Commentary from February 3, 2016
This one is how I’ve been feeling for a long time, and it was hard to find the best way to express it in four panels. I did have a lot of friends, and lost them all as I turned inward. Depression makes you lose your friends in a number of ways, many illustrated in previous strips. But when you’re recovering, you find some things are broken. One of those things is making friends. It’s a lot harder to get and keep friends than it used to be. Depression damages those social links and soon we get accustomed to living without them, loneliness and isolation becomes our default environment. We learn to live there. This makes making friends so difficult because the necessity doesn’t seem so clear to us. Why deal with all the inconveniences of friendship when loneliness is so much easier? Why listen to someone’s idiosyncrasies when we could have the predictable comfort of being alone? But that’s only one side of the coin. The other side is that we have to open up again, and that’s a frightening thing to do. It lets our fears and failings creep to the surface, makes us gamble with our self-esteem and opens us up to possible rejection.
Obviously it’s better to have friends and I can understand this on a logical level. But emotionally, something is broken.
As a further punishment to myself I illustrated in the first panel some of the friends I lost over years to depression. Sometimes I have to be 100% honest or none of this works.
This was the first strip published when I switched the paper I use. I hope an improvement in art follows too.
Obviously it’s better to have friends and I can understand this on a logical level. But emotionally, something is broken.
As a further punishment to myself I illustrated in the first panel some of the friends I lost over years to depression. Sometimes I have to be 100% honest or none of this works.
This was the first strip published when I switched the paper I use. I hope an improvement in art follows too.
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I am living this. I really love your comics. They are so honest.
This is so true 🙁 xx
This one hits seriously close to home.
Hits like a train.
<3
Sad but true. Though I have found TRUE friends who have stuck with me through the bad times and I am forever grateful. Being ill really shows you who your true friends are.
Ain’t it the truth. And you really can’t ever count on having friends at work. I’m finding out that hard lesson know with my bipolar.
I have bipolar as well. I used to have friends who wouldn’t check on me for months and months, to the point where I didn’t talk to them for a year or two at a time when I would get in a really bad depressive state. Now I have friends (and a husband) who stand by me and even visit me in the mental hospital on the occasions that I have to go in for med adjustments. They are the best.
Oh man. Painful. So often it’s self isolation. You hate yourself, project that onto everyone you know and stay away from them long enough that they finally stop trying. It’s self fulfilled anguish. Then you hate yourself for that. It’s a horrible disease.
I suppose there are friends who know they will die and friends who have never thought of it.
I am in the middle…no, near the end of this. I only have one left, and well, the last one rarely talks to me nowadays. I already see the ruins in my future.
It’s very difficult to try to build a support network after you’ve torn all your relationships apart. I hope you keep strong, and know that you are understood here.
“I should reach out to this person, it’s been such a long time.” —- “Wow, that was a great conversation! I should talk to them again soon.” –THE NEXT DAY– ‘Hey Anon, thanks for talking the other day. How does it sound if we call later and talk some more?’ “Oh god, now I have no free time? What have I done?! Maybe if I ignore them they’ll think I was busy…”
Wow, I relate to this completely.
I gave up on the idea of friends a long time ago. I totally understand people not wanting to be around me; I can’t stand being around me too. The isolation and lonelyness were painful for a long time, but I got used to it.There are only two people that think of me as a friend, but I don’t see them very often. I am afraid that if they are around me too much it my personality will drive them away.
Unfortunately, my isolation makes things hard on my family. My son one day several months ago asked me why ai don’t have any friends. He is 15 and doesn’t know about my illness. The only answer I could give him is that I am not very likable and I make people uncomfortable: He told me that I should make some friends, but it is too late for me to learn how. I only know how to alienate people; all I have to do is be myself.
I think I hear you loud and clear here. Every time I try to make a new friend at some inevitable point I feel an undeniable urge to hide back under my shell like a frightened tortoise, burning bridges along the way. It isn’t the world that’s broken but me. It’s a hard thing for people on the outside to understand, but when you get used to loneliness and isolation, you change and your social abilities get damaged along the way.
I either kept isolating myself or going after people that didn’t want to be with me because of the illness. Now I gave up social interaction altogether.
I’ve never really trusted anyone enough to have a best friend, and I learned how to get along without any friends for a long time, but now I appreciate being able to have a few people I can talk to and hang out with.
I’ve found that tabletop games are a good way to meet people. There are plenty of games clubs and hangouts, the gamers are there to have fun, and they often tend to be introverted themselves. Some like to talk and some prefer to focus on the game itself, which leaves you free to do either as you please.
This is so sad but true, I isolate and push people away because I am too inside my head. Then I make up excuses for the reason why I dropped off the face of the Earth. I found I have to be careful who I can tell and who will understand. Sucks
I have depression, and can’t say I’ve lost friends. Maybe one or two, but I don’t really get this.
So true…