Celebrating One Year Out of Depression

Sharing my old comic and some fresh new thoughts a year later

*TW: depression, self harm, suicidal thoughts*

Hi everybody, I just felt like re-sharing this comic a year later with some new thoughts and reflections on where life has taken me the past year.

It’s odd for me to re-read this comic and see how deep in depression I used to be and how far I’ve come. As I’ve mentioned many times, I’ve gone one year without a depressive episode and for me that is HUGE! I’ve never felt more myself and I now no longer feel as if I’m wading through a sluggish haze of nothingness.

Sometimes, I still get sad or I still withdraw from people but it no longer comes in massive waves that wipe me off my boat. Like I said in the comic, I think the longer I’ve stayed out of the ocean of depression, the more time and energy I have to build up a stable mother fucking boat that won’t be knocked over by the smallest tides.

I also know that depression is a life-long thing that I’ll probably have to deal with forever. I know that there could be a leak in the boat, or a tsunami that comes my way in the future. But I guess I’m just grateful that at least, in this moment, I feel good. And it feels good to feel good. I’m no longer taking those anti-depressant supplements, but I do still take my vitamins every day and I think that has been helping.

Here’s a list of some positive things that have changed for me since I’ve climbed out of the ocean:

• I formed a big online community of picture book illustrators and author/illustrators where we support and help each other out. Through it, I’ve made so many new friends from all over the world and we all get to feel less alone while we make books in our little studios.

• I no longer let my text messages pile up. I used to not reply for weeks or months and just leave my messages unread because it gave me anxiety. But then seeing them pile up gave me even bigger anxiety. I now reply to friends and family a lot quicker (although sometimes still with a slight delay).

• I’ve gotten a lot more confident in my writing voice in the past year which culminated into this newsletter (hooray!) as well as signing on more stories with my editor for the upcoming years.

• I feel myself being much more confident and funny when it comes to talking to people. I used to spend most of my time second guessing everything I was saying and reading too much into every over analyzed awkward moment. I did a lot of talks to art college kids last year and as I stood up there cracking my jokes (and them looking at me with blank faces), I felt good seeing how far I had come.

On the other hand, here is my other list of embarrassing things I want to work on that I am still bad about (and beat myself up over):

• A consistent work out routine

• Talking to a group of strangers who all already know each other*
  *Whoever can do this, please drop your tips because this is the boss-level of social interaction. I want to shrivel up and die every time I find myself in this situation)

• Building up a group of friends who are in NY**
  **Many of the few friends I did know in college moved away, and I was so depressed I didn’t have that many to begin with. As many of you know, making friends as an adult is freaking hard especially when I work from home.

• Going out and doing things on my own

• Spiraling in anxiety at the smallest things***
  ***Like reading 10,000 reviews on an air fryer for three months then giving up and not even getting an air fryer in the end because I became so overwhelmed. Spoiler alert: Adam ended up picking and buying the air fryer in 5 minutes)

• Stepping outside my comfort zone and trying out new things and then being embarrassingly bad and awkward at those new things but accepting that it’s okay

So as you can see, things aren’t perfect. There are still many things I find myself fixating and spiraling on sometimes, but I guess that’s just the way it’s going to go for me. I will take the good with the bad, and at least recently, the bad hasn’t been as bad.

Not sure where this newsletter is going, but as always, just wanted to get these thoughts out there. If you’re feeling the same way I felt, know that you can come out of it, it is possible. I know that things can feel like there’s no end and it’s forever, I’m here to let you know that it won’t be.

As always, a big thank you to each and every one of you for supporting this little newsletter.

Here’s to another year of healing filled with plenty more jokes and stories.