So I sat down today to draw another idea for a mermaid…but whenever I thought about the ocean I fell into a very sad state. I’d bring myself out and start again, only to tumble into dark places in my head. For those of you not plugged in, I’m talking about the BP Oil Spill.

So, instead of fighting sad thoughts I went with them – I felt MUCH better after this sketch, and I already have an idea to draw a cyborg dolphin with a machine gun. Strange how scribblings will ease out feelings from my head and put them on paper.

A thursday thought for the day. This blog post stood out to me because of the honesty that seemed to permeate through the words and the uplifting vibe it left me with.   It deals with a common but possibly debilitating condition: depression. When you have a moment, I recommend you read it. If you know someone who suffers from depression, or if you do, there are many others too. There is always help, you aren’t alone. You matter.

Here is an exerpt:

<To read the full article click here>

I feel like I’ve crawled out of a very dark and deep hole, clawing the earth with bruised and broken fingers on my laborious ascent. To say that I found motherhood an adjustment would be the grossest of understatements—the ground opened up below me and swallowed me whole as I fell, Alice/Persephone/Innana-like, skirts ballooning, into the worst hell I’ve ever known. No one tells you how difficult taking care of an infant is, how the intolerable sleep deprivation and the endless divination of the needs of an inconsolable creature who cannot tell you what it wants will tax every last reserve of strength, dragging you to the brink of sanity before smashing you on the rocks of utter madness.

I’ve written about my history with depression before. When I became pregnant last year, my doctor weaned me off the antidepressants that had been so pivotal in my functioning as a normal, productive human being. So when the full fury of post-partum depression slammed into me just days after I first cradled my newborn daughter, I was completely armorless, like a burn victim without any protective skin…