Andres - click image to enlarge

“Andres”

Caricature – Pencil on paper.

Andres 2 - click image to enlarge

“Andres 2″

Caricature. Pen & Ink on paper. This one was the first sketch of Andres I made.

The Fly - click to enlarge

“The Fly”

Pen & ink drawing.

The Physician - click to enlarge

“The Physician”

Pencil on paper

Curiosity - click to enlarge

Curiosity

Just a sketch.
Pen & Ink on paper.

"Depression" - Click on image to enlarge

The story of “Depression”

A few years ago I suffered from Major Depressive Disorder or simply “Depression” and also anxiety and panic attacks. I don’t know exactly why but I believe it was caused by a stress peak related to a series of events that I had to go through at those times.
It got bad. I stopped working, stopped eating, and ultimately became a crying vegetable. At some point I felt I was actually going crazy. I seeked help and I found a great psychiatrist who put me on medication,… and after a couple of weeks I was back on my feet. I tried to stop taking the medication several times but after a few days I was back at square one.
I finally stopped taking depression pills after 2 years and I still take anxiety pills every day.
Anyway, I think that depression is one of those things in life that you can’t describe or explain. You have to go through them to be able to understand the feeling.  Maybe like childbirth, breastfeeding, a soldier fighting in the war, or loosing a loved one. See, people around you try to help you but they get frustrated because there’s really nothing they can do, it’s chemical. Them, You, everybody try to rationalize it but is useless, you still feel like shit. So one day I decided to try putting what I was feeling on paper. Drawing. Painting. I sketched this drawing on pen and ink,then scanned it and colored it in the computer. The main idea under this image is what I was feeling at the time: no matter how beautiful is the world outside, inside you are dying. By the way, I never got to paint it on canvas.

Some facts I found out about Depression:

Major depressive disorder affects approximately 14.8 million American adults, or about 6.7 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older, in a given year. While major depressive disorder can develop at any age, the median age at onset is 32.
Major depressive disorder is more prevalent in women than in men. As many as one in 33 children and one in eight adolescents have clinical depression.
People with depression are four times as likely to develop a heart attack than those without a history of the illness. After a heart attack, they are at a significantly increased risk of death or second heart attack.
Major depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide among persons five and older.
Depression ranks among the top three workplace issues, following only family crisis and stress.
Depression is the cause of over two-thirds of the 30,000 reported suicides in the U.S. each year.
The suicide rate for older adults is more than 50% higher than the rate for the nation as a whole. Up to two-thirds of older adult suicides are attributed to untreated or misdiagnosed depression.
Untreated depression is the number one risk for suicide among youth. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in 15 to 24 year olds and the fourth leading cause of death in 10 to 14 year olds. Young males age 15 to 24 are at highest risk for suicide, with a ratio of males to females at 7:1.
The death rate from suicide (11.3 per 100,000 population) remains higher than the death rate for chronic liver disease, Alzheimer’s, homicide, arteriosclerosis or hypertension.