Oh Hey! It’s Alyssa #13: Life on Loop

“Oh Hey! It’s Alyssa” is a biweekly web comic by Alyssa! 

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

A. Andrews

A. is a totally complete incomplete paraplegic and thirty-something hanky-in-the-pocket cartoonist weirdo!

A. has written 69 articles for us.

9 Comments

  3. I love this series!

    It’s different, of course, but that crazy loop happens with me for depression – sometimes I’ll be in a mood, and I don’t know if I’m having a single bad day, or I’m about to enter a nine-month slump where everything will look grayer and my extracurriculars and casual friends will drop off the cliff? It’s a little scary not knowing.

    <3

    • Me too. There’s always that impending doom in the back of my mind. I might be ok now but will I go into a tailspin of emptiness and despair? I used to never make long term plans or anything that required a long term commitment because I was always afraid I couldn’t fulfill it. Now I just take care of myself and try to enjoy the moment. It really does suck not knowing if I’m going to wake up some time next week and feel that darkness. I dread it.

    • I feel ya! And when I’m in the middle of the depression (ahem right now) it feels an awful lot like there’s no point in getting better just to get worse again.

  4. Yesssss. My family (and friends, to a lesser extent) like to ask “why” I get sick again, often in an accusatory manner. “You were just fine, WHY are you sick again?”

    …because I have a CHRONIC illness.

    And when I am feeling well I get almost depressed thinking about how short-lived it will likely be. This comic <3 <3 <3

  5. Ugh this is too real. Especially for my bipolar disorder where every bit of happiness and energy comes with the “oh shit am I going hypo???” paranoia. Because swinging hypo, while generally pretty fun for me personally, can definitely lead to baaaaad decisions and then is usually followed by a big crash into depression (or sometimes the depression comes first and then you don’t notice being hypo until you’re THERE and UP because everything has been happening so much as you stop feeling depressed).

    But also for my chronic pain, but at least for that…it’s only pain that is a thing to be avoided that could signal a crash. I can deal with a negative stimulus potentially signally a crash much better than a positive stimulus because if you let it get to you, you get afraid of being happy.

    • “I can deal with a negative stimulus potentially signally a crash much better than a positive stimulus because if you let it get to you, you get afraid of being happy.”

      Yes. So seldom is anything said about this.

Comments are closed.