WARNING: The following contains "Personal Problems" and "Real Life Shit". Reader discretion is advised.

First and foremost, I wish to apologize for my long absence. I'm not dead. It was not fair of me to just disappear for months on end with no word of why. I can give you hundreds of excuses, but in the end, they would be nothing but excuses.

Instead I'll will be offering up insight, a look into my head space over the last several months, not to make excuses, but to hope for the very least understanding. The situation I was... am going through, is in itself not unique. However, it is my life own experiences and how it has changed me that makes this unique to me.

This year has been... rough to say the least and... absolute hell at its worst. For those not in the know, marriage... is a tricky balancing act. Mine is... was no different. Despite everything I did to keep it together, it ultimately wasn't enough.
Last September upper management at my job chose myself a couple other people to go to Illinois for about 2 weeks for management training. It was also at this time that my wife told me she wanted a divorce. Even though I'd been trying to stave it off as long as I could and knew it may evening happen, it still hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

Management training was nothing I couldn't handle already, but having to wear a mask until I could make it back to the privacy of my hotel room was... trying. If you don't what I mean when I say "Wear a mask", it's basically putting on a face of "Everything is okay" despite what you may going through, whether it be stupid, obnoxious customers... or what I can describe as severe emotional turmoil. Nevertheless, I made it through that.

After coming back home, the mask remained on, both at work and at home. I became an Assistant Manager... and was pretty much working 11-12 hour shifts for close to 5 months straight, exclusively night shift... despite how much I hated it. Home was... felt unwelcoming to me. I, basically confined myself to my bedroom as my soon to be ex-wife took over the living room as her space. I was isolated.

This was... difficult for me. People who know me know I am reserved with my emotions, good or bad, and like anyone strong emotions will effect people... good or bad. For someone like me who has never been through this sort of emotional turmoil, I didn't... don't know how to cope. As I said, I continued to wear the mask despite feeling emotionally unstable, like everything inside me was falling apart, dying.

I eventually started to feel... okayish. I felt down, things felt bad, but felt I could survive this... That changed when a 3rd party informed me of something. I'm not saying what this something was as it is personal, but it made something click in my head... something that didn't help the current situation.
From that point on I can only describe my mood going forward, for lack of a better term, bipolar emotional bungee jumping. From deep, dark, consuming depression the likes of which I had never felt before... To extreme bitterness, anger, and spite. At work I wore the mask, but I was antisocial in every other aspect of life as it was currently.

I was fully aware of it and had my reasons. Having had bouts of blind rage in my childhood and not wanting to have something like that happen again, I felt I needed to seclude myself to protect everyone else... while at the opposite side, feeling vulnerable and not wanting to to be hurt again, I felt I needed to be secluded to protect myself.

Even now, with the paperwork filed and the divorce soon to be finalized I still have trouble coping with these two extremes. There are days when I have the day off work and I feel... a heaviness, like all the bad in my life is weighing my body down, preventing me from even getting out of bed. So I just lay there, staring at the ceiling for hours. At the other side, the bitterness and anger slips through the mask, my coworkers usually getting the brunt of it when I can't make it into the walk-in freezer to scream out of frustration.

In recent days I suppose it has been getting better... or at least not as severe. It is still a struggle, often feeling like I'm just surviving a day at a time, but I've been opening up to people more, voicing my frustrations and concerns, trying to... normalize my head space when I can. I started vent drawing as well, trying to get out the negative feelings I have in the moment to... mixed results. I don't think I'll end up finishing any of them, but it feels like it helps.

I suppose that's about all there is to tell. I'm sure some have questions or concerns and I am more than willing to answer whatever questions or hear your opinions about what I've been through. Just know that I am still coping with these things and may be slow to respond, but I'll be making an effort to check my account daily. As for when I may post more art, I cannot say for sure so please be patient. Once again, I do apologize and hope you can forgive the long absence.