Oh shit?! I have a blog/website?! Probably ought to use it.

People who know me know I’ve been struggling with depression for a while now. Or I just assume they do and instead I just look like a really flaky dude. The past 2 or 3 years have been especially hard. I’ve retreated into myself. I rarely go anywhere. I hardly talk to anyone outside a small handful of people. My self-doubt has made me pull back on how much I try to find new comic work. Luckily, I’ve still stayed busy. I’ve been trying to work on myself and take the whole thing much more serious.

Honestly… I have a hard time explaining it. So, I made a comic about it. Something quick(ish). Something I wasn’t worried about making perfect. Something I just felt like I needed to do before being back in the thick of working on other comics.

I wasn’t sure if I should even post it. It’s a bit heavy and a little raw. My biggest hope for deciding to post it is that, perhaps, it might help other people realize they aren’t alone. Help other creators in comics who find themselves in the same hopeless feeling spiral know that there are other people who get it. Something that might help anyone look at their own struggles and find comfort in knowing it’s not just you. Not just you being dramatic.

Maybe it won’t help anyone. But it did help me. Just spending the time making this and figuring out how to express it was its own (all be it small) form of therapy.

Talk to your friends. Use this to help explain yourself if you think it’s useful in that way. Use it as a guidepost to help you tell your own story. You don’t have to struggle alone.

While I still haven’t started therapy, this moved me so much closer than I’ve ever been. It feels like a much more reasonable thing to me now. It’s now a matter of when, not if.

Take care of yourselves.

Kelly