Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Yana*

You may not know who Allie Brosh is by name but, if you spend much time online, you are bound to have seen the meme her work inspired.


See more on Know Your Meme

The original image is from her blog post entitled "This is Why I'll Never Be an Adult" on Hyperbole and a Half.

I've enjoyed Allie's work immensely; it's easy to relate to, funny, and the imperfect drawings are a great silly complement to her storytelling.

What really gripped me, though, was her post, "Adventures in Depression."
It is an apt description of what people with Depression experience that needs to be read by anyone who doesn't believe that Depression is a medical condition and anyone who hasn't suffered it themselves.

Seriously. There are people who believe that Depression doesn't exist, that someone is just going through a self-induced, pessimistic sad patch in their life.

"Snap out of it."
"Get over it."
"Buck up, little camper."
"Smile."
"It can't be that bad."
"Shake it off."
"There are kids starving in Africa."

I told one coworker, "I'm on antidepressants for clinical depression." He said, "I don't believe in that. I'll pray for you." Nice guy. We're still friends, even though he is ignorant when it comes to mental health.

I have to say, though, that his reaction is preferable to the, "you have Depression; that's a mental illness, so you must have no intelligence, abilities, or redeeming qualities whatsoever," mindset.

Having a conversation with a supervisor once, I became frustrated and tears began to flow. I was confronting her about things others had told me she had done to basically ruin my career. She kept saying, "I'm sorry you FEEL that way," even though my words never said I felt anything; I was stating what had been reported to me. But she ignored that I was stating objective fact and tried to discredit my concerns by drawing attention and attributing my allegations to my "mental and emotional instability."

On the other hand, an ex once asked, "Why don't people run marathons for Depression awareness and research? I can't think of a worse illness."

I need your help to fight the stigma associated with mental health issues.

To facilitate this, I'll provide links here to mental health education and support resources as well as bring attention to sufferers who are in the public eye and open about their conditions.

Allie Brosh is the first.

Please check out her work and share it with others.
(Note: Allie has written articles for newspapers that I've read online, but I'm having a hard time finding them. Her blog is a good place to start. If you go through the posts, I think there may be links to articles.)

Thank you.

*Doctor Who (NuWho) series 3 spoilers, from "Utopia":
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"When the Doctor hears about Yana's timepiece, a flashback sequence inter-cut with the letters of the Professor's name makes clear that "Yana" is an acronym of "You are not alone", the Face of Boe's last words to the Doctor. At the same time, Yana opens the watch, releasing his Time Lord essence."

2 comments:

  1. You are NOT alone. While I've never been diagnosed, or even talked to others, doctors included, I think I may have extended bouts of depression. I think it's resulted in my being 80 pounds overweight, and had greatly hindered my successes as an artist (because I never believe anyone who says I have talent, and never get enough validation as such, etc).

    Any time you want to, reach out to me, email, text, Facebook, I'll help if I can, and never judge.

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  2. After reading the "comic", I really can see how the internet can feed the type of depression they talk about. It sounds like this was years ago for the writer, (mainly the Jumanji reference) but had this been today, they would have just been on NetFlix, and never needed to go to the movie store.
    One of the only solutions I can think of is having a great support structure of friends who understand, and help you break out. Even that I fear is not enough. I can see many abandoning a friend in need over time, as it's not something you can "just snap out of". It can also be hard to help someone, who doesn't want to talk to people.

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