I’ll just get straight to the point. This whole article is dedicated to silly drawings of vaguely humanoid blobs, and a chicken.
These are comics by rubyetc (or rubyetc_ on Instagram) depicting some of her experiences with mental illness. Typically, when we imagine an illness, we think of the flu, or tuberculosis, etc. Something related to a human’s health that prevents that human from functioning properly. Mental illnesses, of course, are illnesses that occur within the mind. This means that we cannot always see evidence of someone suffering from a mental illness the same way we could see someone suffering from a broken leg.
I will cut my long lecture about mental illnesses short because I’m sure it’s more entertaining to read through rubyetc’s comics, anyway.
She does a wonderful job of illustrating what it is like to live with anxiety, depression, and personality disorders, which can be a result of trauma. Some of her comics are meant to inform readers about the challenges of life with mental illness, and some of her comics are just meant to be an outlet for her emotions. It’s her silly drawings make a difficult topic a little easier to talk about.
Sometimes insomnia can be a symptom of anxiety. This nine panel comic is a quick documentary of how frustrating it can be to have insomnia. It is incredibly difficult to function as a regular human on little sleep.
This comic is a great representation of what it means to live with anxiety. The worries can be completely irrational, and yet, anxiety finds a way to harp on them. The illness convinces people suffering from anxiety that there is always something to worry about.
“love them one eighties”Sometimes symptoms can fluctuate. They can go away for a time, and then cycle around again, or come back at inconvenient times.
Sometimes the symptoms of mental illness, namely depression in this case, can be drastic, addressed here in the next comic. Self-harm, among other self-destructive tendencies that can be products of mental illness, is a major concern for the safety of people with depression and other mental illnesses.
rubyetc’s commentary on her posts is the best insight into the message behind the comic. The comic above was drawn for the purpose of informing readers about one of the struggles that comes with being someone affected by mental illness, but it is done in such a way that the material is presented as a joke that everyone can laugh at and learn from. That is the style of humor that I see presently in rubyetc’s work. I’ll say it again: her silly drawings and comics make a difficult topic much easier to talk about.
To finish out this article/post, here are two unrelated comics, also drawn by rubyetc, that made me laugh.
Enjoy.
All images are courtesy of rubyetc’s Tumblr with original captions.
It was really nice to read this comic, it made me smile. I struggle with a lot of these issues and lately with the stress of school I have found myself feeling more unsure of myself and emotional. Seeing these comical but very true drawings was a nice little reminder that other people struggle with these things. I’ve never seen comics before that depicted something of this nature, and I really enjoy this artists style so I will be sure to check them out!!