This post isn’t about legitimately asking for help. This post is about people who have decided to make their mental illness their identity, and especially about those who have decided to make that identity a crusade. 

I’ve been reading the notes on this post and it breaks my heart a little because people seem to be reading this as “OP is telling us we’re not allowed to have depression” when what OP is actually trying to say is “I’m done being shamed for trying to take small steps toward recovery.” 

Like the “cool I have depression” or “We can’t all be neurotypical Karen” thing–I understand where it’s coming from, but the problem is that kind of thought pattern is actually just another manifestation of depression. The most insidious thing depression does is convince you you’ll never be rid of it, and that nothing you do is going to work. And the dangerous part of some online communities is there’s even a sense that if you DO get better, you’ll be pushed OUT of those communities, and lose whatever sense of support you may have had. 

This post is not anti-seeking help. This post is anti-pushing the agenda that staying depressed is desired, appropriate, edgy, whatever. Coming onto someone else’s post and saying “your positivity is invalid because I’m depressed” is NOT a good way to ask for help, and being called out on it is not being told you’re a bother or that you shouldn’t seek recovery. Quite the contrary.

If what you do want is help, there are plenty of ways to ask for it that do not involve invalidating someone else’s recovery. 

introductions.

im going through a rough patch and havent made art here for months, so heres a reminder