Subject: [Your comic] has deeply triggered my OCD

Hi Scott,

I just wanted to reach out to you. I have no malice towards you, and indeed have a tremendous respect for yor talent.

I just wanted to say that The Suit has profoundly disturbed me to a degree that you probably did not intend. I read it months ago, and every morning when I wake, I obsessively recite the last three panels to myself. I think of it throughout the day, and it makes it difficult for me to fall asleep. I can usually go a few minutes without thinking about it, but only very rarely when I'm around people can I ever go even an hour without thinking about it. Even when I'm not thinking about it, I'm thinking about thinking about it. When I'm really in the thick of it, I see the penultimate panel with his eyes every time I make eye contact with someone.

A few days ago, I read it over and over again until I could recite the entire thing. Ever since, I've failed to go a full day without rereading it. Part of me thinks if I just keep reading it, it will eventually no longer scare me.

This obsession has begun to invade my dreams. It's seriously affecting my quality of life. I'm seeking exposure response prevention therapy to move on from this.

I don't know if sending this email will help me. I've imagined you as a reclusive, demonic man to have originated such hideous visions. I think it is a testament to your work's dark brilliance that I've become so deleteriously obsessed with your comic.

I'm seven years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. AA saved my life—I tried to kill myself twice in active addiction—and I've learned that aside from not killing myself, staying sober is my top priority in life. (Your comic has NOT tempted me towards relapse in the slightest—indeed, I'm sure if I were high, these obsessions would be far worse.) In AA, they teach that prayer, meditation, and acceptance can solve most of our problems. I've tried praying "Please make it stop" to make the constant, incessant, intrusive thoughts of your comic finally cease. This has been the most successful method I've found towards alleviating my torment.

My therapist says it's so haunting to me because the thought of having agency around one's body be stripped away is so primordially essential to the trans experience. (I'm transgender.) My psychiatrist likens it to the Shirt of Nessus, and says the story is so powerful because it's thousands of years old. (I'm a classical studies major in college.) Maybe they're right. Or maybe it's just a twisted, disturbing story and I don't want to think about tiny machines feeding my eyes to me all day for months on end.

I don't know what I expect you to say in response to all this. It's just, as I descend further into madness, I've been cursing whatever mad genius created this masterpiece and ruined my summer. So I thought sending this to you might take away some of the power your work holds over me.

Keep making art,
[Parad]

Hi [Parad]

I often write stories that I personally find horrifying as a form of catharsis. The world we live in so bleak and horrifying that I find writing like this a deeply soothing process. Indeed, one of the few processes that allows me to survive living in the world.

I have dealt with depression my whole life, and while I can not fully fathom what it is you are experiencing, I understand how crippling it can be when our own brain seems to be bent on making your life worse. It is a consuming, dreadful experience.

I also know that for me, learning how to cope with it and surviving the experience has been a deeply personal journey; so I can not hope to advise you on ways out of what you are going through.

I can say however, that if you can endure it, then you will survive it. And in years to come you may even vaguely acknowledge that it has made you vastly stronger than most people can imagine.

This is not meant as an excuse, but it is meant admiringly. That you have made it as far as you have: dealing with drinking and your trans journey, and have taken steps to move forward, even like reaching out to me, shows extraordinary courage and perseverance.

Your therapist is right in some ways. The suit is meant to me as a metaphor for the way our capitalist society is eating us alive - and I think that’s encompasses that insight as well.

But [Parad], you’re stronger than a few lines of code - a bunch of dumb algorithms. And that’s all the suit is.

Scott Base.

Scott,

I wanted to wait until I got a full night's sleep before I responded, because I didn't want to say that I was cured prematurely, and the intrusive thoughts are worst when I first wake up. Having just woken up a couple hours ago, I'm here to report that the tormenting visions haven't gone away entirely, but they are infinitely softer and easier to deal with since I read what you wrote.

Thank you so much for your kind words.

Continuing to persevere,
[Parad]