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Making progress and figuring things out!
2 years ago
Thanks to this sabbatical I've placed myself on, I was able to figure out and fix a huge chunk of what has been going on within me, and have found the words to successfully communicate some very specific feelings. It's extremely difficult to solve a problem that you cannot name or identify, and finally doing so has given me much of what I need to start rebuilding.
Like I keep saying, I know you guys aren’t here for this, and I do not write these journals with the expectation that people read them, nor am I childishly seeking attention. They’re just for me to gather my thoughts, and then maybe provide context for my recent reclusive behavior, as well as my psychotic behavior between 2014 and 2021 (the exact dates I was in the "care" of a psychiatric hospital). I guess this is a kind of non-fictional story I'm telling to myself, with the intention of expediting my return to art.
By posting these journals online, I think it forces me to be very careful about making sure they make sense. If I try to write them so that they make sense to the reader, then there’s a good chance that they’ll make sense to me, too. My mind has been a very mixed up, garbled place, and doing exercises like this has helped organize it.
The better I’ve gotten and the clearer my mind has become, the more I suddenly realize the scope of my behaviors and the psychotic state of mind that I put on full display in front of many people for over nearly a decade. Not just a few people. Hundreds or maybe even thousands of people. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then I’m glad. The fewer people who remember this, the better.
I have been so utterly embarrassed and crushed over the returning memories of what happened, that I’m wasn't sure if I could mentally come back from it. I froze in horror and found myself totally unable to talk to -anyone- as the memories started to roll within the theater of my mind. The psychotic streams. The insane behavior in chats. The crazed, manic arrogance. Thanks to my clearing mind, I can suddenly remember those moments with crystal-clarity; getting better has been a weapons-grade double-edged sword. The more I’ve remembered and processed, that more I was wracked with thoughts of quitting art completely and leaving the fandom.
As I said in my previous journal, It’s like I had this horrible fever dream where I did absolutely despicable, cringey, psychotic things in front of a lot of people and to a lot of people, except I’ve now woken up and realized that it all happened.
Here's what set all this in motion: I was drugged and violently raped out in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico eleven years ago. I tried to ignore it and hide it from people, including my poor ex, for a long time, until I finally snapped and was hospitalized in a psychiatric "hospital" in Texas. I use scare quotes, because this "hospital" ended up doing more damage to my mind and sense of self than the initial insult. Hospitals should make people better, not worse.
At the time, I trusted therapy and psychiatry. I loved it. I knew that if someone could help me, it would be this field. What happened next was a psychiatric coma fueled by amphetamines, wellbutrin, and ambien. They left me on this regimen for seven straight years. I took pure amphetamine salts for SEVEN YEARS. I inevitably spiraled into extreme alcohol and marijuana use as my poor body unconsciously responded to a series of uppers with a series of downers, transforming me from an introverted artist into a raving, psychotic loon. Why the hospital put me on this bombshell cocktail will be a question I will struggle with for the rest of my life.
I trusted the system. I loved therapy and psychiatry. Now, I look back, and find that these two fields nearly killed me, and certainly set me up for ultimate humiliation. Everyone got to watch my complete mental collapse in plain view, a mental collapse that was fueled by ignorant, psychiatric quakery and breathtaking psychotherapeutic incompetence.
After the dust settled from my initial collapse, there was a period of time where my style tanked along with my mental health, and some people -hated- their commissions. I should have stopped trying to make money with art much sooner, but due to excruciating PTSD, art was the only way I could make money, trapping me in a very vicious circle that, thankfully, I’ve since escaped.
Through all this, I started to hate my own art. Despise it. Every neuron in my nervous system detested it, to a point where my eyes refused to completely focus on it. I literally could not focus my eyes on the computer screen well enough to work, forcing me to relearn how to look at it.
Furthermore, there have been periods of time where I completely, totally, utterly lost interest in art, furries, sex, comics, everything. They’re gone, like how my taste and sense of smell were gone when I had covid. As a consequence, there was a period of time over the last few months where I wondered if I was completely finished as an artist. I’m making plenty of money as an IT guy, and have found myself in a place where quitting art would be perfectly optional.
At the same time, I’ve seen so many other people quitting; big names, too. Artists saying that they’re completely burned out and walking away. As I read through several of their journals, I found myself thinking “you know, I don’t want to quit art,” nor do I want to leave the fandom. I just need a lot of time to myself as I have a series of conversations with the fractured creatures inside my psyche. Thankfully, my aversion to my own work has subsided. I can not only look at it again, but I love to look at it again. Also, my sex, creative, and social drives have started coming online, too, which has been a stupendous relief.
I don’t care about being popular or making money. Since I’m happily making what I need to live and more with a day job, I can be a completely free agent. Art can be my hobby and my diary again. I can also do the art for friends and patient commissioners that I've been dying to get to for a while now.
I want to see if I can reinvent this account into something new. I have a new porn comic coming, "The Lion Prince." It's where my imagination has been in hiding. My next journal will be about Kosma and where I'm taking it. The short version is that, after I get the first "The Lion Prince" porn comic finished and posted, I am probably going to redo Kosma. Not completely from scratch. 90% of it would remain exactly as it was presented, and I'll probably keep many of the backgrounds. But I super duper want to update the character art, and I have much better ideas about Andrew's past and his predicament. I miss the characters terribly. However, I’ve changed so much as a person, that the psychiatrically tortured artist who wrote the original form of the comic is now basically dead. Well, he's not dead. He's me. I've changed, and I think Kosma has changed a bit, too. I'll write more about that later.
I'll stop here to prevent this from going on too long and will continue these thoughts in another journal. To those who stuck around and continue to be friendly to me, thank you for being patient with me and for being so kind. I'm basically having to completely rediscover every facet of who I am from scratch. Fortunately, as far as I can tell, that seems to be exactly what the furry fandom is for, meaning that I'm not going anywhere.
Like I keep saying, I know you guys aren’t here for this, and I do not write these journals with the expectation that people read them, nor am I childishly seeking attention. They’re just for me to gather my thoughts, and then maybe provide context for my recent reclusive behavior, as well as my psychotic behavior between 2014 and 2021 (the exact dates I was in the "care" of a psychiatric hospital). I guess this is a kind of non-fictional story I'm telling to myself, with the intention of expediting my return to art.
By posting these journals online, I think it forces me to be very careful about making sure they make sense. If I try to write them so that they make sense to the reader, then there’s a good chance that they’ll make sense to me, too. My mind has been a very mixed up, garbled place, and doing exercises like this has helped organize it.
The better I’ve gotten and the clearer my mind has become, the more I suddenly realize the scope of my behaviors and the psychotic state of mind that I put on full display in front of many people for over nearly a decade. Not just a few people. Hundreds or maybe even thousands of people. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then I’m glad. The fewer people who remember this, the better.
I have been so utterly embarrassed and crushed over the returning memories of what happened, that I’m wasn't sure if I could mentally come back from it. I froze in horror and found myself totally unable to talk to -anyone- as the memories started to roll within the theater of my mind. The psychotic streams. The insane behavior in chats. The crazed, manic arrogance. Thanks to my clearing mind, I can suddenly remember those moments with crystal-clarity; getting better has been a weapons-grade double-edged sword. The more I’ve remembered and processed, that more I was wracked with thoughts of quitting art completely and leaving the fandom.
As I said in my previous journal, It’s like I had this horrible fever dream where I did absolutely despicable, cringey, psychotic things in front of a lot of people and to a lot of people, except I’ve now woken up and realized that it all happened.
Here's what set all this in motion: I was drugged and violently raped out in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico eleven years ago. I tried to ignore it and hide it from people, including my poor ex, for a long time, until I finally snapped and was hospitalized in a psychiatric "hospital" in Texas. I use scare quotes, because this "hospital" ended up doing more damage to my mind and sense of self than the initial insult. Hospitals should make people better, not worse.
At the time, I trusted therapy and psychiatry. I loved it. I knew that if someone could help me, it would be this field. What happened next was a psychiatric coma fueled by amphetamines, wellbutrin, and ambien. They left me on this regimen for seven straight years. I took pure amphetamine salts for SEVEN YEARS. I inevitably spiraled into extreme alcohol and marijuana use as my poor body unconsciously responded to a series of uppers with a series of downers, transforming me from an introverted artist into a raving, psychotic loon. Why the hospital put me on this bombshell cocktail will be a question I will struggle with for the rest of my life.
I trusted the system. I loved therapy and psychiatry. Now, I look back, and find that these two fields nearly killed me, and certainly set me up for ultimate humiliation. Everyone got to watch my complete mental collapse in plain view, a mental collapse that was fueled by ignorant, psychiatric quakery and breathtaking psychotherapeutic incompetence.
After the dust settled from my initial collapse, there was a period of time where my style tanked along with my mental health, and some people -hated- their commissions. I should have stopped trying to make money with art much sooner, but due to excruciating PTSD, art was the only way I could make money, trapping me in a very vicious circle that, thankfully, I’ve since escaped.
Through all this, I started to hate my own art. Despise it. Every neuron in my nervous system detested it, to a point where my eyes refused to completely focus on it. I literally could not focus my eyes on the computer screen well enough to work, forcing me to relearn how to look at it.
Furthermore, there have been periods of time where I completely, totally, utterly lost interest in art, furries, sex, comics, everything. They’re gone, like how my taste and sense of smell were gone when I had covid. As a consequence, there was a period of time over the last few months where I wondered if I was completely finished as an artist. I’m making plenty of money as an IT guy, and have found myself in a place where quitting art would be perfectly optional.
At the same time, I’ve seen so many other people quitting; big names, too. Artists saying that they’re completely burned out and walking away. As I read through several of their journals, I found myself thinking “you know, I don’t want to quit art,” nor do I want to leave the fandom. I just need a lot of time to myself as I have a series of conversations with the fractured creatures inside my psyche. Thankfully, my aversion to my own work has subsided. I can not only look at it again, but I love to look at it again. Also, my sex, creative, and social drives have started coming online, too, which has been a stupendous relief.
I don’t care about being popular or making money. Since I’m happily making what I need to live and more with a day job, I can be a completely free agent. Art can be my hobby and my diary again. I can also do the art for friends and patient commissioners that I've been dying to get to for a while now.
I want to see if I can reinvent this account into something new. I have a new porn comic coming, "The Lion Prince." It's where my imagination has been in hiding. My next journal will be about Kosma and where I'm taking it. The short version is that, after I get the first "The Lion Prince" porn comic finished and posted, I am probably going to redo Kosma. Not completely from scratch. 90% of it would remain exactly as it was presented, and I'll probably keep many of the backgrounds. But I super duper want to update the character art, and I have much better ideas about Andrew's past and his predicament. I miss the characters terribly. However, I’ve changed so much as a person, that the psychiatrically tortured artist who wrote the original form of the comic is now basically dead. Well, he's not dead. He's me. I've changed, and I think Kosma has changed a bit, too. I'll write more about that later.
I'll stop here to prevent this from going on too long and will continue these thoughts in another journal. To those who stuck around and continue to be friendly to me, thank you for being patient with me and for being so kind. I'm basically having to completely rediscover every facet of who I am from scratch. Fortunately, as far as I can tell, that seems to be exactly what the furry fandom is for, meaning that I'm not going anywhere.
I'm so sorry to hear that you went through such a harrowing experience, and I'm glad that you're on the path to healing. Please take care of yourself, and good luck on your reinvention.
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22833515 ((second panel)) .... :P ((my imagination places YOUR sona clinging on for dear agony in relation to That journal))
And yes, that scene is 100% what I was going through at the time. I thought I was just writing a furry comic, but it seems to have been an accidental diary. Of all the pages in the comic, this page and the next one are the hardest for me to look at.
All I can say is that I'm glad you are recovering strongly from those horrible things of the past.
And don't be ashamed, most of the similar cases I witnessed from my friends ended up in murder or suicide.
But you are alive! and I believe that is the most wonderful gift ever.
Whichever project you develop or any new activity you do, I wish to see you in healthy success and growth. ❤️
I appreciate you Corvus, even from the distance.
I have the biggest furry crush on your donkey and elephant, too.
(May I ask which elephant? I don't remember having an elephant O.o)
When i was a kid, about 3rd grade or so, i was taken by CPS because i finally had told my therapist that my mother was beating me. at the time she didnt know how to handle her stress and frustration and would beat me at home. Didnt help that at the time i had undiagnosed super ADHD. it would cause me to do weird things at school and i often got bullied and beat up there as well. so i grew up having no real place of safety, school was hell and home was a coin flip if id have a nice mother or an angry mother.
Eventually CPS took me and brought me to a place where other childeren had been taken from their parents for whatever reason. it was a horrid place, i was almoat immediately recognized as weak and beat up there on a daily basis, and molested by one of the staff at night. it was one of the reasons i became a light sleeper, had developed the habit of waking when someone touched me. i have known no higher torture than that place.
Eventually i was released to my grandfather who was a stern man but at least the beatings stopped from my environment. i had a brief period of peace for 4~5th grade, and my mother realizing what she had done, went through a lot of therapy and reforming to fix her old ways and reattain custody of me.
Public grade school from 6th grade to sophmore year of highschool was just what sent me back into the beating routine, i was skinny, wierd, and an easy target for bullies. Many of which continued to pick on and beat me up. in high school i was actually expelled for being a pyro risk, when the true story is that a student decided to light my longsleeve shirt on fire in the middle of class. It being a fuzzy and flammable material, went up pretty quickly by the tine i realized. Of course it was when i stood up and put myself out, did the teacher see and chose to beleive that i had done this to myself.
I can recall getting ganged up on in welding class, surrounded in a welding booth and punched soo much by the football players that i had enormous knots and bruises all over my arms and chest, just because they found out it was my birthday.
I was in the deans office almost daily with problems and people to report, but ultimately the school system failed me and let it happen for the 2 years i was in public high school.
Wasnt until that happened that i decided to start taking a stand since nobody was going to help me i had to do it myself.
Its difficult and i know how hard it can be to adress traum and the things we lived through. But consider yourself stronger for having gotten through it. If those things didnt happen, we wouldnt be where we are right now. Like it or not its part of our past that we can never get rid of, but you can make it drive you forward. The thought path of, "i wont let that ever happen again". putting as much distance between the you that suffered, and the you now. im not saying ignore it completely, but i made my experience like a hurdle i had to endure to break free and have the life i have now.
I hope this makes sense and helps corvy moo. we are all standing with support, should you need.
Glad that you managed to achieve the 'take care of yourself' badge..
Hope things are better for you nowadays... sending good vibes your way!
I tell myself that i wouldnt be here now, living how i am, if i hadnt gone through all of that bad stuff.
You have many people that look up to you and care!!
I'm really really happy how things are getting better!
You entered a new stage in your life!
Hope your plans and dreams come true!!
Sending hugs!
Remember that you are not alone! 💪💪
But I'm curious. When you say you were psychotic, do you mean you had clinical psychotic episodes? I ask in full respect, as I understand it can be a highly stigmatized illness.