The Big Update Part 2: The Cartoons











In true Saint Damascus form, here are some weird or funny cartoons:

It's daylight savings!
Sometimes everything just feels very big and I feel very little.
Daily Doubts

I'm not entirely sure what's happening here.




This is annoying because I have absolutely no need for an ipad at all. There is no reason for me to want an ipad expect that they are shiny & I do what I want. That is so crappy. Sometimes I think "I should give away all of my things and run into the forest forever so I can avoid all of these privileges I did nothing to deserve".


Pffft That's never gonna happen.



(Hey, the dinosaur cartoon & beautifully illustrated cartoon at the end of this post are by other artists! Not me!... I wish they were by me)

Comic by Lonely Dinosaur T-shirt company



One of the most emotive, striking, truthfully sad series of illustrated images I've ever seen about a big heavy all encompassing feeling most of us know too well.
By Sylvie Reuter.


In between times + College update.

I have been at College for 1 week and 2 days and let me tell you, my brain has never had to work so hard in my entire life. It's FANTASTIC, but I am also FRANTIC! So much work, absolutely no time.

I'm waking up much, much earlier; however I'm still going to bed at midnight. 
Foolish Bekky. Real foolish.

I haven't been able to put together a flowing story for you, so here are some quick scribs that I've managed to do when I find a cheeky 5 minutes!
There's a bit of anxiety in there, I think it's just because of the major transition I'm going through. College is going really well,  I'm not too anxious about that...

Well, just a little bit.


I just want to do really well.

I wanna make you guys proud of me!



Home...work?
Mum look!
I'm doing "Homework"!
(This is a new thing for me)

1 week of college down. Here's a quick look at what I've been making!





Hair

Pirate!

I got really, really nervous on my first day of college. Really nervous...




I am currently working on a story about a thing that happened to me in a bar.

It's not easy being in a bar when you're not a drinker.

Here are the first 2 panels from my story:



My Timeline.


Okay, so I don't remember my life very well.
All the memories just mash together & I have no idea what age I was when things happened.

I think I've figured out a little mental health timeline that occurs between age 13 & my current age (23).

I was a pretty quirky child. I was weird & dramatic. 
I still am weird & dramatic don't get me wrong, but something strange happened when I was 14.

I often felt sick in my stomach & I started having anxiety attacks. 


I started to feel sick every day.

I started to have anxiety attacks every week.

Then I started to shut down.

I was overwhelmed by everything.

Then I got really bad.

Somewhere around this time I cut my hair.

Then I was on antidepressants

Then I didn't feel anything anymore.

Not depressed. 
Not anxious. 
Not sick. 
Not happy. 
Never excited. 
Not content. 

Nothing. 

I was on antidepressants for a couple of years.

Then I decided I was ready to feel things again.


A couple of years later, I started to think back on the fuzzy memory-blob of years I was depressed...

Then I started to draw cartoons about it.
The more I draw, the more I slowly understand what was happening to me.

Click for Bigness.
If you are feeling the bad feelings, please pop along to your doctor to get a referral to a mental health professional, because those guys are tops. 

Levels of Conscious thought in different personality types. A Personal Theory. It's pretty deep. Part 2 of 3: Bekky.

Part Two: Bekky
Anxiety & Depression



This is my mind.
The levels included here are as follows:

  • Daily life. Functioning. Existing.
(waking up, breathing, eating, checking facebook)


  • Gateway Anxieties
(Answering the phone, Driving, Meeting new people, Watching the news)


Accessing these gateway anxieties can lead to Global Anxieties. 
These are things I get anxious about that are entirely out of my control. 
The Gateway anxieties can be managed with cognitive behaviour therapy

  • Global Anxieties


The Global Anxieties include thinking in depth about War, Poverty, First World Privileges/problems, closely connected to thoughts about Third World realities/problems, the abuse of any living creature, & the fact that everything is controlled by something bigger than me that I struggle to understand 
(ie. the information I take in is controlled by the media, the country I live in and the choices i'm allowed to make are decided by politics, My money & whatever I do with that? The big banks have that under control. Nothing seems simple. As soon as you start asking questions you start getting these insane answers that only lead to more questions and the answers only become more difficult to understand. I'm getting dreadfully off topic now. I don't understand how the World works by any means.)

This leads me to ...
  • Depression


I cannot comprehend the suffering in the World. 
I cannot save everyone who is hurt or hungry and yet I sit here safe and well fed. 
Does this make me a horrible human? 
I am convinced it does. 
Should I sacrifice everything in my life to help others? 
Yes! I should. 
But will that fix everything? 
No. 
Will it fix anything?
Probably not Bekky.
Then why would I do anything? 
What is the point of doing anything?
Why would anyone want to be a part of this life?
It's just horrible.
Everything outside feels heavy.
Any enjoyment I get from little things makes me feel guilty.
I am a horrible person.
I stop enjoying little things.
I despise myself.
Everything gets dark.
sleep as much as I possibly can.


All because I watched the news.
I am so tired.

Coming Soon: 
Part Three-Graham State.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder



The problem with being open minded is that ignorance is bliss.



I decided in High School that it was important to question things and not just believe what you're told.
I decided to try and learn more about lots of things instead of focusing on one way of thinking. 
At the time I was going to a school that wouldn't teach students about dinosaurs because they aren't relevant to the religious curriculum, so when I started to realise that not all life is relevant to the bible, it was rather cool.

I was “Being open minded”.


The problem I encountered was that there are things happening in the World that are most unsettling and I simply cannot understand them, I try, I try, I try but I can’t. 


"Why would this happen? How could they do that? Why did they think that would work? How many people died? What do you mean child sex slaves/Puppy farms/Poverty?"





Let’s stop there because I think you get the point.

So what I need is a filter.
I haven't invented one yet so I try to avoid really nasty topics otherwise my head explodes and I get really, really upset.
I hope that soon I will find a pleasant balance between the rainbows & the explosion in the drawing so that I can continue to learn about the World around me without having an anxiety attack.


xoxo

Further adventures with the Black Dog: What does depression look like? I don't know.

Maybe, Depression looks like a scary Ridley Scott Alien, but more like a person.

 
Maybe, Depression has big long scary fingers which hang creepily and inflict nastiness on folks.

Maybe depression looks like a great big bully that picks you up and fucks with you.
But maybe it only acts that way because it had a rough childhood, and this is the only way it can deal with its feelings.



 Maybe it is the same size and shape as me, but it looks how I feel.
We do not know what it looks like.

Maybe like this:
 Or this:


All we know is that we don't want to see it 'round these parts no more.