Performance anxiety
9 years ago
General
I still have a lot of ideas of things I want to draw. A entire back log of comic ideas only in my mind but none on paper. Constantly new ideas too but at the same time I also immediately know I won't be able to do it. It's like the motivation for a new thing rising up only to be kicked down by my incapabilities.
I even don't get practice done because I'm afraid a already monotonous task doesn't work up to something. I feel like I need to drop doing full pieces entirely and completely focus on doing more practice but practice doesn't seem rewarding to me. I'm unsure if I will get there while I'm doing sketch practices and now even before I do them.
The constant pauses my study causes makes me unsure if practice even helps when I'm already so far behind and never get enough time to even properly practice and do something fun next to it. Practicing art isn't fun it's the same as doing work for my study I have to work to a certain point but I don't know where that is.
Fear of a deadline to reach makes me unable to even start working on anything until it's already really late. Late in days, late in hours in a day.
I also give myself penalties for not getting things done like I haven't finished something so I am not allowed to waste my time on playing games with a friend or I'm not allowed to draw even though I really wanted to.
I can't bare to live a life day by day knowing I'm not getting anything done, not moving forward. I feel like I've not accomplished anything in all these years still nothing WHY?
Every day driven by deadlines.
My life is a perfectly calculated set of failures of me running into deadlines over and over again until the final deadline hits me, the end of my life.
I even don't get practice done because I'm afraid a already monotonous task doesn't work up to something. I feel like I need to drop doing full pieces entirely and completely focus on doing more practice but practice doesn't seem rewarding to me. I'm unsure if I will get there while I'm doing sketch practices and now even before I do them.
The constant pauses my study causes makes me unsure if practice even helps when I'm already so far behind and never get enough time to even properly practice and do something fun next to it. Practicing art isn't fun it's the same as doing work for my study I have to work to a certain point but I don't know where that is.
Fear of a deadline to reach makes me unable to even start working on anything until it's already really late. Late in days, late in hours in a day.
I also give myself penalties for not getting things done like I haven't finished something so I am not allowed to waste my time on playing games with a friend or I'm not allowed to draw even though I really wanted to.
I can't bare to live a life day by day knowing I'm not getting anything done, not moving forward. I feel like I've not accomplished anything in all these years still nothing WHY?
Every day driven by deadlines.
My life is a perfectly calculated set of failures of me running into deadlines over and over again until the final deadline hits me, the end of my life.
FA+

So the question is.. are you seeing a therapist? From what I've been seeing in your journals and your image comments, these are bigger issues than "what can I do?" on FA is going to provide. FA isn't a good substitute for a professional therapist, which I think you could really benefit from.
"I also give myself penalties for not getting things done like I haven't finished something so I am not allowed to waste my time on playing games with a friend or I'm not allowed to draw even though I really wanted to." This sounds like a downward-reinforcing spiral. A way to pile stress on yourself in response to stress.
Not that I would recommend this at all, but I didn't start to do well in my studies in college until I finally said "fuck it" and stopped caring too much about my studies.
I follow a baseball team, and when the whole team was slumping, everyone was wound tightly and putting in tons of hours of practice, and it didn't help. No surprise that when everyone is playing well, they're relaxed.
Often, "trying harder" is not the answer. In most endeavors for most people, trying and stressing reduces performance rather than making them better.
I made new appointments with both recently but that's still a while ahead from now.
It's kinda odd because I thought I would be over my study problems once I got better at socializing. I guess that's one thing better for me now but I didn't expect my problems to continue. Journals like these are usually me not being able to restrain myself anymore after a lot of stress. It's easier for me to explain myself in a thing a write at the moment rather than trying to explain myself in a conversation. I'm sorry, I know a lot of people don't like the whole 'furry drama' thing but it's one of the only ways I know how to express myself and all that.
It's probably still all the bad things my father did that makes me think like this today. The downward reinforcement spiral, being used to punishment after things not working out. Him always looking at if I performed well enough so now I look if I perform well enough, I don't. Trying harder was also part of his brainwashing saying my all, my 100% wasn't good enough so I had to become better.
I have to perform well and I have to become better or otherwise I'll be punished, what horrible things will happen to me if I don;t become better? Looking at both my art and my study, I'm not performing well at either, I have to become better is how I think than. I have to perform as well as all the others as he always said why I can't I be like everyone else? You're already this age and you still can't do X he said. It frustrates me only more and more about how little I am capable of myself.
I don't go somewhat easily through the study like the other students and I can't draw as well as a lot of artists that are far younger than me.
Looking at what I just wrote i wonder why I'm still driven by what that idiot told me to work towards. On the other hand I don't really know any other path than to show that I can perform, that I'm worth something to others by performing good enough otherwise I'm not worth their time, than I'll have nothing left anymore.
To perform seems to still be a central drive for me, odd in some aspects I realized it is a dumb thing to do like lately with my art. I realized that the my muscle art gets the most interest so drawing more good muscle art would mean I would perform better. I realized that trying to draw for a internet crowd was a pointless drive, it's like those popular let's players on youtube trying to put out a video as frequently as possible because the demand from people following their youtube channels. I noticed that it was preventing me from drawing what I really wanted to so I honsetly slowly stopped caring about what there was a demand for. Drawing has always been my hobby simply because I liked drawing certain things not because others wanted me to, that's only once I joined Deviantart and Furaffinity. I moved back to drawing what I want, it's a more healthy way of thinking anyway.
You can see how I started to draw this chubby dragon of mine more and more, it's what I enjoy drawing. I guess I also realized after seeing how other artist's struggle with trying to please their watchers and not working out of their own desires.
Maybe I should think from that way with the other things too, but it's difficult because of all the time constrains. I also need the support of others to survive so not working better would be a dumb thing to do... I seem to be pathetic in every single way.