Depression, Loneliness and Comics

INNER DEMONS AND HELP FROM COMICS

Necrodeath

* The following post can be triggering, please read at your own risk*

As I start writing this essay, I got the same dilemma of thoughts, which my members often are in: Where do I begin? Yes, indeed.

Should I directly go to my issues? Hell, no. I always have been a difficult child, and opening up about myself that is an impossible task. It takes a lot of time, think about months, not even weeks. Often time, my members ask the same of me, to open up a bit about myself, so that they can maybe find a same common ground, that theyre not alone in this. However, given how difficult Im in opening up, I cant do much but to politely refuse them. (Maybe, Im wrong, and my techniques are too). So, why the heck am I writing this article for? Well, to get it out once and for all: I suffer from a lot of issues. I call them inner demons, dark passengers, and monsters, shadow self. However, all these have a technical term. So, yeah, I suffer from chronic depression, loneliness, panic attack, childhood bullies and abuses and I have an axis II personality disorder (google it up if you dont know, too lazy to type another essay on that.)

Whatever doesnt kills you simply makes you a stranger (The Joker, The Dark Knight)

Wait, what? Wasnt this supposed to be a depression guide or something? What Joker and his stupid quotes doing in here?

Yes, Joker deserves to be here, and so does Batman and a lot of fictional characters. And no, this isnt a depression or loneliness or whatever guide youre looking for. (Seven cups have a lot of them, and much better than I can write, I bet). So, Im sorry if Ive given you a glimmer of hope that this is going to be a guide.

Abaddon hope all ye who enter here (Dante, Inferno)

Okay, now that Ive turned away the majority of readers. Theres another quote I want to mention here:

The ontological fallacy of expecting a light at the end of the tunnel, well, thats what the preacher sells, same as a shrink. See, the preacher, he encourages your capacity for illusion. Then he tells you its a virtue. Always a buck to be had doing that, and its such a desperate sense of entitlement, isnt it? (Rust Cohle, True Detective)

Instead of talking about how to deal with depression, loneliness and other issues Ill talk about comic characters help me to fight with my issues.

Ive been always labeled as a bookworm and over the years as my love for comics, books and movies have increased so has my labels been (bookworm, nerd, geek, movie teen).

Of course, my tags are justified, and I dont complain ‘cause we live in a world where people prefer to tag us and judge us and thats fine and the way I quote movie lines or book lines after every five sentences, make that tag perfect. There was once a time when I used to stand in front of mirror and flex my muscles like the last cartoon or the comic that I read, or flip in the air like Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible, need to tell you that too? Jeez) or try to look in the mirror and imitate Sir Sean Connery (by far the best James Bond, period) saying, My names Bond. James Bond, only to replace James Bond with my name.

The important thing I want to talk about is how comics helped me to fight with my issues. It still does. Batman is my favorite (and no, am not talking about the movie Batman) this is strictly comics one. For all those who dont know, Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) is a billionaire and owner of Wayne Enterprises, after having seen his own parents killed in front of him when he was eight year old, he decided to fight crime and to make his city (Gotham) free from criminal activities. To learn the art of fighting and different styles of it, he travelled throughout the world, when he came back to Gotham, he took over the cape of Batman, and uses stealth, deception and darkness as his ally, and fear as his weapon. He uses fear to paralyze his enemies, and then to fight them. But, this all to say in reality he is fighting his own battle within himself. He is far away from a perfect human being.

He has got no friends. Only partners, or allies, and even those who are closest to him can barely understand him. Dick Grayson (first Robin, and then Nightwing) said this about Bruce Wayne/ Batman: Yeah, first you enjoy it being with him (Batman) running around, jumping off the rooftops, kicking the criminals, but after a while, you realize that you can never understand his (Batman) motives, and you can never understand him on a deeper level.

However, loneliness, depression, and PTSD are some of the issues that he has. His biggest fight is to contain his own inner demons to takeover him, for he has one rule and one rule alone: Hell never kill anybody. To sum up in his own quote:

If you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world stays the same. (Hush series)

So, theres his rule, he will never kill anybody. Even if it comes to losing his own family and near and dear ones. (Joker killed Jason Todd aka the second Robin).

And this is the rule, which gives rise to his fight. To kill or not to kill, when do you draw the line that enough is enough? For Batman, killing someone means suicide, because he fears then he is no different than Joe Chill (the punk who killed his parents). However, Joker always will cause havoc and mayhem and try to push Batman towards his edges, he (Joker) wants Batman to kill him (Joker). Joker, isnt afraid of death, he just wants to prove a point:

All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. (Joker, the Killing Joke)

And this is the theme that occurs and reoccurs in the whole Batman series. People going into an insane state of mind, or being a stranger after they are not killed by an incident.

Batman takes up darkness and a cape after seeing his parents shot dead, Joker becomes an insane criminal sociopath, after suffering through an accident in acid, and hearing the death of his wife, with his child. Harvey Dent, becomes Two Faced after surviving a fatal bombing accident, and so on. (Read the comics, will ya?)

Now, Ill have to go into the side of the monster, and talk a bit about the Joker. But, before I can go into explaining the nihilistic philosophy of my favorite villain (or hero?) of all time, Im going to quote this:

When you don't fit in, you become superhuman. You can feel everyone else's eyes on you, stuck like Velcro. You can hear a whisper about you from a mile away. You can disappear, even when it looks like you're still standing right there. You can scream, and nobody hears a sound.

You become the mutant who fell into the vat of acid, the Joker who can't remove his mask, the bionic man who's missing all his limbs and none of his heart.

You are the thing that used to be normal, but that was so long ago, you can't even remember what it was like. (Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes)

So, what makes Joker unique to any other villain (or hero) from other famous stories or novels? Its simple and thats because where every other villain or hero have a dance of good and evil, the Joker wants to prove that theres no line as good or evil. And its our choices, and all of us are deep down hypocrites, and liars, and fake, and backstabbers. Its just going to take us one bad day, and we must understand that this life is nothing but a bad joke.

Don't talk like you're one of them! You're not... even if you'd like to be. To them you're just a freak, like me. They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their "code"... it's a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these uh, these "civilized people", they'll eat each other. (The Joker, the Dark Knight)

Unlike Batman, who still keeps the haunting memory of the death of his parents as a symbol for what he stands for, and a drive (at least, one of the driving forces) for what he is doing, standing up as a symbol for justice, order and law, the Joker simply have chosen to forget his past. The comic books has never pin point a steady Joker back story. And although modern writers and comic fans have embraced the Moores backstory of Joker in the Killing Joke (read it, okay? I cant describe everything in here) as the primary version, there are other school of thoughts who prefer not knowing about his backstory (Nolans version of Joker) or has told a pretty different backstory altogether. (Again, read!)

The important thing here being even Joker loves not trying to understand or remember whatever happened in his past life. To sum up his thoughts in his own words:

You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up as a flying rat? You had a bad day, and it drove you as crazy as everybody else... Only you won't admit it! You have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there's some point to all this struggling! God you make me want to puke. I mean, what is it with you? What made you what you are? Girlfriend killed by the mob, maybe? Brother carved up by some mugger? Something like that, I bet. Something like that... Something like that happened to me, you know. I... I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! But my point is... My point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was, I went crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you? I mean, you're not unintelligent! You must see the reality of the situation. Do you know how many times we've come close to world war three over a flock of geese on a computer screen? Do you know what triggered the last world war? An argument over how many telegraph poles Germany owed its war debt creditors! Telegraph poles! It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... it's all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? (The Joker, the Killing Joke)

He wants us to realize that life itself is a bad joke, theres no rational or logic in this life. All of all our point of existence is meaningless. Instead, of going on rambling about what life is to Joker, (which I can totally do, pm me maybe?) Im going to use a few quotes:

You see we all got what I call a life trap, a gene deep certainty that things will be different… that youll move to another city and meet the people thatll be the friends for the rest of your life… that youll fall in love and be fulfilled… fulfillment… and closure whatever those two empty jars to hold this storm. Nothings ever fulfilled, not until the very end. And closure. Nothing is ever over.

He wants us to believe that life is nothing and shouldnt be taken seriously Why so serious? (The Joker, the Dark Knight)

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. (Tyler Durden, Fight Club)

The Joker realizes that after any loss, he realizes theres nothing to this life except chaos and violence, and madness and joke is the only way to enjoy this life as long as we are here. And we are just one step away to lose our sanity and go into this place of madness.

Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away…forever. (The Joker, the Killing Joke)

Ysee, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little…push. (The Joker, the Dark Knight)

This is the foundation block of their relationship, each one wants to prove to the other that theyre correct in their own way. Batman wants to prove Joker that theres always a way out, and wants to help him out, towards rehabilitation (order) while Joker wants to prove it to Batman that life is meaningless and we all need to embrace chaos and violence (with a smile) in order to survive this life.

You just couldnt let me go could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible arent you? You wont kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I wont kill you, because youre just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever. (The Joker, the Dark Knight)

So, the bottom line is we are fighting our own battles, now its for us to decide which side to pick up: the lonely, dark, brooding figure of Batman, or the funny, colorful and mad Joker: Whatever, you do choose, has its consequences.

To sum up this whole article, I have but two more quotes:

See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum... and one night, one night they decide they don't like living in an asylum any more. They decide they're going to escape! So, like, they get up onto the roof, and there, just across this narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in the moon light... stretching away to freedom. Now, the first guy, he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend didn't dare make the leap. Y'see... Y'see, he's afraid of falling. So then, the first guy has an idea... He says 'Hey! I have my flashlight with me! I'll shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk along the beam and join me!' B-but the second guy just shakes his head. He suh-says... He says 'Wh-what do you think I am? Crazy? You'd turn it off when I was half way across!(Joker, the Killing Joke)

Either be Batman or be Joker. Dont be a hybrid. Either try to run the world or burn the world. But, whatever you do, do it big!

P.S.: I realized that I didnt open about myself at all, so if you loved this article, maybe next time, I will explore the darkness inside of me? What do you all think?

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