10 Comics That Can Help You Understand Mental Illness

Thursday, June 05, 2014 SPORK! 0 Comments

Just a heads up: many of these comics deal with self-harm, suicide, and other issues that can be triggering to some individuals.

Darryl Cunningham worked as a nursing assistant in a psychiatric ward and witnessed the realities of mental illnesses and their symptoms. Psychiatric Tales combines science, history, and anecdotes to demystify and destigmatize mental illness, and Cunningham's stark artwork can be deeply affecting. You can read portions of Psychiatric Tales online in their pre-press form, including "People With Mental Illness Enhance Our Lives," "Dementia Ward," "Suicide,""Schizophrenia," "Cut and Delusions," and the last chapter.

Allie Brosh turns her manic humor on her own depression in a pair of comics that are both deeply personal and explain brilliantly the sense of hopelessness, exhaustion, and self-loathing that comes with depression. It's also a reminder that relief can come from unexpected (and sometimes completely nonsensical) places, like a shriveled-up piece of corn found beneath the refrigerator.

When cartoonist Ellen Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she was in a manic phase and not eager to seek treatment, fearing that medication would impair her creativity. But after she was hit with a major depressive episode, she started her journey toward reconciling her illness and treatment with her creative life. Marbles is a look at bipolar disorder from the inside, capturing the seductive qualities of mania and the ambivalence some people feel about treatment and medication.

The artist once famous for The Thin H Line and Sexy Losers (both NSFW) has created a sometimes gut-wrenching, sometimes tender, often relatable series of comics about the daily struggles of life with depression. Decidedly unclinical, depression comix instead gets into the heads of depression sufferers and the people around them, exposing many of the tragedies of depression: how it encourages sufferers to mask their true feelings, the sense of worthlessness that comes with the illness, and how sufferers can shove friends away just when they're desperately in need of social support. However, he'll also capture the occasional moment of happiness and love.