they aren’t camps, but rather intermingled masses of people. As well, not all anti-maskers are dying, just some. (not to imply that is unfortunate, it’s just an associated point).

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  23. *flout the rules though! I get that pedantry is annoying but there’s a big meaning difference with this one. If you’re flaunting rules, you are gleefully, loudly following them, or at least telling other people about them. Flouting = breaking/disobeying

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    • Only because dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. It’s why they have definitions of “literally” that mean “figuratively”, and “I could care less” now means the same as “I could not care less”. If enough people mangle the language badly enough it becomes the new language, even when it makes no sense.

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  28. “The chief means of liberating women is replacing of compulsiveness and compulsion by the pleasure principle. Cooking, clothes, beauty, and housekeeping are all compulsive activities in which the anxiety quotient has long since replaced the pleasure or achievement quotient. It is possible to use even cooking, clothes, cosmetics and housekeeping for fun. The essence of pleasure is spontaneity. In these cases spontaneity means rejecting the norm, the standard that one must live up to, and establishing a self-regulating principle.” – Germaine Greer, ‘The Female Eunuch’

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    • Or, you know, permitting women to get an education and a career so they aren’t financially dependent on men and therefore relegated to the role of a house servant. Just imagine if someone had written that the chief means of liberating slaves were to encourage them to see picking cotton as a fun activity.

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  30. Thanks for giving those of us who unintentionally passed it around without attribution the chance to make it right. I literally saw it on a share, thought, “That’s brilliant,” and hit “share” myself without stopping to consider, “Where did this come from?” I mean, I saw the “Depression Comix” up top of course, but it never occurred to me that it had been shared without your permission. I’m a bit of a starving artist myself, but I’m going to drop a few bucks in your figurative tip jar and having re-shared THIS post, I’m encouraging my friends to do the same.

    I sincerely hope this turns around for you and earns you some well-deserved income for your excellent work.

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    • Thank you very much for sharing and supporting my work. The reason I’m aggressively protecting this particular strip is because it was a work in progress that got leaked by a patron before I had a chance to post it on my own, putting me in the position where I’m competing with my own work. People will share from the place they see first, and if it’s not a post where I am linked then the work becomes lost to me. Thank you for looking me up!

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  31. Salam aleikum,
    Hey man, i followed the link on your picture and I’m really sorry for what happened to you. Fortunately this version is what’s showing up first on DuckDuckGo when you search for it.

    Would you allow me to make a Spanish translation of your picture? No credits taken, and your links of course would appear on it. Or tell me how we can make it happen on your terms.

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    • In general, I do not like translated versions of my strips. I prefer that my work appear only on websites I run and accounts that I control as I don’t want them used in contexts I don’t approve of.

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  35. Dr. Fauci on Texas Covid cases dropping despite ignoring his advice on masks/social distancing: “It can be confusing, because … often you have to wait a few weeks before you see the effect … I’m not really quite sure. It could be they’re doing things outdoors” https://t.co/yuFEPoE2BV

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