Bloodsucking Misery: On Depressed Vampires
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As what I am rapidly beginning to see as an Old Suicidal Person (I didn't think I'd make it to 18; I'll turn 41 this year), I am increasingly frustrated by the simplicity of what works. People, love, laughter. Living isn't complicated, that's what makes it hard. If there was a fiddly, complex, complicated answer to how to live, we'd all do it. But it CAN be done, and it can even be good, even if it's hard.
Oh man yesss I'm almost mad that what has """cured""" my depression has just been... continuing to live? Aging? I just turned 36 and my mental health is leagues better than it was at 16, even if depression never really goes away and I'll still have episodes.
Yeah, people (most of all other people), but also being kept busy with simply paying the rent (and/or helping others do the same), and actively distracting oneself with [whatever works for you] also passes the time. "I don't know how, but it's gonna get better next year/in the future/sometime" has become somewhat of an unwitting mantra for me. And lo, it will be 9 years(!) past my self-imagined expiration date this year.
@ I kind of did the opposite - spent 20 years raising a kid at home and now I'm disabled, so a ton of my time has been spent on thinking and therapy instead of work.
Congrats to you!
Live, laugh and maybe even Love I guess
As someone who has also had a lifelong fascination with vampires, I found this perspective absolutely fascinating, because I've always felt the exact opposite way about the immortality. I think in general I'm ruled by more anxious than depressive tendencies, and I've always had an intense fear of death, or of dying before I was ready for it. I've always been so enticed by the idea of living forever, being able to slow down and experience everything the world has to offer without a ticking clock. I think the inevitable ennui never fazed me because it made suicide the only option. You get the ultimate control over when and how you die, and the ultimate control over how you spend hundreds of years of life. Loved hearing this other perspective. (From someone who only ever felt an inense jealousy for Bella in Twilight)
This was also me 😂
Yes agree❤ i would want immortality
you summed up my feelings perfectly. i always loved the idea of being able to just step outside and watch your last sunrise whenever you decided you were finally done living the life you wanted in exactly the way you wanted to live it. (since y'know vampirism also brings with it many "gifts" in the form of neat abilities!)
Energy cannot be destroyed, it only changes form. Death is an illusion. Sidenote, you might enjoy this recent video by an excellent channel ref the history and etymology of the term Vampire: th-cam.com/video/O7CsRZK_yL4/w-d-xo.html
Same, I was just talking abt this with my friend, but I feel kinda naive for thinking that an eternity to live would be relaxing, not depressing. Maybe I’m too young for ennui to hit me, but the idea of having done everything under the sun just sounds absurd to me. In the past century, humans have cooked up so many new things to do, and my only problem is a lack of time and money to do it.
Can you tell that money problems have plagued me since toddlerhood ? So much of my life has been spent anxious over getting enough to eat and missing out on things. I didn’t realize how much anxiety ruled me, I always assumed that my vice was depression, until I had therapy. Doing dishes and laundry everyday for the rest of eternity isn’t daunting to me the way it is for other people with depression, but the idea that I might never get to the point where I feel safe and secure is what depresses me. I hate living so much of my life unsure of where to step without it blowing up in my face.
Vampires have lifetimes to accumulate money and improve themselves, to learn where to step, and I envy that.
new life changing video dropped, can't wait to have my perception of most pieces of media changed.
it feels so bittersweet to feel so seen by other young people who grew up seeing themselves as some scourge to be wiped away when really all we were was overly self-judgemental and self deprecating little kids who didn’t have the right tools to see the bigger picture. It’s hard to choose walking in to the light on the days you want to be burnt to ash, but theres no beating the warm kisses of the sun after not seeing her for a while. poignant stuff. i love u forever yhara
I've been in the, "I don't want to die but don't really want to live either," camp for a depressingly long time.
I think the reason that emo vampirism worked for me as a teen with a mental health imbalance was that mine never tipped fully into suicidality, but that vague “like I don’t want to disappear completely but I do wish I could just… stop existing and be in a black void for like an indefinite time and then come back when I’m “better,” that would be cool”
Like a real long nap basically. I think those emo vampires are gifted with the luxury of time to more or less do that. There’s a bit in the Breaking Dawn book where they mention that time dilation, where the vampires have to train themselves to blink and breathe and act human because otherwise they could fixate on something with their vampire sight and just… sit there, unmoving, for a reeeeeeeaaaaaal long time. As close as I can imagine getting to the way my depressive desires manifested. That part really stuck out to me as a thing I could viscerally imagine and want more than anything in that book series lmao
On the plus side, after a very sudden and sharp downturn during college that was HORRIBLE for about a year, I’ve balanced out to what I assume is basically “normal.” I don’t have the depressive episodes, I don’t wish to drop into that life-pause void (but I do wish I could sleep in an extra hour or so most days), but I definitely feel a disconnect from the positive emotions that I see “normal” people have. I don’t think I’m enjoying the highs, but I don’t dive as deep into the lows. 🤷🏼♀️
I’m glad there’s those of us still here. Sending love to those who didn’t make it.
That was deep. Thank you for sharing with us. I don't really have an answer or anything, but for anyone who feels depressed, I get you, I hope you have all the support you deserve and need, and I'm sending you a massive hug. Nothing wrong with you.
As a depressed and s*icidal teen, I loved vampire lore not because I wanted to be one - but because I felt like I already was one. I hated the sun with a passion (sensory issues, who knew) and felt like I'd been alive for centuries and seen it all, and essentially I just wanted to d*e already and get it over with. Only Lovers Left Alive is one of my favorite movies, but I related in the same way to movies about world-weary dr*g addicts who felt they had nothing to live for. Both types gave me the same mirror I needed which ironically kept me alive. I'm medicated now and not so much of a fatalist, but I still find these characters very relatable.
I haven't finished the video yet, but in the first 4 minutes I think you succinctly put into words my own preoccupation with vampires, not something I think I was ready to admit to myself. I know this is already going to be a great video, but just wanted to thank you for your work, you and you still being here.
My teens were full of anxiety and depression. Couldn't pay me enough to go back to that time. Learned about twenty years later I was also an undiagnosed autistic teenager.
Immortality has always terrified me. If my forever life would be similar to my regular one, with my chronic pain and so on... Thanks, but no thanks. Being autistic without knowing about it made me definitely feel like a monster, or like an alien trying to pass like a normal person. Was never suicidal per se, but also weirdly looked forward to the day when all the emotional pain would be over. Getting to the age when the brain was finally finished developing was very strange to me. Noticed I felt way more stabilized after than I had been before. Wish I had known that when younger. There was a light in the tunnel, after all.
Strangely, I have also always liked vampire and various monsters stories. The more humanized, the better.
Your videos are some of my all time favorite pieces of philosophical art. You make me laugh, and cry, you take the words out of my mouth while simultaneously bringing up things I hadn’t thought about before. Thank you so much for taking the time and doing what you do, please don’t ever stop sharing your art with us.
The homeschooled adolescent urge to obsess over the beatles is strong. I can't explain it, but it's strong.
Your parents are some of the only people you know so you want to know what was cool when they were your age? Because your parents are almost like peers, but they are not peers, not what about back when they were more like peers? What was cool and how could you fit in with them and their gang?
@therabbithat this might be true for some people! My parents were not big Beatle fans, and I had a lot of social circles for a homeschooler (theater, gymnastics and dance, writing groups, book clubs and learning co ops.) it's a good theory though!
The interview with the vampire to show is such a beautiful take on the suicidal vampire to me, the entire thing being such an honest portrayal of a brutal and awful life but with the assertion that vampirism is in some ways a gift and it is his responsibility to keep living for everyone he has had to leave behind
It was always so hard for me to really explain why I loved vampires to anyone that I know, especially as a child, I first watched twilight at eight years old. With struggles of depression throughout my life these stories always felt like a comfort because of the twisted relatability, I felt. Much like a lot of other people especially in this comment section lol. Thank you for making this and really contextualizing the complex feelings and sharing it with all of us. 🖤
This video was beautifully excruciatingly relatable. I had a complicated contradictory relation to vampires, the deep abiding fear of immortality due to the death drive as you described but also a painful desire for change, to escape the miserable life I was trapped in and have the power to no longer be victimized. It was only long after I realized that desire to be something beautiful and strange and not as I was born was an expression of my need to transition. I related deeply to Bella in my brief attachment to that mess of a series, both understanding and being deeply frustrated by our mutual depression. Mingled with an also suppressed knowledge of my lesbianism I found myself wishing she would run off with Alice, changed and forever with another woman who loved her. Partly because I also so desired to be wanted. I realize now that some of the desire to be a vampire was also partly a drive towards no longer existing, to ending what I was. I too felt like a monster that everyone would be happier if I just wasnt there anymore. I never realized how wrapped up my obsession with vampires was in my own struggles with depression, so thank you for that. That struggles not gone but I have definitely gotten better at fighting, more motivated to be, partly because I have changed and I am lucky enough to have friends and a girlfriend who remind me that I am wanted, that stepping into the sun wouldn't be so noble. I hope you have people who make you feel similar 💜
I am so glad you mentioned Thirst, that movie was sooo good. Not many know about it, but it's just so beautifully made ugh
As someone who went through a bout of active suicidal ideation last year, Eve's point about Adam constantly brooding and being in his head stopping him from seeing the beauty of the world really resonates with me. It was ironically how I got through my difficult time. Surrounding oneself with people you care for and who care for you goes a long way in getting out of those brooding tendencies.
It's unrealistic that in all the vampiric depictions of depression we haven't seen a single vampire get really into online gaming.
recently started therapy for the first time & i'd never realized how depressed i could be, i'd only been able to identify the anxiety issues. the dread of immortality & the relief of knowing life ends you expressed is, perhaps unfortunately, super relatable to me so a lot of this really resonated. here's to us & everyone like us making it through, one day at a time.
As a lifelong vampire enthusiast who's favorite film of all time is Only Lovers, I deeply deeply appreciate this video and thank you so so much for making it. I got very emotional reflecting on the tragic beauty of depressed vampires and it deepened my appreciation for the dynamic between Adam and Eve.
What a beautiful video! This one hits really, unbelievably close to home. I felt the same way you did with my own undiagnosed bipolar depression. Thank you so much! 🥺🖤
The bit about betrayal because they don't follow through with suicide hit me harder than I expected it to. I didn't really have a vampire kick beyond Let the Right One In, but I definitely had a strange attraction to suicide related movies when I was younger. And I often had the same feeling when, by the end of the movie, the protagonist would find a reason to continue living.
It reminds me of Mark Fisher's writing on depression where he says, "The depressive is always confident of one thing: that he is without illusions." There was something within me telling me that suicide was the logical solution. And when one of these movies would depict anything I could recognize, it would feel strange for it to not end with what felt like the truth. Like I would have to reckon with the idea that there was something other than rationality within me that led me to that conclusion.
Odd to share the ideation for the first time under a youtube video about vampires but
a really powerful, vulnerable piece. and it gave me some new really interesting movies and writing to check out. well done!
This video inspired a story I'm working on about a vampire trying to protect the last remnants of humanity in a cramped, crumbling fallout shelter. It was also inspired by my experience parenting during lock-down.
my heart can't beat unless you tell it to!!!! truly one of my favorite vampire movies, never see it referenced, wish more people would see it
My computer BSODed right after the line "I found solace in the most uncomfortable situations." Clearly it related...
Great video! It really spoke to me on a personal level about something I, you, and a lot of people struggle with. I have to watch some of these films so thanks for including them. Also glad you're still here and that you still make videos because that means you're making my and so many others day! Thank you!
Yhara Zayd just continuing to cement herself as my favorite goth youtuber.
u need to watch interview with a vampire series.
you know what? i have delayed long enough. starting it now
lowkey was wondering where 🖐🏾 Louis was 👀 lol YAY!!!
@@Yharazayd !! Yesss
@@Yharazayd literally was going to comment the same, I hope you enjoy, it has been a worthy obsession.
@@Yharazaydfuuuuck yeeeesssss
This was beautiful. Lately I've been feeling a lot of the angst you related feeling and its been difficult to walk back from it, but it is a very self fulfilling mindset. I can't get any better while stuck feeling as though there is no better to be had at all
You've got to make the vampire depressed because otherwise people treat them like superheroes with controversial dinner plans, and are all like "sign me up, here's my neck."
I noticed all the twilight on your letterboxd and wondered what whas going on with that! Excited to watch this :)
Sorry for this silly comment, compared to the significance of the video and the value of your work, but I'm really happy you've talked about Only Lovers Left Alive beacuse it's not really that much talked about, even in regards to Jarmusch filmography, and it is in fact my favorite movie ever, even if I don't fully realize why yet, for sure on a surface level because of the cinematography, which to me is unbelievable and it is fundamental in my opinion to the relevance of the story, it's not just a matter of aesthetics. And you gave me a new perspective because I had never thought about it in relation to the broader context of the recurring character of the sucidal vampire. You gave me a really insight there and a lot to think about as always. Thank you!!
Hearing her say she got into Twilight to make friends made me feel very Paternal. Bless her little heart.
i’ve never seen any of these movies but i relate to the sentiment of this essay a lot. despite everything-the therapy, and meds, and the passage of time-depression and isolation are still very common states for me to be in.
can i recommend to you a novel about vampires?
it’s a gothic lesbian romance by samara breger called “a long time dead.” i’d say it’s more about evolution and the cycle of trauma than it is about depression and suicidal ideation, but those ideas are very much much present too. it’s vampires, after all.
i actually only discovered this book 2 weeks ago, and i flew through it in basically one sitting bc it was too good to put down. now i’m reading it again to annotate it, it was so good. i may even write something about it at some point, some day, maybe.
these are the book’s content warnings from the author’s website:
Blood, gore, on page sex, violence, horror elements, referenced previous emotional abuse, PTSD
escaping into stories is about the only thing that’s ever kept me sane, and i’m clinging to them now more than i have in years (i hope it doesn’t become too maladaptive a coping mechanism this time).
you keep the lights on too, yeah? there’s so many more stories to read out there
Having thought about vampires and depression for decades, I found Vampire Junction pretty interesting as the only story I've found where the ancient vampire goes to therapy lol (very dark book though, don't read if you don't want to engage with some very heavy topics).
Wow, this is probably one ,if not, your best work so far. You haved definitely filled and surpassed the void Lindsey Ellis has left on TH-cam in terms of truly deep and expert media analysis. Btw I keep Lindsey in one of the highest places for media analysis. Thank you for your amazing work.
This is a very beautiful video. And I’m glad I saw it. Even though I don’t comment too much on a lot of videos. I have to say that you always make a very interesting videos and I’m glad that they always come from your heart as well as make me seek out media and become amazed by it as a work of art. And also critical too. anyway, great video.
I'd love to be a vampire just to have enough time to know how to live (I'm 57 and barely have a clue). I share many of your feelinga and I'm glad we've gone trough that line of thinking to the other side at light at the end of the tunnel and living to tell the tale. Beautiful video, as usual!! Love from Latam!!!
In a series of beautiful Yahra Zayd essays that give me a whole new perspective on life,this is the most beautiful yet. Thank you
You are not, nor have you ever been, a waste. Thank you so much for staying.
I don’t struggle with depression. But my teen angst (turning out to be anxiety, haha) loved and empathized with vampires extremely. And thank you for the love for Only Lover’s Left Alive.❤
A bit random but I’m sick of vampire stories about them pursuing precocious young women. I want a story about a beautiful brooding vampire that falls in love with an elderly woman who loves life and lives it to the fullest.
Maybe I’ll write it
2:35 WILD place to find a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend reference.
My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To was such an engaging watch. 10/10 made my heart hurt :')
OW this video hurt (this is a compliment; everything you talked about was deeply relatable to me).
Beautiful video, thank you! 💛
You managed to articulate the same feelings I've always had about vampire stories.
Also looking forward to watch all these movies you talked about!
I love the references you bring to us💜
Loved the video and thanks for sharing this about yourself. I’m glad Only Lovers Left Alive grew on you. It manages to capture the dark side of immortality and the love of life even in difficult times.
Great video as always. As someone who has struggled with depression and suicidal ideation since adolescence, this video really resonated with me.
this hit so close to home. thank you for doing what you do
🥰🥰 You're so real, raw, and vulnerable 🫂🫂🫂
It's very difficult to explain to people what it means to not want to keep on living. Not so much to die, just living being the issue. Even when you're functioning. even when things are ok, there's still there's inherent knowledge that things are just not right. This is a very interesting perspective in that these stories are about that living being the massive crux of a vampire's existence. They are "dead" therefore dying is besides the point. Living is the issue.
I'm glad I'm still here, but that feeling has never left me. My friends and family still don't understand and they likely never will, and that's ok. I'm glad there are people out there who do understand that strange and sad juxtaposition of being completely aware that dying is not the answer but living is still a lot more tough than it should be.
i never understood why i resonated with your content so much until today. thank you.
I loved your blink twice review, I'd love to hear your opinion on Nosferatu if you've seen it!
Growing up isolated led me to similar ways of thinking. Thank you.
I already liked your vids but the second you said the first The Haunted Mansion movie was one of your favorites I was like "finally someone gets it!"
as a person who has a fascination with vampires since a very young age this video is interesting. after experiencing grief for the time as a kid I remember loving the thought of vampires bc I hated the seeing a loved one die and wished we could live forever. also being a lonely bullied girl who looked different and called a monster vampires were that hauntingly beautiful comfort.
i think this might be my favorite video on the internet
so beautiful + personal, i really treasure your work
Thank you for making this video. Your work is important.
Lovely video, as someone who was diagnosed with clinical depression also you hit it outta the park.
Also, can was have your thoughts on the two seasons of the latest interview with the vampire series. I personally loved it and can’t wait for season 3.
I get so giddy every time you post ❤❤❤❤
So glad someone else also loves The Haunted Mansion 🙏
40 mins into struggling my way through Helter Skelter, and we are treated to a timely video drop. 🙂
I'll restart your fave, Helter Skelter, when I'm in the right headspace for it.
Can you list and time stamp the movies you mention in the comments in the future please? That way we can avoid spoilers and skip the ones we haven’t seen. Love your content!
My obsession with vampires came from my fear of being alone. That is what Immortality always symbolized for me, loneliness for eternity.
I'm glad you're still here. Thank you ❤
It's so much worse that Claudia is like 5 or 6 in the book!
This is such a mood. Thanks for giving me a chance to corroborate on depression with this. And, vampires.
Girl, same here. I was so unpopular in middle school when these books dropped, so I started reading them to try and connect with my peers. I didn’t even bother with seeing the last 2 Breaking Dawn movies because I had finally abandoned my superficial liking of it. I was way more sincerely into The Vampire Diaries and the other similar series written by L. J. Smith.
A lot of what you said about Thomas and their experience of the world in depression for me, just resonates with natural consequence of homeschooling. Isolation does strange things to growing brains
That was a beautiful essay. The last line was perfection.
Ohhh my… thank you for sharing so much with us but damn, just wait until you do the video for Robert Egger’s Nosferatu! Can’t wait for your take on that one. Your videos are great work. I wish all the best comfort and prosperity to you.
Castlevania is both too new and not nearly willing enough to wallow in it's own misery enough to fit into this discussion, but I love how it handles this. The original sin of vampires isn't something simple like "needing to eat humans to survive", no, it's an inability to change. Lisa manages to change Dracula, but it's all obviously positive change. Then she dies. What happens when you've known nothing but immortal stagnation, and mortal growth? Your growth dies, you have no clue how to gain anything ever again. Dracula refuses to go back because obviously, but he cannot forgive or move on because vampires do no know how to properly grieve. He does seek revenge, but it isn't for the sake of vengeance. It's to burn the world down with him. He is utterly unstoppable too. He decides the world will burn until there's no one left for him to feed on, then he'll die. N one can stop him. Our heroes utterly fail, their fight against him is a beatdown. Until he starts beating his son to death in his own bedroom. He realizes he doesn't want to kill his son, and he cannot burn the world down without erasing Lisa's memory or the greatest thing they built together (Adrien), so he helps his son kill him. Seasons later, Lenore looses her power and is unable to change to value the man she loves (who she also r ped, castlevania is messed up) or see that in the long term imprisonment is nothing, the walls of any fortress will rot before she dies. She is utterly incapable of change. Her two lesbian besties (not into her, she's a straight r pist) learn to change, and abandon their seat of power to find something else, but Lenore is completely attached to how things were. She walks into the sun.
thank you for another great video.
what you were saying - it made me wonder what you think about altered carbon. the meths don't die and they lose their humanity because they just go on forever.
Fantastically researched and presented video. Very touching.
love your work as always
First day of classes today and I need to unwind ❤❤
Loved the video!! Thank you for your vulnerability❤
Fanfic Luminosity of Twilight was so much my jam as an anti-tw8light girl. The premise is that Bella very much doesn't want to die, and is very very rational. It ends up similar (not inherently in love with Edward at first but knowing he is with her, how can she use that?) And seeing the changes is so gratifying (including putting boundaries down on certain things)
Might have walked into the sun after watching this
Bravo! ❤ Beautifully put. 😊
watched this before my morning shift bad idea bawling my eyes out at 6 am is not the best
Babe wake up, Another Yhara zayd video just dropped!
Haunted Mansion is still underrated. Rewatched it as an adult, still good !!🎉
Thanks for the video Yhara, definitely needed this after the week we've just had
Humanist vampire is such an underrated movie
Thank you for this one
The Crazy Ex-girlfriend clip is ✨perfection✨ I quote that line more often than I probably should
Didn't even look at the title before I clicked
This quarter is doing damage to my brain and I gotta get my intake (of your voice)
Will watch later, leaving a comment now for the algorithm!
Fantastic video. Any chance of dropping a full list of the movies featured? (Even the ones that you just used clips from but didn't mention directly). Would love to explore some of them!
I think you're going to love Romero's movie called Martin
Goddamn. This really could not have come at a better time for me.
I've been struggling with some really, truly, awfully horrendous depression this year. And at the same time, been working on a project, a comic that follows an immortal barbarian wandering the world and beating up monsters. (It's pretty silly for the most part.) But one of the things I decided early on is that she's not the only one who's immortal...everyone is. And instead of being haunted by that immortality, everyone just accepts it for what it is, and does the only thing they can do: go on living. (Although it probably helps that they *can* die of disease or injury.)
I wrote it that way, I think, as a challenge to myself and my own beliefs about immortality. To try to see the beauty and the wonder of it, and in a lot of ways, the people in my story have become like elves as a result. But they could just as easily be viewed as vampires, and I love the thought of how Eve simply *being* is enough to pull Adam from his depression, or at least to relax the weight of it on his shoulders. Because that's what ultimately does make life worth living, is other people, the surprise and wonder and confusion and pain and joy they create that we can't ever fully predict.
I wonder if anyone has examined/compared depictions of vampires and ennui with depictions of elves. There are some similarities I can see in Tolkien - immortality gives many of the elves the opportunity to commit every crime and to make every mistake. And some of them seem to suffer under the despair/ennui of having to see everything they love fall to ruin.
Thank you for your love of The Haunted Mansion Movie (2003)! I also love it, and most people hate it. Say it loud and proud!
I’m surprised there was no reference to Midnight Mass.
there probably would have been if i had seen it but alas i tend to be ignorant to a lot of shows
Your into something so deep here. Wow. I love it
I think you just changed my life