#i think its trying to dive into a depressive episode but my meds are slowing it sown

[arionawrites]

[shinyzango]

...You know, I have been thinking a bit about this past decade. My memory is crap to be honest but looking back at it... It sure was a mess of ups and downs.

It started with me leaving highschool after failing the second year, as I’ve grown too tired and annoyed by the dumbness of its teaching methods. In that year then I have started attending to a, uhm, I think I can call it a specialization school for making comics. Despite having turned 18 in those years, I was still very immature, and ended up leaving that school as well as I considered their final goal to be bullshit (even tho now that I look back at it it kind of had sense).

Still, while I have ended up disliking that school, as I both hated the fact that they said they welcomed all styles when in the end they still favored non-manga styles and the fact that I ended up hating one specific classmate that even made me get sick at one point... I am thankful for that school. Before then, my dumb immature self was your typical “ew western media sucks, manga and the anime is the best!!!”, but that school make me open up to western media... and I started appreciating it more. It led me to eventually discover VALVe’s games, specifically Team Fortress 2, and I have met so many friends with it. And while I hated how my art was taking western inspirations from my full One Piece-influenced style, and I still hate to this day how my art had suffered in those years, I am thankful for it, because my style is now more unique and personal and I actually like it.

In those years I have also obtained my driving license and a motorbike to drive with, which ended up with me giving up with it between the bike being difficult for me to handle, and attempted getting a scuba diving license as at the time I loved the idea of learning the activity, to which I ended up giving up as I really couldn’t deal with the salt water getting in my eyes, and the one time I was actually able to do a successful immersion, I ended up with my inner ears getting an irritation and causing any successive immersion impossible in order to get the license.

But then, after I left that school in the middle of the second year of three, things just... started spiraling downwards. What followed was half a decade of pretty much lurking in my room. I rarely got out of my room, I often refused to go out with my family, and the first signs of depression started showing up. And if that wasn’t enough, in those years we had my sister’s first puppy dying shortly after she bought it, her second dog giving me headaches, mom discovering she had glaucoma and started treatment to at least slow it down, to which she started getting into depression as well, my dad leaving home because he was tired of maintaining us, leaving one daughter barely doing anything with her life, the other daughter who at the time was still struggling to continue university and had a young dog to take care of, a wife who just went through an operation to her eyes and was horrified at the idea of not being able to drive anymore, all three of us without any kind of income of our own, and two aging cats of which one was starting to show signs of sickness, in complete shit. That episode caused mom to have a serious breakdown and was hospidalized and successively put into recovery.

What followed that episode was years of complete mess. My depression got worse, sis found love and left home to stay with him, mom came to meet a person who she felt love for and at the time helped her recover and come out of her heartbroken shell, which while she was happy with him, both me and sis saw something was wrong with him. And soon enough, a couple years later his true nature started to show, but mom was too blinded through anti-depressant meds and other stuff and it took her 3-4 years before she was finally able to leave him just this month. Until then, it was a complete mess between them and us.

In these recent years however, between all the mess that happened to which I only have bad memories of, something good did happen. I started learning more about myself. Thanks to a failed attempt at consulting a psychologist, who turned out to be an old incompetent witch, I was finally able to figure out the one fear that was ruining me all those years, it turning out to be a fear of others’ judgement upon whatever I am or do. And while I still didn’t get over it, it has helped to at least aknowledge it.

Then, the best year for me happened. In 2017, as I had given up on trying to get attention and a following after so many years of envying other artists I admired, I got into a game I would have never guessed I would have ended up liking. I started having fun with my art and ideas again, drawing mostly for myself. And just like that, I started getting quite the following for the content I delivered for it. My art made a lot of people happy. I can still remember the warmth in my heart from those days.

Then it got even better. Not even half a year later, I randomly doodled one particular character, from an old project I had given up on working on for the lack of interest on it, during a stream. My watchers loved him. They wanted ot know more. It sparked the itch to revisit the idea just for the hell of it. I drew a little more for it. People loved it. The happiness I felt in those days was immense. I kept playing with that project. People loved whatever I drew. It was liek a dream.

But dreams eventually end, and between what was happening in real life at the time and the shift of attention getting away from my content, it contributed in my depression to come back with a vengeance and make me feel worse about myself.

Then, 2019 arrived. This year was, a complete mess, even more than the previous years. Mom was struggling between leaving her companion who turned out to be a piece of shit and trying to finally start gaining any money with her new job who she has been struggling with for the past 2 years. And I have reached a point in which I was seriously scared of my future, and eventually accepted the offer my sister and mom proposed to me. As in temporarely move to my sister’s new home in order to find a job in her area. What I found was a seasonal job, which turned out to be hell for me. This was the worst summer of my life... but it also allowed me to grow as a person. I came to realize I was still a kid and needed to grow up, I finally got comfortable with driving on a road... but eventually returned home after the job ended as I didn’t want to be a bother to my sister. I was convinced that now that I had a vehicle of my own, it would have been easier for me to find a job in my hometown’s area. That was a mistake. Then mom returned to live back at home definitely, with her ex companion keeping tormenting her for all these months... and I ended up with the car incident in which my bike ended up getting damaged beyond repair.

I feel like I’ve taken steps back and returned at page one with my life... but you know what? I’m optimistic. I feel motivated in making something out of this year. I WANT to conclude something out of this year.

This past decade has been a mess, but I’m optimistic that this new one can, and will, be better. It just starts with a thought.

“I want to be productive.”