#I've been struggling with my mental health recently within the past couple weeks and I've been spiraling really badly

[casually-salad]

Not doing good right now, and probably for a long time, production rate is going to slow down for the cutie pox chronics, I can't keep making comics as large as they are and posting them within a week of starting it. It's not over just assume you're not going to get regular weekly ish updates

[rj-firefly]

Mod post

Hey y'all, I hope everyone's doing good. This is just hopefully going to be a small post but-

I have a lot of stressful shit in my life so I ask everyone to be patient with me with my characters. I am sorry I am not on here as frequently as some people may like.

Some of the stuff that has been sent to my inboxes is never going to see the light of day as it is super hurtful to me, personally. Calling me slurs, berating my mental health and wishing ill on my family is never accepted and okay here. It is not funny or amusing at all.

So I am addressing this right now. I don't want to talk about my personal life, but I am.

In this past year alone we've had a couple deaths in the family, some big changes that are still in the process of happening within our household as well, that is taking up my time. I've had a friend almost die to a cancerous tumor, and most recently my nephew has tried to take his own life.

On top of that I have mental and physical health problems, and my partner has not been in a good space mentally with everything happening in our family as well.

So please, again, try to remember that I am a human being. I can't always be on here to provide you free entertainment. These characters of mine were a way for me to interact with people without having a panic attack as I struggle with social interactions. But if I wake up to hostile and cruel messages every week why the fuck would I want to keep doing this? Trust me, you don't have to try so hard to make me feel like shit, I'm barely hanging on most days.

Now, I've spoken to you like an adult, and hopefully maybe you can reflect on your actions and stop. Yes, I can simply delete those messages, but the point shouldn't be that I have to do that. It should be that they never get sent in the first place.

I hope you have a lovely and peaceful day. 💖

[fbwzoo]

I'm curious, what drew you to hermit crabs so strongly and got you so smitten with them? This is totally not intended to be a 'why do you like them they're just crabs' thing. I am a huge lover of small animals and know how bad that sentiment feels. I never had any myself, so I've never had a chance to really get to know one and notice specific behaviors or learned a lot about their care, and I'm super curious!

A good question, because I’m honestly still a little confused about how it all happened, lol! Part of it really is that I just kind of developed a special interest in them. Not exactly against my will, I guess, but not entirely of my own choosing either? Kind of an “oh, this is happening, okay cool” thing. XD 

Basically, about 2.5 years ago I stumbled across an article talking about the plight of hermit crabs in the wild, with shell shortages. The article also mentioned that all hermit crabs sold in the pet trade are wild-caught and briefly mentioned a couple things about how badly they’re cared for most of the time versus what their true needs are. That immediately caught my attention & sympathy, so I looked up a bit more. I read the basics of their care - needing deep substrate, fresh & salt water, heat, humidity, varied diet, etc. - and just felt SO bad for how so many hermit crabs are treated. I tend to have a soft spot for small critters that are widely abused due to misinformation and/or lack of concern.

Fast forward a couple weeks, I ended up offering to take two hermit crabs from a classmate who hadn’t realized what they needed & didn’t care to fix things. I spent 2 weeks in a frenzy of shopping & setting up a 40g for them. And then I also got a third one from my neighbors the day after the first two came home.

In all honesty, I was somewhat bemused by these strange little beasts for the first 6-8 months. They weren’t at all like any critter I was used to caring for (ability to go without food for weeks, especially) and they seriously set off my anxiety with the whole disappearing act. XD I wasn’t really sure what to DO with them, but I was determined that they deserved to have a home at least willing to give them their basic necessities. If that was me, so be it. 

The timing was actually kind of horrible because about a month later I ended up moving several states away from home for the first time in my life, trying to find a job while being solely responsible for the crabs & an elderly dog, trying to cope with a first full-time job, losing the elderly dog, and then moving to my first apartment, all within 6 months. I heavily considered rehoming them for a couple months during that period because I wasn’t taking great care of them due to stress, depression, anxiety, etc., and the guilt was making all of the mental stuff worse. 

I ended up keeping them because I was also really anxious about giving them away to someone else who may continue the cycle of rehoming them or may not care for them properly, etc. I’m glad I did, because that period didn’t last and things improved once we got settled at the apartment. I’ve still struggled occasionally due to mental health over the past year & a half, but I’ve gotten better about not endlessly guilting myself for slips here & there. 

Anyway, somewhere in the past year & a half, I ended up getting genuinely attached to them and discovered how interesting they are to watch once they’re settled & not stressed. :D That helped a lot with accepting them as a hands-off pet. They’re really cute when they let you watch them - I think they’re absolutely adorable when eating or grooming themselves. And it’s amusing to watch their interactions, though sometimes a bit anxiety-inducing if there’s aggression like with my new girls recently. And they’re total acrobats when they have stuff to climb on!

Plus they’re just really a lot of fun to feed, especially because I love animal nutrition & food. That’s always been my favorite part about them! And once they’re set up, which is the most difficult part, they really are pretty low-maintenance. That makes them an easy pet for me to have - the hands-off thing has really become a positive since I don’t have to feel guilty if I mostly ignore the tank during rough weeks.

….That all said, I really do actually wish they weren’t pets & would dearly love to have every one of them back in the wild rather than in my dining room. They’re far hardier than they should have to be, and they’re one of those animals that I just don’t think can easily be given a fantastic habitat in captivity. Even if there wasn’t such a huge amount of misinformation and abuse happening to them. 

So yeah! Drawn in by sympathy & wanting to defend them from horrible care, and then somehow fell in love with their cute little eyes and weird mouthparts and unique behavior. :) Sorry this was so long, I didn’t mean to ramble so much!