As I mentioned in my previously entry How It's Like to Live with Mental Illness, I covered the struggles of having one and trying to survived. Previously I also wrote my experiences in Psychiatrist ward and Inside the Mind of a Bipolar - how bipolar people mind goes.
Who is Song Inkollo? As he self described himself on his social media sites "Gay comic book artist from Nantes, France", Lolo (as Songinkollo referred to himself) is a French comic artist from Nantes and is popularly known for his artwork "Daily Life of a Gay Couple", a webcomic series based on his relationship with his bf Joe. He begin his comic
in 2015 when he was still single with the original title "Daily Life of a Single Gay Men".
While Daily Life of a Gay Couple is light-hearted and relatable to anyone in relationship, Lolo also (and obviously) focus on LGBT issues and struggles, mainly with his family and friends (and sometimes strangers), and again they're usually on highlighted in light-hearted manners which will leave us with some giggles.
Occasionally tho Lolo would touch on heavier subjects within the LGBT community, especially with people coming from countries where LGBT are not acceptable. In early days of his relationship with Joe he would highlighted the struggles they have in the relationship (mainly on Lolo's job as Patreon-based comic artist and Joe's steroid taking to keep in shape which in turn cause them financial and sexual issues respectively).
While he didn't exactly touch on the subject of mental illness, but we ended up following the real struggle living with mental illness through his best friend Nico.
Nicholas or more commonly know as Nico, was first introduced in Issue 63 as a fit, good looking, animal lover (former) veterinarian. This is how Lolo introduced him:
My friend Nicolas lost his job last year and his young boyfriend left him soon after. Now he lives with his dog and two cats in a house in the suburb countryside of Nantes.
While Lolo often acts the comic between him and Joe, Nico would upstage Lolo that made Lolo the straight man (no pun intended).
However as the series progress, a darker side of Nico become clearer and he slowly sunk into depression over his unemployment and fail in relationships.
Despite Lolo and Joe trying their best to help Nico, Nico aggressively rejected them and at one point even hurt Lolo deeply. Luckily Joe is less emotional in handling this matter.
Nico's depression heightened up when his beloved cat dying. At this point Nico also has stopped looking after himself; he gained several pounds and unshaven. While Nico returned to his sense and apologized to Lolo for their previous altercation, Nico also (unfortunately) slowly embracing fatalism.
We drove 40 minutes yesterday and visited Nico in his isolated house in the country side. To our pleasant surprise, he prepared us a nice meal and he actually cleaned his house before we arrived. We had a great time at table. After the meal, we went on a walk...
After while when Nico appeared to be less depressing, Lolo and Joe tried to set up Nico a blind date. Hilarity ensued and we readers could take a big sigh of relief to see Nico back to his old funny self - or so we thought.
During this time Nico's humors getting darker and cynical, most likely his way to cope.
After awhile Lolo stop updating Nico but instead focus on his other friends. During these times many readers (me included) wondered what happened to Nico but I personally assumed Nico either need his space or they just hangout less frequently than before.
In February 11th 2020 however, while Lolo and Joe were having fun hanging out with Eric, Johnny, Zhang and Jamel in Day 732 “Redhead”, Lolo dropped a bomb:
From time to time, I would get a message asking me where was Nico and why was he not in my comics anymore. It's really hard for me to talk about this in a calm and peaceful manner. Also, Joe doesn't want me to talk about this, 'cause everything is traceable on the internet, and if I gave out too many details, people might actually find out who Nico really is. We didn't even tell our friends about what happened to Nico until recently.
Anyway, the short version is that, Nico left France without telling us (and a lot of other people it seems), and he got arrested in another coutry on another continent for some illegal stuff, and he risked some serious jail time. Nothing is certain but we believe that's what ended up happening to him, since nobody ever heard from him for months. I would never never imagined him doing that. It's something that you see in a movie, not in real life. I still questioned a lot what was going on in his head and why he thought it was a good idea to leave everything behind just like that...
It was a mind blowing revelation and we all can only wish the best for Nico. After months passed by with any updates on Nico, we received shocking update from Lolo:
Sadly on July 25th 2020, Lolo announced Nico had passed away at the age of 43.
This is his own word in his Instagram post:
I just learn this morning that my friend Nico has passed away, at the age of 43. We didn’t know exactly the cause of his death, but the message we received from his family stated that “he ended his life the way he wanted”, so we assume it was suicide. My heart is broken. I feel angry and sad at the same time. It is certainly not the way I expected how his story would end. Part of me is still in denial hoping one day he would show up again at our door with a big smile. Depression is a serious illness that could kill people. Sorry for ruining your day with this sad news. We wish you all well.
Depression is indeed a scary thing; you're not in a right mind and we're not completely in control of our mind and actions. What happened to Nico sadly is not exclusive; Depression is a common mental disorder. Globally, more than 264 million people of all ages suffer from depression. Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide and is a major contributor to the overall global burden of disease. I know it's easy said than done, but please try to reach out if you're feeling depressed. I myself battling bipolar since I can remember and it's tough. Seeing what Nico went through scared me. I've been there for most part; I pushed people that care of me, I hurt their feelings, I felt hopelessness, and I even feel like wanting to die at times - a fear that I still have today - the fear that I might end my own life still lingers.
With this I hope people can see that unlike in books and films, depression lingers around for years and more often people with depression appeared very normal in public.
Read Inkollo works at Tapas l Webtoon l Instagram l Twitter l DeviantArt
Thank you very much for writing this article. It brought back to me so much memory. Even though I only chose and drew little bits of my time together with Nico, and I tried to choose the funny moments instead of all the sad and depressing moments, your writing sums up really nicely his journey falling into depression. Now looking back, I regret a lot of things I said to him during his depression (I was very ignorant at that time about this mental illness), but it's too late, hopefully it raises some awareness around depression. May him rest in peace.