Hm, I’m not quite sure about this one. I geht your intention, but …
What about advice that one depressive person gives to another? I don’t think that this is entirely Gold but in most of the times it HAS some little nuggets within.
If you can find something worthwhile in the advice others give you that’s wonderful, but in doing this strip I’ve come across a lot of awful advice, most of it unsolicited, and if one is depressed you get the feeling a lot of it doesn’t apply to you anyways.
OK, I understand. I’m sorry that you had so much bad experiences. I for myself could get a lot out of group therapy for example. Not necessarily from the therapist but from other people sufferering from depression. From their experiences.
A number of people have said “but what if the advice comes from the depressed” but I think that’s a separate issue, the advice giver in the comic is not depressed. I think in group therapy you’re among people who are in the same boat and their advice is more meaningful than those who haven’t had the experience. This is one of those cases I kind of expected people to know the characters in the comic but those unfamiliar with “left eye wrinkle means depression” may not have understood the background these two characters have.
You left out the exchange afterwards where the other person, in response, is like “Hey, I was able to buy stuff with this; therefore, it is totally applicable to your life. Because everyone’s life circumstances are identical to mine, right?”
From what i can tell through my own experience and that of others i know to suffer. It is all so very personal. Everyone is diffrent and what worked for you might indeed be gold. For someone else it could be harmful.
Depressed people just need to change their coats. Green, Red and Orange coats are the best cure for depression. That is LITERALLY ALL you need. If you can’t be bothered to change your coat, don’t whine to other people.
Far too often, the advice is something insipid, like “Cheer up! Smile!” As if depression is nothing but a prolonged sulk, and you’re being miserable just to annoy them.
I’m not sure that this is correct. Do people actually think their advice is helpful, or are they just (rather desperately) thinking of something to say? These strips seem to have a rather… polar… view of “people with/without depression.” The person giving the advice might well be struggling with something to say too, and is just saying whatever they can.
This comic strip is about depicting perspectives, not fairness. It doesn’t matter if this is “correct” or not, many people feel that people offer advice that is more useful to the person offering than the person receiving. As Oscar Wilde once wrote in A Picture of Dorian Gray, “I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.”
But if you’re looking for fairness or “correctness” (whatever being correct may be), this is not that strip, this strip is about depression and the perspectives of different people. And this particular strip is from the perspective of the receiver, it has nothing to do with the perspective of the giver, the strip can’t be criticized for not being about something it was never intended to be about. And as for the polar view, well, this is a strip about showing the perspective of people with depression, so it’s a strange criticism to make. If you’re looking for a comic that shows the perspectives of people who haven’t had their thought processes derailed by depression, this is not that strip, and one can certainly infer that from the title.
It is difficult to see things from another person’s point of view when you can’t feel all of the same emotions as they can. When I was depressed, it seemed strange that other people should feel joy, pleasure, excitement, enthusiasm, or hope. I knew intellectually that they did, and I could vaguely remember what those feelings were like, but I could no longer experience them. Their expressions of emotion seemed empty and artificial.
Untrained people with no lived experience giving unsolicited advice on living with depression is horrible, but I have also had people with lived experience giving unsolicited and offensive advice who feel entitled to because they were once depressed. They think they understand because they once went through something similar but when you listen to what they are saying, you realise that they don’t and their assumptions are totally disempowering.
We’re all depressed together, but depression is an omnivorous monster and the things which feed it are different from person to person. Neurochemical imbalance, cognitive distortions, social/interpersonal issues, racism, sexism, poverty, gender/sexuality, chronic pain/illness/disability, age, loss, work stress, substance abuse…
The list goes on and the idea that any one magic tool can fix everything, whether or not it comes from someone with experience of the condition, is as poisonous as doing nothing at all.
Footnote: for a while, I worked in legal aid to get disability insurance or other compensation for people who had depression as a direct result of traumatic brain injuries and neurological diseases (Parkinson’s, MS, chemotherapy damage). Their social experience of being depressed was very different from that of people who didn’t have diagnosed structural causes, but they still received various forms of useless advice and reported the anger and helplessness that comes from trying to bear others good intentions gracefully.
ahaha! so true
Hm, I’m not quite sure about this one. I geht your intention, but …
What about advice that one depressive person gives to another? I don’t think that this is entirely Gold but in most of the times it HAS some little nuggets within.
Or would you disagree?
If you can find something worthwhile in the advice others give you that’s wonderful, but in doing this strip I’ve come across a lot of awful advice, most of it unsolicited, and if one is depressed you get the feeling a lot of it doesn’t apply to you anyways.
OK, I understand. I’m sorry that you had so much bad experiences. I for myself could get a lot out of group therapy for example. Not necessarily from the therapist but from other people sufferering from depression. From their experiences.
Thanks for your clarification!
A number of people have said “but what if the advice comes from the depressed” but I think that’s a separate issue, the advice giver in the comic is not depressed. I think in group therapy you’re among people who are in the same boat and their advice is more meaningful than those who haven’t had the experience. This is one of those cases I kind of expected people to know the characters in the comic but those unfamiliar with “left eye wrinkle means depression” may not have understood the background these two characters have.
Exactly that was the case. Thanks again for pointing it out to me!
You left out the exchange afterwards where the other person, in response, is like “Hey, I was able to buy stuff with this; therefore, it is totally applicable to your life. Because everyone’s life circumstances are identical to mine, right?”
No shit, eh?
I suck at Monopoly, LOL.
From what i can tell through my own experience and that of others i know to suffer. It is all so very personal. Everyone is diffrent and what worked for you might indeed be gold. For someone else it could be harmful.
Depressed people just need to change their coats. Green, Red and Orange coats are the best cure for depression. That is LITERALLY ALL you need. If you can’t be bothered to change your coat, don’t whine to other people.
Far too often, the advice is something insipid, like “Cheer up! Smile!” As if depression is nothing but a prolonged sulk, and you’re being miserable just to annoy them.
I’m not sure that this is correct. Do people actually think their advice is helpful, or are they just (rather desperately) thinking of something to say? These strips seem to have a rather… polar… view of “people with/without depression.” The person giving the advice might well be struggling with something to say too, and is just saying whatever they can.
This comic strip is about depicting perspectives, not fairness. It doesn’t matter if this is “correct” or not, many people feel that people offer advice that is more useful to the person offering than the person receiving. As Oscar Wilde once wrote in A Picture of Dorian Gray, “I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.”
But if you’re looking for fairness or “correctness” (whatever being correct may be), this is not that strip, this strip is about depression and the perspectives of different people. And this particular strip is from the perspective of the receiver, it has nothing to do with the perspective of the giver, the strip can’t be criticized for not being about something it was never intended to be about. And as for the polar view, well, this is a strip about showing the perspective of people with depression, so it’s a strange criticism to make. If you’re looking for a comic that shows the perspectives of people who haven’t had their thought processes derailed by depression, this is not that strip, and one can certainly infer that from the title.
Ah, ok, so it’s how someone with depression THINKS someone giving advice must feel. I see the point now.
It is difficult to see things from another person’s point of view when you can’t feel all of the same emotions as they can. When I was depressed, it seemed strange that other people should feel joy, pleasure, excitement, enthusiasm, or hope. I knew intellectually that they did, and I could vaguely remember what those feelings were like, but I could no longer experience them. Their expressions of emotion seemed empty and artificial.
So very much this: http://t.co/LLBM0vivSL
253 https://t.co/ggnIMLAfzX via @depressioncomix
Untrained people with no lived experience giving unsolicited advice on living with depression is horrible, but I have also had people with lived experience giving unsolicited and offensive advice who feel entitled to because they were once depressed. They think they understand because they once went through something similar but when you listen to what they are saying, you realise that they don’t and their assumptions are totally disempowering.
We’re all depressed together, but depression is an omnivorous monster and the things which feed it are different from person to person. Neurochemical imbalance, cognitive distortions, social/interpersonal issues, racism, sexism, poverty, gender/sexuality, chronic pain/illness/disability, age, loss, work stress, substance abuse…
The list goes on and the idea that any one magic tool can fix everything, whether or not it comes from someone with experience of the condition, is as poisonous as doing nothing at all.
Footnote: for a while, I worked in legal aid to get disability insurance or other compensation for people who had depression as a direct result of traumatic brain injuries and neurological diseases (Parkinson’s, MS, chemotherapy damage). Their social experience of being depressed was very different from that of people who didn’t have diagnosed structural causes, but they still received various forms of useless advice and reported the anger and helplessness that comes from trying to bear others good intentions gracefully.