FA+
Shop
Personal Deadline and Birthday Blues.
2 years ago
Almost a year ago, I opened up a commission queue in order to deal with an emergency. I took on a total of 27 comms at the time, something that seemed reasonable and manageable, and was needed in order to have a machine to even do my work on in the first place.
Almost a year later, it has been eating away at me that I haven't finished everything I took on at the time, too much and it burned me out. I have the list of every person written out, and I am pushing through, working on a comic at the moment, that should be finished for the weekend and WILL continue to push through them all.
I realize that its not professional to admit that I have personally failed my goals in the past originally wanting to be done that by march. And then by summer. And then by now. I didn't realize how much the last 3 years of a lack of self care through the covid era, had burned me out and just how much having to relearn my process from scratch would shake me to my core. I also learned I needed help with an ADHD diagnosis, which would help explain why I struggled to focus and adapt to the stress of a new setup/dealing with unexpected issues, and started to develop back problems from not taking care of my body. I also got so invested in someone else's mental health that it started to poison mine.
None of these things are adequate excuses, nor do I expect them to be. But I want to be ABSOLUTELY clear that I have a goal now, one that I am following through with. If I took your commission in November of last year (which there are 10 remaining customers who I owe work to from that time, Mazitos(who's comic is almost complete), Paperlanty (x2) Nearl, Boli, Otter Button, Glace o Lura, NMR, Reykreyth Soulmeleon and Air Winters, I am making it my goal to finish your commissions before the end of the year, and if I cannot than I shall fully refund you, provided that is what you want at the time (some have already opted out of a refund preferring I not pressure myself)
I have taken more on to enable me to survive while I continue to work on these, and those will be worked on immediately after, though I intend to do a drive in between that time in order to have funds, as I currently have nothing in my bank account due to my inability to quickly turn over my queues.
In the future I am only going to open up manageable queues of around 8 comms and try to have a more streamlined and openly communicative process. I apologize deeply the issues my burnout has caused, and I hope that if you are someone who is owed work, that even after all this time, it can be something that is personally satisfying and enjoyable to offset the wait. But I can offer more than my apology, I am going to ensure that your owed work gets finished to the best of my ability, and have been openly communicating my journey on twitter. (I just kinda... forget to make FA journals about all this stuff because I never know if anyone reads them)
Tomorrow is my birthday and its made it hard to feel like celebrating having this dark cloud over my head, and added extra stress that I feel rather uncomfortable with. I have no money and no plans lol. My hope is that by putting it out there that I'm feeling all this, openly communicating the stresses I have dealt with and my desire to complete everything I've set out to do, that I can push myself forward into the future. A part of learning about ADHD for myself is learning to make goals, that I need deadlines and personal accountability, but that I also need to learn to not let tiny setbacks or personal failures ruin me. So thats what this post is. A goal to push forward towards, personal accountability, and proof that I will not let my failures rule me.
Thank you for your time if you read all my ramblings <3
If you'd like to support me I have a Ko-fi that can be found here!
https://ko-fi.com/mrease
Almost a year later, it has been eating away at me that I haven't finished everything I took on at the time, too much and it burned me out. I have the list of every person written out, and I am pushing through, working on a comic at the moment, that should be finished for the weekend and WILL continue to push through them all.
I realize that its not professional to admit that I have personally failed my goals in the past originally wanting to be done that by march. And then by summer. And then by now. I didn't realize how much the last 3 years of a lack of self care through the covid era, had burned me out and just how much having to relearn my process from scratch would shake me to my core. I also learned I needed help with an ADHD diagnosis, which would help explain why I struggled to focus and adapt to the stress of a new setup/dealing with unexpected issues, and started to develop back problems from not taking care of my body. I also got so invested in someone else's mental health that it started to poison mine.
None of these things are adequate excuses, nor do I expect them to be. But I want to be ABSOLUTELY clear that I have a goal now, one that I am following through with. If I took your commission in November of last year (which there are 10 remaining customers who I owe work to from that time, Mazitos(who's comic is almost complete), Paperlanty (x2) Nearl, Boli, Otter Button, Glace o Lura, NMR, Reykreyth Soulmeleon and Air Winters, I am making it my goal to finish your commissions before the end of the year, and if I cannot than I shall fully refund you, provided that is what you want at the time (some have already opted out of a refund preferring I not pressure myself)
I have taken more on to enable me to survive while I continue to work on these, and those will be worked on immediately after, though I intend to do a drive in between that time in order to have funds, as I currently have nothing in my bank account due to my inability to quickly turn over my queues.
In the future I am only going to open up manageable queues of around 8 comms and try to have a more streamlined and openly communicative process. I apologize deeply the issues my burnout has caused, and I hope that if you are someone who is owed work, that even after all this time, it can be something that is personally satisfying and enjoyable to offset the wait. But I can offer more than my apology, I am going to ensure that your owed work gets finished to the best of my ability, and have been openly communicating my journey on twitter. (I just kinda... forget to make FA journals about all this stuff because I never know if anyone reads them)
Tomorrow is my birthday and its made it hard to feel like celebrating having this dark cloud over my head, and added extra stress that I feel rather uncomfortable with. I have no money and no plans lol. My hope is that by putting it out there that I'm feeling all this, openly communicating the stresses I have dealt with and my desire to complete everything I've set out to do, that I can push myself forward into the future. A part of learning about ADHD for myself is learning to make goals, that I need deadlines and personal accountability, but that I also need to learn to not let tiny setbacks or personal failures ruin me. So thats what this post is. A goal to push forward towards, personal accountability, and proof that I will not let my failures rule me.
Thank you for your time if you read all my ramblings <3
If you'd like to support me I have a Ko-fi that can be found here!
https://ko-fi.com/mrease
Other than that... happy birthday..! ÓvÒ
Hopefully you'll get better
As someone who has realized being ADHD as an adult. Just finding out was huge step towards excepting what it means, and how it effects our lives. There are several sources finding tools for ADHD's getting into our flow state. You might have to accept that what works for neurotypical people, doesn't mean it works for you - So I wish good luck with that.
(feel free to reach out, if you don't have anyone to talk about those kinds of issues - man, I really wish you have irl- contact to do that, but still; peer support)
Happy birthday - you're welcome about the donation ^_^
And yeah I've gotten a few people in my life I can talk to about and work with to push myself forward through it. On one hand its nice to finally have answers for whats been getting in my way for so long, and interfered with my life so much through college. On the other hand, its a challenge to fight through, I'm either super focused worker or I can barely get out of bed and theres like no in between, so balancing working without burning out and ending up being the latter is actually really hard for me.
I'll do my best to balance it.
We all got our good and bad days - to me whole day can be a mental health day after few harder days, when I can't do much productive work outside maintaining myself. I am getting fairly good at knowing my limits and simply re-schedule anything that I don't have the energy to do. Luckily with many things I am able to do so.
On good days I can hyper-focus for couple of hours at a time for few periods a day, easily - I just try to take care that I don't have any distractions or other tasks - also eat! Regular meals and boosting snacks help to maintain that focus better, or at least don't get sloppy - even when you think can focus, but don't realize you're doing the same thing over and over without getting anywhere
- anyway, I'll stop rambling this point.
I'm sure you have your own version of this
So I wish you the best luck and mental strength with your journey ^_^
I could Challenge myself to thumbnail seven comic strips
I could Combat starting and finishing two color pieces this week
I could Explore reading comics everyday for a week
Good luck!