Hopelessness and Despair

Hopelessness and Despair is a zine I made in 2016. I created a google form that asked the questions, “what makes you feel depressed?” and “what are the things that make it hard to get out of bed sometimes?” Responses were submitted anonymously and compiled into this zine. The original google form is now defunct, but I am currently collecting responses for volume 2 here: https://forms.gle/v34dwAhh4rcG16jP6

Image descriptions and transcribed text are at the bottom of this page.

Image description: scanned pages of a zine. The pages are lined like penmanship paper. The cover reads, “hopelessness and despair, a practical guide to knowing you’re not alone.” The cover is handwritten with black ink. Inside the zine is more handwritten text, that asks, “What makes you feel depressed? What are the things that make it hard to get out of bed sometime?” Next, is a typed list,m which goes for the next 7 page. It reads:

  • a bad review of something I’ve made

  • a series of small rejections

  • abandonment

  • abusers

  • adults wearing pajamas as pants

  • aging

  • animal cruelty

  • anticipating loneliness

  • assembly lines

  • bad critiques

  • being alone forever

  • being broke

  • being far away from my step-dad as he continues to age

  • being in debt due to student loans for the rest of my life

  • broken fingernails

  • business as usual

  • careers

  • cheap trends

  • colonialism

  • comparing myself to others

  • consumerism

  • cruelty

  • dangerous extremists

  • death

  • death of loved ones

  • deep february sadness that secretly eats you

  • dementia

  • depression

  • due dates

  • environmental apocalypse

  • environmental destruction

  • everyone is going to die

  • expectations for success put on me by others and myself

  • factory farms

  • failing

  • fair weather friends

  • family problems

  • fear of failure

  • fear of missing out

  • fear of the finite nature of my life and the way in which time feels like it’s going by faster every year

  • feeling alone

  • feeling empty

  • feeling inept

  • feeling left out

  • feeling like a bad person for hating clueless, basic people

  • feeling like a failure

  • feeling like a loser

  • feeling like everyone has a best friend that isn’t me

  • feeling like i’m on an endless hamster wheel of chores and work

  • feeling like other people don’t accept my body as it is naturally

  • feeling like someone I love doesn’t feel the same way

  • feeling obsolete

  • feeling overweight

  • feeling stuck in my routine

  • feeling trapped in my job

  • feeling unheard

  • fighting with my parents

  • financial struggles

  • finishing school

  • forever 21 and H&M

  • going to the laundromat

  • grief

  • growing distant, physically and emotionally from my friends

  • guilt

  • having a hard time believing there will be a better future

  • having little to look forward to

  • having to deal with people that have a stick up their asses

  • having to do work I don’t want to do

  • having to face the day and all my thoughts about life

  • hearing about things that are highly unfair or impact innocent beings

  • heart break

  • heroin addicts

  • horrible parents who don’t care about their kids

  • houses that all look the same with too many rooms

  • how everything bought at walmart will be in a landfill in 5 years

  • how to support myself financially until I’m old enough to die

  • human trafficking

  • humans lack of connection to nature

  • I can do nothing to save everyone

  • I said the wrong things and I can’t take them back

  • IBS

  • inadvertently hurting someone I care about

  • inequalities

  • it’s pointless anyway

  • I’m not dedicating my life to dismantling the system where evil people keep all the money and everyone else gets sick and dead and unhappy

  • knowing I’m not going to achieve my goals

  • knowing that boys who do terrible things always be forgiven

  • knowing that extroverts rule the world

  • lack of green space and plants

  • lack of motivation

  • lack of respect and manners these days

  • lack of speaking correctly

  • lacking purpose

  • learning that it’s all total bullshit and it’s all part of the game

  • listening to the news

  • living with no natural light or windows

  • loneliness

  • long distance relationships

  • losing one earring

  • memories of past mistakes

  • men talking over me

  • menstrual cramps

  • meth addicts

  • misogyny

  • missing friends who have died

  • missing my mom

  • money

  • mortality

  • murder

  • my aging

  • my child leaving home

  • my messed up teeth

  • my parents aging

  • my parents’ mental health

  • my participation in consumerism at the cost of the health of the environment and the wellbeing of others

  • my student loan debt

  • my swollen knee

  • my tendency to only fall in love with broken people and what this might imply about me

  • never feeling like there’s enough time

  • never getting the things I try really hard at

  • new Brooklyn

  • new Oakland

  • new San Francisco

  • Nickelback

  • no room to fail

  • not being invited to the cool hang

  • not knowing what you want

  • nursing homes

  • old buildings being removed for progress

  • one day my nana will die and I miss her already

  • our history as animals

  • owning a house

  • past and current america

  • people not being seen for their full potential

  • people only caring about themselves

  • people pushing strong opinions on others

  • period shaming

  • politicians

  • politics

  • prescription amphetamines given to children

  • R Kelly

  • racism

  • rape

  • real winter

  • realizing that the pace of the world is speeding up

  • regrets

  • religious extremists

  • rent prices

  • responsibility

  • retirement

  • seeing the rest of the world have fun via social media

  • self loathing from the past, present or future

  • sexism

  • shitty clothes make in assembly lines that age horribly

  • shopping for pants

  • social security

  • stress because people are looking to see what I do next

  • sub-divisions covering over good farm land

  • suburbia

  • teaching no one who cares

  • that island made out of trash

  • the Mcdonalds on Burnside

  • the aggressively ongoing news cycle

  • the conflict between Israel and Palestine

  • the cost of living

  • the cost of rent

  • the fact that everything dies

  • the failure of the education system to prepare students for life beyond school

  • the futility of our lives when the planet most likely won’t be able to sustain life in the next 100 years

  • the hopelessness of everything

  • the inevitable death of loved ones

  • the moments when I’m almost done finishing a repetitive task

  • the monotony of adult life

  • the number of hours people spend in front of screens

  • the number of people living in poverty

  • the pointlessness of art

  • the presidential debates

  • the suffering of others caused by poverty

  • the way we are so wasteful

  • there is no purpose to human existence except to procreate

  • thinking about the dumb things I said when drinking too much the night before

  • thinking about the future

  • thinking that everything is going to turn out like it did before

  • top 40 countdown on Sunday morning radio

  • treating people like machines

  • Trump

  • trying to make everything look exactly the same

  • unrequited love

  • victim blaming

  • violence, war and hatred in the world

  • watching basic people live their basic lives

  • watching other people with rich parents or comfortable safety nets achieve things I can’t

  • what it means in our society to be a woman who is not %100 perfect looking and how that’s gonna get worse as time goes on

  • what’s the point of life?

  • when I assume too much

  • when friends don’t like eachother anymore

  • when i have no specific cause to focus on

  • when people around me don’t listen

  • when people call me by female pronouns and neither I or any of my friends correct them

  • when the character of the city gets bulldozed for lame highrises

  • white progressives thinking they’re not racists but they are

  • women in short n’ tight dresses with heals that could break an ankle, they looks so uncomfortable and cold

  • wondering if people blame me for things I can’t control

  • work

  • working all the time without having much to show for it

  • worrying that I’ll never be able to speak well and express myself in a professional environment

  • worrying that I’m never going to grow up

Under the last lines of the list is more handwritten text that says Thank you for visiting the bottomless pit of sadness. A black squiggle like the top of a drawing of a tornado illustrates the page.

The back cover reads: list compiled by Michaela Coffield 2016 Portland OR