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Story Time!
8 years ago
So, as you've probably seen, there's been a lot of changes that have been going on around my account, my activity, and other stuff. There's some pretty good reasons behind this, and I feel like it's okay to share them with you guys in case you're all wondering why I'm doing 'x' or whatever.
So I've been dealing with mental illness for a long time, in specific, I suffer from Bipolar 1 and have some dissociation disorder. For a long time, I've had the depression part of my BPD kinda treated, I guess, but I was never really able to get the mania part of BPD looked at very well because it's... well... it's not like 'bad', you know? Whenever I had a manic episode, I was able to DO things. I was able to complete projects and whatever; but I'd also suffer from all sorts of other shit while under a manic episode, like convulsing and having feelings that I didn't want (i.e. smiling euphorically and not being able to stop). So I went to the doctor and expressed my concerns in regards to my manic episodes that were fresh in my mind at the time and she prescribed me a low dose of Quetiapine (which didn't do anything at all at the time, basically) and told me to go find a psychiatrist. So I procrastinated on that for a very long time. And so I end up playing this game called 'Night In The Woods', and the main characters in that game suffer from some of the same stuff that I do, and I was able to relate a lot to the characters in the game, and it made me 'feel'. At the time, I tended to hang on to things that make me 'feel', because I've never really been normal or had normal feelings, so these were always unique experiences for me. I later learned that the main character/PC, Mae, also suffers from a type of Dissociation disorder; which after looking into that (thanks Kotaku), I was able to finally diagnose a particular disorder that I had been suffering from for like 9 years. Dissociation. So, after reading about how to deal with it, I learned that it could be caused by trauma that I experienced in the past, kinda like PTSD; and so I chose to look into my past and, attempt to unfold things that I packed away. This caused me great distress, distress that I'm currently feeling right now, and distress that attacks me at any point in time where I read or hear about anyone being raped, bullied, assaulted, or whatever. I wrote a poem about it, http://fav.me/dbk34an, and this was the very first time that I told anyone, other than the school counselor mentioned in the poem, about this incident. This was my raw feelings copied directly to 'paper', or in this case, a digital poem. I wrote this at work. I didn't care, I just needed to get it out. Now everyone knows, and it's okay. I started drawing Night in the Woods fanart because, because I wanted to. Because I wanted to do this, and it made me feel happy. So, while I was drawing and unpacking these feelings, I finally scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist, and when I got to see her the first time, I laid out all the details that I could. She diagnosed me with Bipolar 1, which was the only diagnosis that I've ever gotten for that, despite knowing that I've had it for multiple years, and she also diagnosed me with a type of Dissociation disorder after I told her (due to self-research) that I had depersonalization episodes. She increased the dosage of my Quetiapine to 100mg, and asked me to, after two weeks, to increase the dosage to 150mg. At 100mg, I could feel things start changing, but then Hurricane Harvey hit, and I was whisked way by work for business continuity purposes. But at that time, after work each day (I got switched from nights to work days for the time being) I got 'home' (aka, hotel), and I wanted to draw, and it made me happy to draw. It made me feel good, it made me feel something that I hadn't felt in... i don't even know. I felt passion. I felt... normal. Like... my feelings were natural, not artificial. It felt great. Then, we went home. Luckily, I didn't lose anything. Like zero damage what-so-ever, despite this being a catastrophic hurricane that totally screwed with everyone else (my team lead lost basically everything). And so, it came to around 2 weeks since I started the 100mg of Quetiapine, and so I upped the dosage to 150mg. This literally knocked me out for 2 days, I wasn't really prepared for the side effects that happened and had to take off work because I literally couldn't. But after that, everything was fine. I started trying to draw everyday, and my choice of subject has mainly been Night in the Woods fanart, because it's really helped me, and I'll continue to draw fanart for this fantastic game. But overall, everything has just gotten better. I'm actually motivated to do things, Like, I want to do things and I can actually do them. This is a totally new experience for me. I'm also like, re-learning all of my emotions because I've basically just been null for the past... way too long. No feelings, no emotions, no nothing. So yeah, I'm dealing with all of this new stuff; so I'm going to post vent art, I'm going to say shit, I'm going to care, I'm going to do what I want to do. Because I can actually do it now. There's nothing stopping me; and right now I'm just doing what I can, and that's drawing, working, participating in the wonderful Night In the Woods discord, and dealing with my traumatic experiences in the past. Unfortunately this also leaves me open to feeling those emotions in the past, which is just required for me to move on and grow. One of the nights in the past few weeks, someone on the NITW discord posted up a song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5SS1jmM18, with the quote "this song makes me cry", and I listened to it and it resonated so deeply with me that it caused me to have a dissoiative episode which resulted in harm done to myself and some walls in my apartment building. I hadn't had one of these, in like... a long time, 4 years perhaps? Ever since I moved from where my parents were living. So, it affected me a little bit more than 'usual' because I forgot how I dealt with these, because back then, it was a pretty common occurrence (and luckily no one but myself ever got hurt). I'm not going to explain what goes on, even though I have it fully documented, simply because I need to actually talk to my psychiatrist (who's also acting as my therapist) about it, and will do that tomorrow when I see her. But in anycase, I decided to draw some stuff about it and I've been trying to get better and stuff with art and have been looking at new ways to expand my skill set and bring ideas to live. But yeah, that's generally what's been going on with me, and that's partly why I choose to draw Night In the Woods fanart and stuff, because it's helped me and I'm going through a whole lot of stuff right now. I really appreciate the support that you guys give.
So I've been dealing with mental illness for a long time, in specific, I suffer from Bipolar 1 and have some dissociation disorder. For a long time, I've had the depression part of my BPD kinda treated, I guess, but I was never really able to get the mania part of BPD looked at very well because it's... well... it's not like 'bad', you know? Whenever I had a manic episode, I was able to DO things. I was able to complete projects and whatever; but I'd also suffer from all sorts of other shit while under a manic episode, like convulsing and having feelings that I didn't want (i.e. smiling euphorically and not being able to stop). So I went to the doctor and expressed my concerns in regards to my manic episodes that were fresh in my mind at the time and she prescribed me a low dose of Quetiapine (which didn't do anything at all at the time, basically) and told me to go find a psychiatrist. So I procrastinated on that for a very long time. And so I end up playing this game called 'Night In The Woods', and the main characters in that game suffer from some of the same stuff that I do, and I was able to relate a lot to the characters in the game, and it made me 'feel'. At the time, I tended to hang on to things that make me 'feel', because I've never really been normal or had normal feelings, so these were always unique experiences for me. I later learned that the main character/PC, Mae, also suffers from a type of Dissociation disorder; which after looking into that (thanks Kotaku), I was able to finally diagnose a particular disorder that I had been suffering from for like 9 years. Dissociation. So, after reading about how to deal with it, I learned that it could be caused by trauma that I experienced in the past, kinda like PTSD; and so I chose to look into my past and, attempt to unfold things that I packed away. This caused me great distress, distress that I'm currently feeling right now, and distress that attacks me at any point in time where I read or hear about anyone being raped, bullied, assaulted, or whatever. I wrote a poem about it, http://fav.me/dbk34an, and this was the very first time that I told anyone, other than the school counselor mentioned in the poem, about this incident. This was my raw feelings copied directly to 'paper', or in this case, a digital poem. I wrote this at work. I didn't care, I just needed to get it out. Now everyone knows, and it's okay. I started drawing Night in the Woods fanart because, because I wanted to. Because I wanted to do this, and it made me feel happy. So, while I was drawing and unpacking these feelings, I finally scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist, and when I got to see her the first time, I laid out all the details that I could. She diagnosed me with Bipolar 1, which was the only diagnosis that I've ever gotten for that, despite knowing that I've had it for multiple years, and she also diagnosed me with a type of Dissociation disorder after I told her (due to self-research) that I had depersonalization episodes. She increased the dosage of my Quetiapine to 100mg, and asked me to, after two weeks, to increase the dosage to 150mg. At 100mg, I could feel things start changing, but then Hurricane Harvey hit, and I was whisked way by work for business continuity purposes. But at that time, after work each day (I got switched from nights to work days for the time being) I got 'home' (aka, hotel), and I wanted to draw, and it made me happy to draw. It made me feel good, it made me feel something that I hadn't felt in... i don't even know. I felt passion. I felt... normal. Like... my feelings were natural, not artificial. It felt great. Then, we went home. Luckily, I didn't lose anything. Like zero damage what-so-ever, despite this being a catastrophic hurricane that totally screwed with everyone else (my team lead lost basically everything). And so, it came to around 2 weeks since I started the 100mg of Quetiapine, and so I upped the dosage to 150mg. This literally knocked me out for 2 days, I wasn't really prepared for the side effects that happened and had to take off work because I literally couldn't. But after that, everything was fine. I started trying to draw everyday, and my choice of subject has mainly been Night in the Woods fanart, because it's really helped me, and I'll continue to draw fanart for this fantastic game. But overall, everything has just gotten better. I'm actually motivated to do things, Like, I want to do things and I can actually do them. This is a totally new experience for me. I'm also like, re-learning all of my emotions because I've basically just been null for the past... way too long. No feelings, no emotions, no nothing. So yeah, I'm dealing with all of this new stuff; so I'm going to post vent art, I'm going to say shit, I'm going to care, I'm going to do what I want to do. Because I can actually do it now. There's nothing stopping me; and right now I'm just doing what I can, and that's drawing, working, participating in the wonderful Night In the Woods discord, and dealing with my traumatic experiences in the past. Unfortunately this also leaves me open to feeling those emotions in the past, which is just required for me to move on and grow. One of the nights in the past few weeks, someone on the NITW discord posted up a song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5SS1jmM18, with the quote "this song makes me cry", and I listened to it and it resonated so deeply with me that it caused me to have a dissoiative episode which resulted in harm done to myself and some walls in my apartment building. I hadn't had one of these, in like... a long time, 4 years perhaps? Ever since I moved from where my parents were living. So, it affected me a little bit more than 'usual' because I forgot how I dealt with these, because back then, it was a pretty common occurrence (and luckily no one but myself ever got hurt). I'm not going to explain what goes on, even though I have it fully documented, simply because I need to actually talk to my psychiatrist (who's also acting as my therapist) about it, and will do that tomorrow when I see her. But in anycase, I decided to draw some stuff about it and I've been trying to get better and stuff with art and have been looking at new ways to expand my skill set and bring ideas to live. But yeah, that's generally what's been going on with me, and that's partly why I choose to draw Night In the Woods fanart and stuff, because it's helped me and I'm going through a whole lot of stuff right now. I really appreciate the support that you guys give.
