Dealing With Depression For Cartoonists

Depression will rob you of many things. One of those things is passion, which is incredibly devastating for creative people. How are you supposed to create when you have no desire to create? How do you get back the joy that comes from making comics?

The good news is that the joy can and will come back.

The bad news is that it doesn’t happen overnight.

If you’re struggling through a season of depression right now, please consider the following tips to help you regain your mental health and creative passion. These are all things that have helped me. Maybe they can help you, too.

Visit a counselor

Counseling was a life-changer for me. Before going to a counselor, I didn’t know why I felt so badly. I told her I was in a funk. I’d felt that way before and it had always just passed after a couple days, but this particular funk had been hanging around for months. Through our discussion, she identified that I was dealing with a heavy depression. And that’s how I learned that I’d been dealing with bouts of depression my entire adult life.

There is something incredibly liberating about discovering what ails you. Once I identified my depression, I felt like I could develop tools that not only helped me survive bouts, but would prevent them, too. With the help of my counselor, I developed those tools.

Talk to your doctor

If you’re not comfortable talking to a counselor yet, talk to your doctor. She can ask questions to help determine if you’re experiencing a seasonal bout of depression or if it’s something more chronic. Based on your discussion, she’ll have recommendations for treating your depression that could range from simple changes to diet and exercise to trying an antidepressant.

Consider an antidepressant

There are a lot of different antidepressants on the market, all with various strengths and side effects. Your doctor and/or your counselor can help you decide which medicine is right for you. If you’ve never taken an antidepressant before, it can take a while (anywhere from 6 to 9 weeks) for the antidepressant to start working. So don’t get discouraged if you don’t feel better right away. And don’t get discouraged if your first antidepressant doesn’t work very well, or (in my case) starts to lose its effectiveness. It’s not uncommon to have to switch your medicine around from time to time.

Get your Vitamin D

My doctor told me that seasonal affect disorder is common in my neck of the woods because the winters are so gray and dismal. Lack of Vitamin D is a huge factor in cases of depression. So, make sure you get plenty of it. If you’re outdoorsy, it should be no problem. If you’re indoorsy like me, then consider taking a vitamin supplement.

Feed your imagination

For creatives, it’s vital that you feed your imagination during seasons of depression. For me, my idle mind was a breeding ground for negative thoughts. I’m an introvert and I’m constantly in my own head. When I’m feeling creative, my mind spins with ideas and thoughts and hypothetical situations and dreams. But when I’m depressed and lack passion, the only thing I think about are the lies of how horrible I am.

I had to find a way to engage my mind without it feeling like a huge effort. Drawing and writing were out of the question. They didn’t bring me joy and I couldn’t focus. So I started reading. It felt effortless. All I had to do was pick up a book and start reading it. During my lowest season, I vowed to always be reading a book. Even when I wasn’t reading, I would think about the characters and concepts in between sessions. It helped immensely. And I developed a new habit of reading that has continued even after my mental health stabilized and my creativity returned.

If you’re struggling through a lack of creativity right now, find a way to feed your imagination in way that feels effortless. Maybe it’s reading. Maybe it’s playing video games. Maybe it’s watching a bunch of movies that you’ve been meaning to see. During this season, it’s important that you not worry about creating and just gorge on art to fuel your imagination.

Break your routine

If you’re a slave to routine like I am, you gotta break out of the box. Routines aren’t bad. But when you’re depressed and lethargic, you may find yourself falling into a routine of just sitting around the couch and staring at the wall, eating terribly (or not eating at all), and not getting enough rest. You gotta disrupt this rhythm. It will be hard because nothing sounds any better than staring at walls, nurturing a poor diet, and not resting properly.

Get out of the house. Go visit someone. Take a drive. Browse at your favorite store. Do something. You may or may not enjoy yourself at first, but — in time — you’ll start to feel some invigoration again.

Spend time with others

Isolation is to depression what oxygen is to a fire: it just fuels it. Depression is a downward spiral, too. So the more alone you feel the more depressed you get. And the more depressed you get the more you want to be left alone. This is why depression — when left unchecked — can be incredibly dangerous.

So spend time with others! Go to restaurants with your friends. Go to the movies. Have game nights. Play video games online. Send texts. Stay connected as best you can. When you’re struggling through depression, your friends and family are your lifeline. Cling to them.