lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

team up mission in the mountains

disabled mfs when their disability disables them: 🤯🤯🤯

"You changed..."

My most recent drawing!! Wanted to share it soo bad 💛

The last I made by now :] (working on smthing alrdy dw)

U can see a kinda huuge change in my style comparing to my other posts right? ... right?... Well- I hope so hahA— But u gotta remember those drawings are kinda ooold haha

Im super proud of the result!!! 💛

(some alt versions, and explaining a little the drawing I guess, ignore if u want)

This drawing is an idea a have waaaay time ago I could say :')

First "version of the idea" :)

This haves like 4 months alrdy hehE— is so weird hahAA—

And I always wanted to make it an actual drawing/ remake it! :)) and I finally did it!

I actually think I had a different view in my mind of it-?? BUT IDC I THINK IT ACTUALLY TURNED BETTER EVEN‼️✨💛

so, so! in love w the result <3

—alt versions!!

Well hope u like it!! Pls Tumblr don't mess w the quality like Insta does I beg u :'(((

Byeeeeee

Explaining My Depression to My Mother: a Conversation

by Sabrina Benaim

Mom, my depression is a shapeshifter. One day it is as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear, The next, it’s the bear. On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone. I call the bad days: “the Dark Days.” Mom says, “Try lighting candles.” When I see a candle, I see the flesh of a church, the flicker of a flame, Sparks of a memory younger than noon. I am standing beside her open casket. It is the moment I learn every person I ever come to know will someday die. Besides Mom, I’m not afraid of the dark. Perhaps, that’s part of the problem. Mom says, “I thought the problem was that you can’t get out of bed.” I can’t. Anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head. Mom says, “Where did anxiety come from?” Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out-of-town depression felt obligated to bring to the party. Mom, I am the party. Only I am a party I don’t want to be at. Mom says, “Why don’t you try going to actual parties, see your friends?” Sure, I make plans. I make plans but I don’t want to go. I make plans because I know I should want to go. I know sometimes I would have wanted to go. It’s just not that fun having fun when you don’t want to have fun, Mom. You see, Mom, each night insomnia sweeps me up in his arms dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-light. Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company. Mom says, “Try counting sheep.” But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake; So I go for walks; but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists. They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells reminding me I am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness I cannot baptize myself in. Mom says, “Happy is a decision.” But my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg. My happy is a high fever that will break. Mom says I am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat-out asks me if I am afraid of dying. No. I am afraid of living. Mom, I am lonely. I think I learned that when Dad left how to turn the anger into lonely — The lonely into busy; So when I tell you, “I’ve been super busy lately,” I mean I’ve been falling asleep watching SportsCenter on the couch To avoid confronting the empty side of my bed. But my depression always drags me back to my bed Until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city, My mouth a bone yard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves. The hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat, But I am a careless tourist here. I will never truly know everywhere I have been. Mom still doesn’t understand. Mom! Can’t you see that neither can I?

This show is so good at small little details to reveal what's going on in the characters headspace eventually. The way that he was so obviously in that blank stare and space feeling god knows what fighting a silent battle of what is probably profound suffering if you love deeply, which obviously Rick does, and then instantly bumbled up and made a little quirky joke and then smiled and went back to having that mellow but distant tired look on face, which we've seen him do plenty of times before-it just goes to show that it's all just a performance, and that he probably has been feeling this way the majority of the time.

I know that we already know that Rick is miserable, obviously, for a multitude of reasons, but this just really said in stone the extremely and deeply deeply depressed in pain that he's carrying around with him all the time.

people who dislike saiki kusuo i need to pick and prod at ur brain. whats going on in there?

Forgive me for showing my fangs a little here instead of being as delicate in phrasing as I usually am, but. Periodic reminder:

sweeping "humans suck, humans are evil, the world would be better off if humans disappeared/had never evolved" statements may be cathartic but they're thoroughly inaccurate (ie, the vast majority of uniquely bad effects of humans on the planet are a) extremely recent, like within the last couple centuries, b) the fault of an extremely small minority not the entire fucking species, and c) fixable)

hating being human isn't the same as hating humans. I get species dysphoria is a thing. I get that it's often hard to fit in as a nonhuman in human social groups and that can make it easy to slip into hating everyone around you. Please fight that instinct

villainizing people for traits they didn't choose, such as the species they were born into, is neither cute nor fair. No species is inherently good or bad

misanthropy is cathartic in short term vents or whatever but genuinely embracing it wholesale as a philosophy is liable to lead to you hating humans, human society, and being in a human body more and more over time and thus make your life worse by constantly reinforcing a thought pattern that makes you angry and upset

you are not immune to being part of human society (translation: just because you're nonhuman doesn't mean you're not included in statements about the effects of the human population on the world, ie "humans are killing the planet")

related, you are not better than humans for being nonhuman. looking at my fellow dragons in particular on this one. I get it, draconic pride is a thing, dragon brain probably says you're the supreme being and all else is beneath you especially anyone who annoys you. Mine does too. Please recognize that is an instinct you are supposed to FIGHT, not something that's TRUE AND THAT YOU SHOULD EMBRACE. Good fucking gods.

some nonhumans are also human (it's me, I'm some nonhumans) and you are making sweeping "humans suck, why would I ever want to be human, all humans do is kill the planet" statements in the presence of people included in those statements, which is insanely rude (and no, you don't get to "but you're different because you're nonhuman" me! you do not get to decide to ignore half of who I am because you don't like it, you do not get to decide I'm not "really" human, and also see the previous bullet point). this goes doubly if you're in a space like a DIscord server where people have expressly stated they're not comfortable being tacitly included in statements like that

saying "but I don't REALLY mean all humans, I just mean the specific ones at fault!" after the fact does not actually change anything if every other thing you say is constantly "humans humans humans" and not the group you're actually referring to, or at the very least doesn't change how it reads to everyone around you

so… y’all do realize that Mike’s relationship with his mom is not healthy, right?

Or am I gonna need to explain why having a mom that outwardly says she’s “there for you” and does genuinely care, but is never actually emotionally available in part due to having a completely absent husband is not exactly a recipe for a healthy mother-son relationship 😐

thought about the expression “big fish in a small pond” too hard and accidentally invented new ocs

i don’t even feel human anymore

Holy shit guys, I think I have seasonal depression (this should not be as big of a shock for me as it is) (it was very obvious)

matrophobia

In honor of the interesting discussion of what kind of sword Turgon would have had on my other post, have something I think about a lot in regards to Glamdring:

Turgon only used Glamdring in two battles. Both were catastrophic losses for the elves. One was the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the battle that broke all hope of the Elves winning on their own, and the other the Fall of Gondolin, the destruction of Turgon’s own city and fall of the last great Noldorin civilization in Beleriand.

Turgon flees and dies respectively in those two battles. But he is still so terrifying when he fights that goblins fear the sight of his sword two ages of the world and 6000 years later. THAT’S SO LONG. Imagine being so devastating even in your losses that you strike fear into the enemy for generations to come. They know his sword by NAME at a GLANCE. There is no evidence it’s done more than be shuffled from hoard to hoard since the fall of Gondolin.

This is such a Tolkien move. Tolkien’s worldview is that of the extremely catholic long defeat of good. All things degrade but that doesn’t make the effort in fighting that degradation worthless, in fact it is everything. (This inevitability is not my favorite aspect of his work, but it’s undeniably saturated in it)

One of the most powerful and feared weapons in Tolkien’s work has only seen defeat? Honestly, shouldn’t be surprising.

I can't really explain it but I get the feeling Yves and Riddle would get along swimmingly