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Long time no dA activity from me
1 min read
Hello
And sorry for suddenly disappearing from here. I have had some rough time with work during the summer, and with other things going on. I'm planning on getting back on dA now that classes will start in college again so I won't be working so much anymore. I will finish all the art I owe before the end of the year for sure
I'm sorry for neglecting the groups too, I'll try to log in dA more often in the fall to check the groups too.
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To all my watchers, an apology and update
12 min read
This journal will be visible only for those who watch me (->get this in their inbox) and for those who for some reason go through my journal history and click this. I'm going to post another journal right after this one so it'll push this one off my frontpage.
I think it's time for me to explain my sudden disappearance from dA even though I was telling I would be back soon.First of all, I'm sorry. I am really sorry for just disappearing from here without a real word of why. I still owe art to those who win some contests and I haven't forgotten about them, nor I will. This journal will explain my current situation (and what has led to it) so it'll be a long one. I will try to get the most important stuff covered in the beginning so there is no need to read everything if you don't have time/don't really care.
The first and biggest reason for my absence has been the lack of time. Second, is the lack of motivation and will to draw anything. This has been a problem since the beginning of the year. I had college and part time job, Japanese lessons in the evening and karate practice (which I had to start skipping more and more just like drawing). I barely had any time for drawing during the winter and spring. I've also started working on something much bigger problem in my life: the way I think. It sounds funny when I write it out in English, but the truth is I have a very low self esteem like pretty much anyone who has been bullied in their teenage years. I don't know how to explain thigs shortly but I don't want to write half of my lifestory here either, so let's just say my way of thinking is apparently quite different from others and I still don't know what is "normal" to think and what is "not-so-normal" and hurtful. But for example, I never thought of myself as an equal with anyone, I had a very bad friendship which I though was the best I ever had, but in reality I acted like a dog, always trying to not make anyone angry and agree. Anyways, a lot happened and in January I actually talked about it to one of my closest friend and he told me that maybe I could try to speak with my college's psychologist about my problems. Long story short, I've been seeing the psychologist since April.
I wish this would have turned things to better, but right now I'm worse than ever. I cut ties with that bad friend of mine 1,5 years ago and late last year I heard she had been talking shit about me online, telling people I had been raging at their backyard and that her dad would have had to call the police to take me away. Also I got some screenshots of her conversation online where she says her friends would like to shoot me if it wasn't illegal. I was surprised, upset and frightened when I got to know about those, I sent an e-mail to the police asking what I could do about it and if I could charge her of defamation for example, and they replied that I could if I could prove it had been damaging my reputation and causing me trouble in life (for example not getting a job because of this). I can't prove that, so I had to leave it alone. Fortunately I haven't heard of her anymore so I think it's finally in the past now. But the emotional hurt still remains, I talked about this with the psychologist, and I think it helped a little since it sounded like he believed me. Being friends with this person who constantly talked bad about me behind my back and then acted innocent before me and somehow flipped everything to be my fault by saying "I didn't know it wasn't true, I trusted this and that person who told me about it!" and played the victim role, has made me think there is no way anyone could believe a person like me. My "best friend" didn't believe me so why would anyone else? This is just the tip of the iceberg so to speak, but as I said I want to keep this as short as possible so I won't talk more about her.
When I think low of myself I don't actively turn every thought against myself, it's the normal way I think and the "default setting" so to speak. So it's been a lot of work to tell the difference between my twisted thoughts and the "normal" ones. I'm one of those who can't take compliments either, I always thought people who complimented me just tried to cheer me up. I've gotten better at taking compliments after I realized that maybe there are times when I actually do something right (karate has been a great help with this, getting honest feedback there is very important for one's improvement) and I've been actively trying to get better at finding those "twisted ways of thinking". The psychologist gave me a good advice: when I catch myself thinking something negative of myself for doing (or not doing) something, I need to question myself "would I think like this of someone else who did like this?" and then see if it differs from what I think of myself. It has helped, too.
So why am I now "worse than ever before"? I have told you I go see the college's psychologist and I've gotten better at repairing my low self esteem in order to feel equal with everyone else. Well, it pretty much started going downhill in June. I wanted to have a talk with that close friend of mine who suggested me to go to see the psychologist and get help. The thing is, he is a great guy and I really like being his friend and think I'm very lucky to have a friend like him. But. He is always late and almost never calls or texts me to tell that he's going to be late, and I'm not talking about being 5-10mins late, even 15-20min would be okay by my standards it you have a good reason for it. But he's usually at least half an hour late, usually more, and when he finally arrives he thinks it's funny how he was "late again hehe oops." Few friends and I have tried to first politely hint that we would like him to be on time, then even straight out told him how things are and how much it annoyes us and he has promised countless times to be on time but hasn't managed to do it more than twice or so during this year. Well, that was the smallest problem which I wanted to talk about, but it would be a good ice breaker to get to the more serious points. Like why he never contacts me on his own. During the talk we had in January he told me he considers me to be one of his important friends, which really meant a lot to me. So I was wondering why he never introduced me to his other friends, why he didn't contact me but was always eager to participate if I organized something. Instead of just letting my usual self think "oh guess it's because he doesn't want me to meet his other friends, he's probably embarrassed of me and doesn't want to spend time with me." I wanted to talk with him and ask them straight, that's what people usually say right? And that's what I had wanted my bad friend to do when she had "heard the bad stuff about me from others".
So, when I met with him and told him I want to talk about our friendship his reaction was "OH this is THAT kind of talk again!" with a very frustrated tone and gestures. "Again" referred to the talk with had half a year ago in January... Yeah, that really made me want to talk and try to understand both sides' views and talk things out like friends should(?) do. No, it really made me feel like going back to my little shell thinking "better shut up, I don't want him to be angry at me." and just apologize and say everything is okay and pretend there is nothing wrong. As I always did. But this time I didn't, I asked him the questions I had in mind and he answered them. He told me he thinks I don't fit in with his other circle of friends which I understand, and it's fine by me. But which isn't fine was the next answer, to the question "why don't you ever contact me on your own?" he said he is just the kind of person who doesn't contact friends. If he's alone at home and no one calls him he won't do anything, he'll just be alone. I understand that he is a popular guy and has lots of friends so there is always someone to call him so he won't need to be alone for weeks. But what I don't understand is that he refused to contact me sometimes on his own. I asked him if he meant he would rather be alone that contact me and my presence doesn't really matter to him and he said yeah, that's how it is. I tried to friendly ask him if he could sometimes be the one calling me or texting me (just few words like "wanna see sometime?" or something like that, what any friend would say when they want to spend time with their friends) but he said he won't do it and I'll need to deal with it. I was crying already, I'm sensitive and I know it and I don't like it when people see me crying. It really hurts to hear a person I considered to be my close friend tell me it doesn't matter if I'm there or not, especially when I had believed him that I was somehow important friend of his.
So yeah, I talked about this with few of my other close friends and with the psychologist and after hearing everyone's take on it I came to conclusion I won't be contacting him anymore either. For July and August I had to get along with him and talk with him since we worked at the same place, but now that the summer is over and I have no reason to see him anymore I won't be seeing him. I don't want to tire myself out by pretending to be the "old me" which he told me to be since the old me didn't speak about these kind of things. I'm already slightly depressed (I guess I finally have to admit this one too, after the psychologist told so, before this I just hadn't wanted to admit it since it means I'm mentally ill somehow which is more serious than just "being sad") which makes it hard to stay focused at work and still keep in touch with my other friends. On top of it all, the psychologist said we will see only few times anymore since he's going to have other new patients coming and he won't have time for me anymore (he didn't say it so straight forward of course, but I got the message) which I was afraid of. It wouldn't make me feel so sad if he had given me more useful tips/advice than that single one... The whole thing was more like "I'll tell my problems to you and in the end you'll ask me if you had understood me right. And that's it."
Anyways, this is getting way too long already. I hope this gave at least some kind of an explanation of why I've been away and why I won't be so active here for the rest of the year either. I'll be getting back from now on of course, but not as much as I used to in the previous years. I will finish all the art I owe before the end of the year, but I don't know when exactly. I'm moving out of home next week, and my classes will start on that week too. I was also called to work for tomorrow, even though I've worked pretty much lately already, but when there are no other emplyees I don't really have a choice... I need money when I'm living alone too. I'm just so tired and frustrated right now I just can't do much more than cry. I have had two days off from work, before it I worked for 9 days with only one day off, and most of those days were 9h without much breaks (we work alone at the store so if there are a lot of customers = no breaks for the emplyee).
Anyways, thank you to whoever had the time and guts to read through this all. I'm still having some good moments too whenever my other close and very important friends drag the old me out to play and have fun. I'm very grateful for that and don't know where I would be without them. I'm also grateful for all the people here who view, fave and comments on my work. I tried to reply to everyone who had left me a message
Thank you.
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I'll first finish the promised drawings and then go for fanart and my OCs. 
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Update of life
11 min read
I'm incredibly busy for about one more month
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Have a couple of examples:
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