by Rick London

I am a 53-year old man who has been declared officially disabled for almost a decade now. I never really cared much for labels, but if our society deems it important for governmental reasons to put one on me, then, indeed, that’s me.

My career-life had been spotty at best. Though I mainly worked in sales and marketing, I took low to mid-level jobs in large city media just to have a challenge. Sales was boring for me, and eventually media became so too. It got to where I could not even smile at the boss coming into work every morning. More and more coworkers noticed my “depression” I was finally called into the office for my expected pink slip.

Now I had a lot of time on my hands so I began studying depression. It did not take me long to discover a disease called “TRD” or labeled by the psychiatric community, “treatment resistant depression”. I was one of the few lucky ones who received the only treatment for it, a vagus nerve implant. You see, TRD is actually not a mental illness, in and of itself, but a faulty vagus nerve, of which I had, will mimic the signs of depression, lethargy, etc. After I received the treatment, my life took dramatic changes. Except for one major heart attack in 2001, angioplasty, and recovery, everything else was going swimmingly well.

Though I have played “catch-up” for the past near decade, working day and night on my projects and college, some people continue to lable me disabled, which to me, is a good thing. It reflects more on them than it does me. If I’m disabled, what on earth are they? I am happy to say, we live in enlightened times and most are not that way. But some are and I guess will always be so. I cannot change them, nor do I want to, if it gives them comfort and a feeling of superiority. I have found that the Internet has leveled the playing field. I say that a bit facetiously and with a bit of sarcasm, because, during my “depressed state”, I was keenly aware of the discrimination targeted my way, though those who were being discriminating were not aware of my awareness. I guess they thought people with depression or any disability don’t have any type of consciousness when actually we are, for the most part, super-sensitive to the environment around us.

My darkest days were when I left the corporate world never to return. I felt like a horse being put out to pasture. I felt it was truly over. I didn’t have a clue at the time it was only the beginning, finally, probably for the first time, a real beginning, a real chance to live.

I am not certain if one would call me a “master of the Internet, certainly not a guru by any means, but I have gotten much insight into how it works over the past few years. Penniless, I launched Times Cartoons which in less than a decade became the most visited offbeat cartoon site on the Internet (and still is). It’s Alexa rankings grow daily and by the end of this month we will have had 9 million visitors within the past two years. That may not sound like much but for a cartoon site it is. Most cartoons on the Internet last from 3-6 months and the others are gone within a year. Every day, or nearly so, I receive an Email asking me what I would charge for a full SEO campaign.

These past 16 months, I’ve launched two cartoon Superstores and six niche funny gift shops. Sales remain brisk. I have affiliates through my manufacturer 3drose, many of them on Amazon and they sell plenty as well. I create all sorts of products with my cartoons on them; greeting cards, t-shirts, hoodies, key chains, coffee mugs, beer steins, wall and desk clock, baseball caps, and, you name it, we make it. All this is due to research on the Internet and making phone calls. Oddly enough, a disabled person, and that person is me, can write a lucid, professional email, talk on the phone professionally, create a social network and blog professionally, and write articles, hopefully professionally. The old boy network, who was once so involved in keeping a stigma attached to depression and/or disability is out of the picture now. I have no excuses anymore not to succeed. I now have the choice to pick and choose with whom I deal, and I choose to deal with intelligent fair-minded people who want everyone to have a fair chance to succeed. They are usually more educated than me and that is okay. From them, I learn the most.

I feel al little like a major-leage work-at-home capitalist at times. I come up with a cartoon idea for a certain product, call my manufacturer, he makes it, puts it online, sells it on Ebay or Shop.com or Amazon, and everyone wins. What better business could someone want?

Disabled people, I was told, were not necessarily as inteligent as the norm. That’s okay, I just finished three years at a top-notch accredited business college online, at age 52. I am 53 now and will complete my coursework next year and if all goes well, my masters. I will use the Internet once again. Why waste time with people who are more concerned with “labeling” me so as to put parameters on my limitations, than those who know me just as a person and helping me succeed. I am not saying a depressed or disabled person should hide behind his or her computer all day, I spend a great amount of time my day being and working with people, handing out business cards, going on talk shows, and doing as much as I can in the public. I teach free Internet workshops to the elderly, many of them shut-ins.

This week has been a busy one. I have opened three new online niche stores featuring my cartoon products; Justfunnymousepads, Justfunnycoffeemugs, and Justfunnygreetingcards, not to mention two weeks ago when I created the first cartoon maternity shop mirthgirthbirth.com and of course my ten year old cartoon site that I started from ten years go in a metal warehouse in Mississippi, Londons Times Cartoons at londonstimes.us .

Labeling a person with an illness or disability is non-productive for everyone. Persons with mental illness or disabilities are the only of the population labeled by his/her illness or disease? If a person has cancer, we don’t say “He’s cancerous”, or if a person has diabetes, I’ve yet to hear, “There goes Mr. High Blood Sugar!”. But if a person has depression, 100% of the time “He/she’s depressed” or “has depression” or “mental illness”. That usually puts an end to the conversation as the stigma remains and many don’t want to know much more. That is unacceptable.

It might do them good to go to some of the famous people with depression websites such as http://www.geocities.com/coverbridge2k/artsci/famous_people_depression.html , or http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/illstandbyyou/famous.html . I am always surprised to see my name on each of the pages. There are hundreds of them; simply google “famous people with depression”. My name generally appears below Abraham Lincoln and Elton John, two others labeled with this disability.

About the Author:

Cartoonist Rick London has overcome many obstacles, and has some of the most visited humor-based websites on the Internet. His latest niche cartoon site is Just Funny Greeting Cards Disabled cartoonist Rick London opens yet another niche shop, cartoon greeting cards