I get the metaphor this is making, but I can’t help but view this as everyone being passive aggressive because the character refuses to actually see a doctor about their hand lol.
Finding a doctor, making an appointment, keeping that appointment, trying who knows how many medications until you find one that helps, etc. is not the easiest thing in the world when you have trouble just getting out of bed in the morning.
What about affording any of that? OR a home… or getting time off work for the 100th time this year.
Life is often unkind to those who need a bit of kindness the most.
this, big time. The amount of times where I had migraine with the vision impairment on the day of an appointment, unable to drive and farther away than I could safely get to on my own by any means if I could manage to fumble through any to begin with, and nobody able to bring me.
then just remembering which meds go to my elderly birds, elderly grandparents, and which go to me
But you still have to take steps to do it or your hand will never get better. Granted it’s easier if people give you support but depending on where you are at in life that can’t necessarily be something you can count on. So you have to break it down into a manageable step and attack it at that point. If you’re having trouble getting out bed, focus on just getting out of bed. Or don’t, just call a doctor from bed and do telemedicine there if possible. Whatever works.
It sounds callous to someone that’s deep in it but the reality of the situation is that excuses won’t alleviate your situation. You have to find what you can do, if you can’t do something then it is what it is but you also have to accept that the world does not exist without consequence and you will probably have to accept the consequences of that action (people being frustrated with you for flaking, trouble at work, etc). Pursue accommodations when possible to alleviate the burden but also recognize that depression is a mix of neurochemical and behavioral components. You have a degree of control over severity of the behavioral part and it is about the choices you make with what how you spend your time
The point is you shouldn’t be telling the depressed person how to deal with their illness.
The author of this comic is trying to say that the problem is not the depressed person, the problem is everyone else telling him how to treat his illness.
You’ve got some good advice but you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the point this artist is trying to make.
All of those points are things that depression actively disrupts. It’s akin to asking an American, living hand to mouth, to just pay out of pocket. It’s not a case of not going on an extra holiday. It’s a case of not making rent payments to do it.
Depression can leave you without enough mental resources to even maintain basic functionality. An upfront cost, for a payout potential years down the line, is simply more than many can afford.
The worst part is that you are correct. However, it’s the same correctness as telling someone about to lose their house to “just make more money”. Technically correct, but useless and callous in practice.
But you still have to take steps to do it or your hand will never get better.
As someone else said in another comment a broken foot might be a better metaphor. Or a leg. Two legs even.
You’re telling people with broken feet and legs to just walk to the doctor.
I’m unclear on which one I’m supposed to eat, but I think I’m just going to go for it!
Visually misread the middle panel guy as a doctor and not some douche in a white jacket at first which almost felt like a different type of joke.
It took almost 2 fucking years after my first initial appointment to get properly medicated.
I’d literally kill myself if I was forced to do it all again.
You “just go see a doctor”–folk have no idea how fucking difficult it is to 1). actually be seen by a competent doctor, 2). be taken seriously, 3). and actually receive treatment for mental health stuff.
That’s not even including the whole “getting out of a shit enough headspace to actually do all that stuff in the first place.”
Unmedicated me felt like wading through hell.
Be kind to those with different chemistry. Shit sucks.
I want medication for my ADHD and instead the doctors I would see kept trying different antidepressants. None of them helped. In fact most just added more problems, like not being able to get an erection, weight gain, and fatigue. I would tell them and they would either switch to a different antidepressant or up the dosage.
I know the cause of my depression and I want to treat that; not the fucking symptoms of depression itself. But I also have shitty insurance that’s only accepted by 2 different networks of health care where I am, and they are so understaffed for the mental health shit that making an appointment anywhere is always 6 to 8 months away, and even if you show up the doctor might not.
I’m so sorry. I went through something similar myself, including one doctor who told me that I couldn’t possibly have ADHD since people with ADHD supposedly don’t get depressed. I tried being patient and played along for quite a while and have been through so many antidepressants. It wasn’t until my mid-20s, and dropping out of college twice that I finally got anyone to listen to me. Cherry on the cake? Suddenly my parents finally believed me, and my youngest sibling was diagnosed shortly after.
I would suggest calling around some places that aren’t covered by your insurance (specifically psychiatrists that list ADHD as a specialty), as they may offer lower prices for “self pay” patients. I think the one I saw when I was uninsured charged under $100/visit, and once we found a good dosage, they’d write me 3 months worth of prescriptions at a time. Now that I have a formal diagnosis and a history of being prescribed ADHD medication, getting a new doctor to prescribe the same medication has been much easier.
I’m very sorry for you.
FWIW, I had the totally opposite experience. Went to the nearest GP with no appointment, rattled down a long list of physical symptoms, then a long list of things that currently distress me. You could almost hear it click when they connected the dots. Got the good stuff immediately and it changed everything. Maybe it’s something to do with socialized medicine (I live in Europe), IDK.
My first GP phonecall to get an in-person appointment resulted in a tiny piece of paper with suicide/help hotlines, and an ADHD form.
I was worried about ADHD and Bipolar. I wasn’t myself. At all. It got pretty bad.
After an in person appointment and me failing to fill in my form (edit: or not filling it in correctly, I guess?), a referral to a psychiatrist wasn’t justified and I heard no more.
I eventually seeked private healthcare for this.
And proper private healthcare, not that fucking “better health” or whatever that YouTube ad is. From actual doctors from an actual clinic.
After a 1 hour consultation and £300, I felt listened to.
The psychiatrist identified both ADHD and Bipolar traits, but said they were not significant enough compared to the depression. Treat the depression first, then circle back to the other possible issues.
6 months on SNRIs, and I can’t believe the difference.
I don’t feel like I’m struggling with memory loss. The traits I thought could be ADHD (hyperfocus sessions and yet easily distracted - exclusively) became manageable. The every day tasks suddenly were accomplishable. I haven’t tracked my mood very closely, but I’m either on a 2 month hypomania streak or this is actually just what I’m normally like and I can’t remember what feeling normal actually is. So maybe any bipolar I do have isn’t impacting my life so much.
It took 6 months between the GP disappointment and seeking private care for it.
It’s the best fucking £300 I’ve ever spent.
The reason I got there, as opposed to accepting the GPs diagnosis, was a colleague talked about their experience. They talked about their depression, a failed visit to a GP, seeking a 2nd opinion, getting meds, and turning their life around.
They said “don’t stop until you feel heard. Don’t stop until you agree with the doctor”.
Oh hey, I have something for this.
From experience, ‘making it somebody else’s problem’ by asking for help, rarely ends well or gets you the help you need. It just makes you an annoyance and look bad, and eventually people (healthcare workers included) decide you’re malingering and/or attention seeking and start treating you even worse.
Isn’t life fun.
I wish so many comments on this post didn’t support what you’re saying. And the guy in the comic isn’t even asking for help, just showing that he’s suffering.
I wish the world was a better place too. On the plus side, what with WW3 and climate collapse on the horizon, at least it will all be over soon.
Yeah, but unless we’re mercifully nuked into oblivion, it will be a very slow, painful demise.
The comic character is doing it “right” by not making it the other guy’s problem.
Part of the problem is that there’s a gray area on this discussion and easy to find yourself on either side.
On the one side, “my hand has been crushed and I need immediate medical attention” is something other people need to respect. And “I can’t help you with both hands because one of them is crushed” is something other people need to respect. And “my chronic hand pain makes me grumpy”, too.
On the other, if you’re not talking to a doctor or asking for help getting to a doctor, starting every conversation with “My hand hurts” begs the question “what do you want me to do about it?” And if every request to socialize is met with “Can’t do anything hand hurts”, eventually you stop getting calls.
So what’s the fair middle ground? Hard to say and varies heavily by audience. But people do love to paint on the extreme ends without addressing the mushy middle.
Yeh, mental health issues are just health issues.
It took me a while to realise that. A broken brain (whether Alzheimer’s, chronic depression or whatever) is just like a broken leg (or broken arm, or chronic back pain or whatever).
You don’t ask someone with a broken leg or chronic back pain to help you move house.
I guess it’s easier to tell when someone has a physical injury, which probably removes some of the stigma around talking about it.
By “guy in the comic” I meant the original comic I posted. The one you posted comes off as mean to me. It’s great that “not great” guy isn’t doing badly enough that he feels the need to talk about his problems and he even acknowledges that he’s considering the other guy’s feelings, while the other guy comes off as, “Phew, I was just making small talk and don’t actually care how you’re doing.”
Long story about healthcare workers.
I went to the ER for chest pains this summer. EKG was good, did a scan, and didn’t see any blockages. They determined it was probably heart burn.
I started taking prevacid and that helped but I still wasn’t feeling great. Doc said to try the three main over the counter heart burn drugs to see what worked. So I tried nexium next.
By the time I finished that bottle I was feeling very nauseous, dizzy and would get sharp quick headaches that lasted a few seconds. On top of that still feeling pain in my left shoulder/ chest area. It got to the point that one day at work I just felt so bad I had to go back to the ER.
Another round of scans and tests and they still said the old ticker looked good but did give me an IV and anti nausea that helped. The ER doc this time asked if I had anxiety and I said sure because at that moment I was very worried about my health.
They discharged me and I went home for the day and set up some doctors appointments. I went to my doc and talked about everything going on and she looked at the test results. Then she says the ER doc says you have anxiety and gives me a bunch of pamphlets about mental health and suggests talk therapy.
I’ve got nothing against therapy and could probably use some, but I don’t think it’s the cause of my chest problems. I was perfectly fine before the first ER visit. Anyways I fired her and went looking for a new doctor.
I found one and set up a physical. We did all the basics and he went over all my tests results. I felt like I was being listened to and we were getting somewhere.
His big suggestion was to lose weight… Again not a bad idea but maybe not the core of the problem. He thought that or nerve pain.
Well losing weight seems more appropriate than talk therapy so I set out doing that for a few months. I’m down about 15 lbs, got another 30 to go. Hasn’t really helped, but I am looking better.
In the mean time I’m still taking prevacid because that helped and I didn’t have any side effects. Except one time I bought a bottle of Prilosec instead by accident. I got about halfway through and started feeling dizzy, and nauseous again, so I cut that out and went back to prevacid.
I looked it up and turns out Prilosec and Nexium are closely related and do have those side effects. Nexium just was worse for me. Prevacid is a completely unrelated drug and does not cause me issues. So second ER was probably all from the Nexium and no one caught that despite me informing them of what meds I was taking.
We also scheduled a colonoscopy and endoscopy to look for a root cause of heart burn issues but found none. The new doc who told me to lose weight said let’s try a nerve blocker so I said okay. Turns out it’s also an anti anxiety med as well… so I think that suggestion was based off ER doc saying I’m anxious.
I decided to take it anyway even though I don’t think I need anti anxiety meds. It’s been two weeks and shoulder pain is pretty much gone which is great but I’m having way too many side effects from this drug. Wake up in sweats, always thirsty, low libido etc.
I go back next week to talk to doc about it see if there’s something else to try since this path seems to be working.
Getting diagnosed with adhd and autism as an afab took me till my late 20’s and early 30’s respectively, despite having been in therapy from childhood and then seeking MH help regularly throughout my teens and early 20’s for audhd related difficulties.
Every single one of my symptoms and problems were easily explained by my having undiagnosed audhd, or very convolutedly (and often times offensively) attributed to a myriad of other MH conditions. Guess what ended up happening? And guess how much the private healthcare cost to sort it all out?
Solidarity yo. I hope you find out what is ailing you before it becomes too damaging!
Sounds similar to my journey in some ways. I’ll share a bit on the off chance that some of my experiences might be useful.
I always had headaches and mental health struggles. Hopefully you don’t. I sought help for both. My mental health issues were misdiagnosed (I’m AuDHD, the other stuff mostly stems from that) and for the headaches I was just told to lose weight. Easier said than done, and the headaches got worse while I tried. I used pain meds and developed chest pain that got diagnosed as heartburn. Prescription omeprazole (prilosec) keeps it in check.
I finally lost enough weight for them to take the headaches seriously and get referred to a neurologist. We can’t be sure of the exact cause, but a good bet is anxiety - a very sensitive/overactive nervous system as a result of C-PTSD and autism. I take topiramate to calm it a little, edibles 1-2 times a week, quarterly injections, and I do a somatic meditation. This is a great exercise for pain without a physical source, caused by things like my overactive nervous system.
If your pain is made worse by anxiety, it may help to get in the habit of practicing a quick somatic meditation focusing on the pain whenever you experience it. Otherwise, just keep advocating for yourself until you find a doctor that will help. I hope you find something that works for you soon.
Also, on brain meds: they’re all multi-function, so if it’s anti-anxiety that’s more of a happy accident. They wouldn’t give you a nerve blocker just for anxiety. Side effects tend to lessen the longer you take the drug, but not always, and the time scale is a bit different for each. At 2 weeks it should be starting to get better, at a month if it’s not better it’s probably not going to get much better. Hang in there!
And ADHD just means “you’re too lazy, and just need to focus.”
Things that make me want to hurt people.
It really sucks being a parent with ADHD having a kid with ADHD understanding the struggles while also having to say “You need to figure out what will work for you to focus on this stuff. Also, just try some of these suggestions to see if they work instead of refusing to try at all.”
Like I understand the struggle and still end up sounding like that just because figuring out something to improve the situation is necessary although it isn’t quite the same thing as ‘try harder’. Just keep trying until you figure out something that improves the situation.
For me, it’s all about someone trying to help me, together.
I’m lucky that a few of my coworkers understand the feeling that working on a thing together (even if it’s separate tasks) can achieve the larger goal. It’s much better than going alone, or with someone who tries to play director/boss.
ADHD sucks. It’s a pain in the ass to get my meds, the meds help, but I still have good days and bad days. I don’t think it’s nearly as debilitating as a crushed hand, I don’t even put it on the same level as depression. That said everyone has a different toolbox for their issues, and some people are better equipped than others.
I’ve got a lovely cocktail of ADHD, C-PTSD, Depression, and Anxiety. And people are upset when it takes me an hour to get out of bed.
Goddamn, way to make me flashback.
There was a point in my life where I was facing homelessness, was constantly job searching but hearing nothing back, and had to count coins to make sure I could afford to eat each day. Not only that, but the closest family member, who had invited me to stay with them if things went tits up, had just died two days before in a sudden and tragic way.
And my then-bf dragged me to a bar, where he and all his friends told me to “just let it go” and “loosen up” as if the basement rock of my world hadn’t just eroded out from under me. I sure as shit couldn’t afford bar prices, and not a single one of the group offered to get me anything, leaving me stone sober while they all got shitfaced. I ended up crying alone in the bathroom for an hour, and when I came back out, “bf” was getting a fucking lap dance from his friend’s fiancee.
That wasn’t even the worst part of the night. It definitely got darker before the light returned.
I’m okay now, over a decade later, in an infinitely-better place with supportive friends and partners. But man, what a journey.