Hello
I live. I wouldn't be up to talk much about the past year, but i'd be up to slowly post some art
It was an overwhelmingly good year for me. From June to now. I just don't think i want to go balls-deep into it. I don't mean to say it was a carefree vacation - it was great and hard and it was worth it. I achieved and started some things that are crazy to me, in a good way. I really needed to retreat for a long while, to rethink my life, to be alone in my own head for a while. I continue doing what i've been doing since June (i need to), but i mean to integrate it slowly into a more well-rounded, more sustainable daily routine.
I didn't draw much, but i did draw a little. I still need to keep drawing to a minimum for a while. Personal art specifically. I need to repair my relationship with it, because it's been messed up for the past 10+ years. :T
The global stuff almost didn't affect me at all, almost
I hope everyone had a good... or at least bearable... time, all things considered.
I miss journal emojis
An update on the previous thing.
First of all, i'm still alive. >_>
Secondly, it's better now. I'm going to need to be low/no activity for a little longer.
That's the TLDR version.
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During the past two weeks i haven't drawn a lot, but it doesn't make my anxiety rise, and i don't get flashbacks to that bad night, and i don't get particularly unnerved by the break from drawing, and i haven't had to force myself to have this break.
I discovered something that's been poisoning me for at least 16 years. There is a case to be made that it's been present all my life. We could call it... a falsehood? A concept corruption? ...Fuck that, let's call it Bob. Not necessarily a lie... and nothing like "i actually don't want to be an artist, i was just pressured into it, my life is a lie" , nothing like that. Something more primal/simple? Something older. Something even a baby could process and be harmed by. My brain keeps resisting, it doesn't want to believe that i found something significant. I have to wrestle doubt when i write this entry. About every 4 hours of self-analysis, i get overwhelmed and think that actually i probably overestimate the importance of what i found and i look stupid. I found that meditation quickly and efficiently gets me back on track. Within minutes i realize that it's not bullshit, i simply got overwhelmed because it's genuinely a lot to process. I wake up every day feeling doubt, but go to bed feeling relieved and not doubtful, because in the morning i re-read my notes.
I've been leading a mindfulness/self-discovery journal since 2014. Beside the fact that the entire thing has to be reviewed and rephrased, i also put about 35000 new words into it in 2 weeks and i'm still not done and my brain is still not done bombarding me all day with "remember when...? Yeah. It makes sense now". It feels like cognitive behavioral therapy on steroids. It's exhausting. Can't stop. I don't know why therapists didn't put their finger on... Bob... ever? But i'll probably find that out soon enough. I did figure out that Bob was sabotaging therapy, so that could be partly it. It was sabotaging my self-analysis too, it corrupted meditation, made people with good intentions come off hostile, and it led to my nervous breakdowns and self-harm as well.
So this thing is pushing back very hard. I still have no therapist, i can't discuss if i'm just imagining this shit or if it's valid, i only have myself. I don't want to talk about it to anyone else because i don't trust that it wouldn't backfire, at this early point. The point is it seems to me that it would be best if i minimized my internet usage, so that i can carefully and methodically analyze what does come in, while i also process data that's already got me half-buried under it. Stay away from stressful social media and news, to keep my anxiety level under control. Be well-rested, be hypervigilant for a while, and be with myself. I'll rephrase the entire mindfulness journal, note down all the new insights, reflect on them, evaluate and deal with the self-doubt, and strategize.
I have read everything under the previous journal entry and i've been replying slowly when i felt that i can + should, and i'll continue. All the help given has been valuable to me. I'm sorry for being slow, late and inconsistent. Before, my presence was patchy because i wasn't functioning well, and now it's because i'd really like to do right by myself... which is.. not something i've ever done or decided to do, i think. Sometimes? But it always came with a "but." No buts now.
I hope that by the time i finish digesting this and integrate my conlusions, i'll have enough life left to live and do things i enjoy free of this thing. OTL
It feels like i exorcised a demon from myself. Or broke a decades-old curse. I want to know what it feels like to do my routine things without it, i want to try everything without it. I tried some things out already - without anxiety, guilt or fear. Things that usually come attached to significant feelings of anxiety, guilt, and fear. Field-testing results reassure me that it's not just wishful thinking. My sense of humor is coming back (i didn't notice it was lacking). My voice seems to be coming back (not in the physical sense). When i feel apprehensive, i can stop and defang it. Not meditate it off, or something (i've been doing it wrong anyway)... But properly deal with it. I can do it, repeatedly, with help from my new notes. It's not perfect. It's clunky - they are crutches - but feels good.
To clarify, i'm not "asking for permission to take my time" or anything, i'm letting you know what's up. It felt fair, after the previous journal?
Here's a thing i did a while ago. I'll upload it properly later.
horse balls - i said it so you don't have to
Skip first 3 paragraphs if you are in a low mood (yes this is a content warning).
Some unholy fuck happened in early 2020. Never experienced anything like it before. I was extremely emotional, at all times. Anything and everything made me cry. Even when i felt happy, i cried because of the realization that i wasn't feeling funeral vibes. Everything made me feel extremely deep sorrow, as if someone i loved died, or is dying, or if i was going to die soon and must say bye to things. I went to a Sabaton+Apocalyptica concert, which is pretty metal, and it made me cry, like i was seeing an incredibly moving drama film masterpiece. Who the fuck cries at a powermetal concert?
A few weeks later(?) my anxiety disorder joined in and I was entering a certain dark state of mind that i've been terrified of since about 2014 (i'm not sure but i'll go with 2014 for the sake of brevity). I wrote this out in vivid detail because my brain won't stop putting the scene in front of me. I want to make it sound more emotionally detached, and i half-accomplished it, but i just don't seem to be able to do it to a sufficient degree.
I was in such an intensely bad mood, that one night i just sat for hours, doing nothing but crying, non-stop, not being able to think about anything but my combat knife and of "i don't want to die". The last time i cut myself was in 2014. I knew that i would also cut my self-respect in half if i did it again, but i craved it like you'd crave food after not eating anything for 72 hours. I sat roughly 6 hours just focusing on not knifing myself while imagining how good it would feel to do it. 6 years ago it got to the point where i thought "what if i cut deeper, not to hurt but to kill", and i did not want to get there again. So... i'll skip to the part where i asked a friend if he could talk me out of it and that it worked, because i can't write this shit down without getting my panties in a twist. But I felt like i needed to get it out, in some form.
In hindsight, i thiiink i know what led to that initial funeral mood. (hindsight 2020)
2019 is a year i was proud of. I was having success getting financially stable and socially sufficiently functional, i was on an upward slope more often than not. I thought i was happy. In the meantime, "Drawing Spontaneously And Without Restrictions", my spouse of 20 years, has gradually ceased being attended to. "This is not the time." I tried to schedule it, to fit it with everything else that needs doing. I thought it was working. Slowly i became aware that i'm not getting enough of it, but i pushed forth anyway. I hoped i'd get accustomed to it, everybody else seems to be doing exactly that. (didn't think to think "and everybody is depressed out of their fucking minds")
This has been my main theme song for almost a decade. A little bit of faith in myself leaves my body every time i hit some kind of mental rock bottom due to a failure in this matter. "Congrats, you have achieved financial self-sufficiency! Your prize is an instant nervous breakdown". ...What? Why? I thought i was doing well.
Everything isn't hunky-dory, i'm not Mr/Ms Cheery-Strictly-Brief-Art-Updates, what else is new. I'm... Verbose-Mega-Neurotic-Crazy-Person. Something like that. Howdy!
figuring out how to word all this is not easy
I've been "Drawing Spontaneously And Without Restrictions" for a month or two. I often feel elated, during bedtime I no longer think of what would be a foolproof way to kill myself, i sleep well again, sleep schedule is back to normal (that is, batshit crazy by normal people standards), the combat knife doesn't feel like a me-magnet, i sing like a crazy person along with what i'm listening to while having furious sex with Photoshop. Can't socialize because guilt. I'm afraid if i stop i could get too close again to having thoughts of knives again. I'm afraid to stop. I remember that this is an unsustainable state every time i'm not facing a canvas.
I've been seeing a therapist for a while, but not since the covid curfew. I can't ask what the fuck am i supposed to do. I got diagnosed with Asperger's in early March (two and a half decades late but thanks) where i got anti-depressants prescribed for the anxiety (a decade late but thanks), however i have relevant eye-health issues (which i did not have a decade ago), those make me too anxious to take them. Meditation decreases the high-strung state of mind i've nailed myself to in order stay elated, so i've not been doing it.
That is the gist of why i fell off the face of the Earth THIS time
What do? =,=
What i've also done is isolate myself socially. It's what i tend to do. "You'll talk with people AFTER you sort your shit out ALONE." Trying to find a better way out, my brain sees an opening here (communicate before you are done sorting your shit out, coward). Once i've broken into the walled-off Danger Zone, at that point it usually goes like: "Well i'm... already here... it's been 5 seconds and alligators haven't eaten me alive yet, maybe i could get done what needs to be done in here." I tried breaking in through a different way a few weeks ago, but it barely made me stay inside for a day and my disappointment in myself grew. I only half-understand the key difference between the two openings, and i don't understand enough about this entire situation and i'm even less adept at finding the right way to express what little i do think i know, but i think i do need to express it because it's a source of anxiety and you should headbutt anxiety if you can because it will make it go away, and it would help if i could tell valid anxiety apart from stupid anxiety but i c a n n o t in this state of mind but to get out of this state of mind i need to get rid of anxiety and now the problem is circular.
I also know that other people can break through more... gently... (everyone but me seems to be able to do it more gently) but i'd just like to break through already in any way i can. May i. I've been writing and rewriting this journal for 5 days
I guess what i mean is.. ... uhhhh.. help
https://gumroad.com/whiteraven90
This is just a limited test run, tailored for Christmasy needs. I’ve been meaning to test out Gumroad forever. I’m planning to add both digital and physical products there, long-term.
I’ve limited each print to 5 - that way if something goes wrong i will not go completely bankrupt. If you’d like to have some more print variety, my InPrnt shop has that covered year-round: http://www.inprnt.com/gallery/vassmelinda/
Leave feedback on the Gumroad shop, if you’d like! I’m a complete noob, so if i can do anything to make it better, i will.
Thanks for looking!