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An Update
5 years ago
*Commissions are now offered through journals! Keep a lookout for them!*
|| Trello| TOS |Business HRS/Schedule || I have several updates that I felt was necessary to let you guys in on since I’m about being transparent not just to my customers but to watchers of my content as well. I’ll do my best to be articulate...
1. I have started a hyper part-time job with my dad, who is basically in the beginning stages of starting his own company. Although it’s ‘usually’ 5 hrs a week, $18/hr; it’s actually been a genuine joy to work here, however it’s becoming a struggle to keep up due to Pox’s new work schedule. Which gets me to...
2. Pox’s work schedule has become a practical nightmare for both of us. I am the only one with a license and the car, so I have the responsibility to drive him to work every weekday at 4 AM. My body unfortunately can not adhere to this schedule (if you can see by what time this journal is posted). My circadian rhythm 100% disagrees with going to bed at 8 PM to get that sleep to wake by 4 AM. So instead, I sleep for maybe two hrs, wake up, feed my cats, get ready, spend a lot of time to wake Pox, finally get to the car, drive 20 mins to get him to work by around 5 AM, drive back using the back roads, and go right back to bed and sleep until around 11 AMish-noon, feed the cats lunch, have a shower, get dressed, get back in the car, drive to Pox’s work, wait for Pox to come out of work (most of the time he’s not out by 1 PM), drive home. Sometimes we run errands, sometimes we just go straight home. By then, and only then, do I even have a chance to pick up my tablet and actually start drawing. But when 6 PM rolls around, I’d have to make some semblance of dinner, which is often our first and only meal of the day. By then, we watch a few YouTube videos on our smart tv, wind down, get to bed... rinse, wash, repeat.
Basically, I’m really at wits end. I’d really like to catch up on my commissions, but everything is so slow because I’m in a perpetual mode of exhaustion. Most of my weekends are being spent asleep, playing some games, walking outside (for sunshine purposes cause I like rarely ever leave my house), or just being with Pox.
Basically all projects and commissions are severely slowed down, but I am working through them, it’s just taking way longer than I like at all. If my body could flip to being a morning bird, I wouldn’t have this issue, but it doesn’t work like that. I’m notoriously a night owl, no matter how much school and other “morning activities” force me to be awake at those hours, it just doesn’t work. =/
Sorry.
3. This one is one of the biggest recent developments.
So I have two cats, Shadow (19) and Samhain (7). Shadow has been with me literally through thick and thin in my life, obviously way before Samhain bounced into my life as a kitten, all I really had was Shadow to comfort me. Despite my dad threatening to give him away a couple times and even going as far as threatening to ‘just put him down’ the next time he got remotely hurt or sick, Shadow is still here, safely with me.
Lately, Shadow and Samhain started showing general signs of a kitty cold, which knowing Shadows history was typical for him. Unfortunately, with kitty colds, there’s nothing more you can do about it than just let them ‘ride it out’ so to speak and eventually it goes away again. However, Shadow started progressively getting worse to the point where he was coughing (rather harshly sometimes) and sneezing. Recently, he started breathing heavily especially when he was asleep. Thusly, I finally got him to a vet (which admittedly I haven’t been able to for years) to where my suspicions of a URI (Upper Respiratory Infection) turned out to be something worse... Bronchitis. On top of this, he has developed a heart murmur, an after effect of his diagnosis of bladder stones (which he’s been at least 5 years clear of so far!) which unfortunately makes taking care of the Bronchitis extremely tricky to treat when you have a relatively healthy cat with a heart murmur. Due to the medication to treat the Bronchitis absolutely had to be a steroid to treat the inflammation in his poor little lungs, it can be very tricky for his heart to handle if going through the bloodstream. So I was given one single option as opposed to a syringe to give him so he could ingest it, which is an inhaler. This medication I have found is absolutely not cheap, $298 to be exact. This is just the inhaler, not even the AeroKat (which is the inhalation chamber made for cats) is included in that price.
Long story short, Pox and I pooled literally all the money we had with vet bills and paying for the prescriptions (still pending on the inhaler because we are getting it through other cheaper means, and still pending on the AeroKat), that I basically became tapped out of everything I’ve got. Haven’t even paid my car (which is due the beginning of the month next month) or have anything for rent.
Even if I am tapped out, and have no savings, I had to make sure Shadow got the medication and care he desperately needed to at least help him breathe and be happy again. He’s deteriorating before my very eyes right now while he waits so patiently for his medication, and it’s broken my heart everyday since last week.
I don’t,can’t, shouldn’t ask for any more commissions right now because my queue is at my limit, but if you don’t mind waiting for a couple months for me to get to it or just want to help me survive through this, you’re more than welcome to drop me a ko-fi (link on my profile) or PayPal.me/Rukamae . I can drop you a couple doodles or something else cool for your help. And I deeply appreciate it.
In terms of Samhain, she’s thankfully fine, just generally sniffly. She’ll have some antihistamines to help her out a little, but she’s good overall
4. My general state of mind is fluctuating honestly. I would like to see a therapist, but unfortunately due to my dad potentially losing the health insurance I thought was going to be guaranteed for me until the end of the year this year is probably going to get cut short. Meaning I can’t go see a therapist, let alone be able to fund the visits. And I’m not about to go find one now, only to feel ‘rushed’ to feel better or to start and then not have the money to see them again.
I’m genuinely doing my best to “power through” the bouts of depression and anxiety I struggle with on a daily basis, but some days it just gets extremely hard. Rarely (thankfully) do I ever get ‘triggered’ to the point I have a bad panic attack, which does not help the condition of my heart either. I’m still reeling from a lot of the four to five years of trauma I’ve experienced in the past in combination of losing adminship (which frankly exacerbated a lot of emotions). But I’m not going to touch on those subjects anymore...
Honestly, my emotional status is frankly broken and fractured. My mental status is pretty fractured to the point now that my depression has taken my memory away now... I’m genuinely doing my best, but with all I stated above, my spoons run out fairly quickly and yet I still struggle to create even more spoons to try to keep up with what is my life.
Nowadays, I’ve become unfortunately comfortable in being distant. There’s very few people I generally trust these days, and an even smaller number of people that I 100% trust and can concede with when I need a safe place to vent or generally speak with. Isolation is a vicious beast, and unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be comfortable with letting myself be surrounded by a group of friends to connect and be with anymore. I’ve been thrown to the side too many times before to the point I’m considering it a ‘me’ problem.
I’ve come to believe that I’m worthless as a friend. That I don’t deserve to belong anywhere, I’m too different of a piece. I’ve lost a great deal of self confidence, and my willingness to share myself so emotionally and intimately with certain people has been shattered one too many times. I prefer to be genuine and honest, I try to be fair and communicate with those around me, even though I collapse in confrontation, I still try to voice from the heart. Unfortunately I’m not good with articulating my honesty in a way that doesn’t stab people. So I’ve fallen into a great silence with many, many people. The most I do these days is share the things that make me laugh or smile on twitter and Facebook, occasionally I share things that are relevant to my life or speaks words I can’t. Otherwise... I see myself as a ghost, invisible, a nobody.
I’ve genuinely come to believe people don’t really like my art anymore and the commissions I get are just cash made from people that feel sorry for me... it’s really affected my mood. I’m working on changing my mindset to remembering there are people out there that still enjoy my art. I’m just in a state where I’m currently unable to fathom that I actually matter in any community. My worst enemy? It’s me. I literally struggle with this dark entity in my mind that tells me I don’t matter and I should go drive into a pole. But I always counter it with looking at things that make me happy.
I’m just. Fractured.
I’ve literally wrapped up everything I am into a blanket and shoved it deep into my soul to hide the fact that I’m genuinely screaming and fearing being alone.
I’ve come to believe I’m safer within myself, and don’t trust with being ‘out there’. I’m my only best friend, I’m the only one to trust, and I’m the only enemy to myself.
Right now, I don’t believe I deserve friends. I don’t deserve to speak. I don’t deserve to be ‘me’ in public. ‘I’ cause too many issues between everyone, so I’ve become silent. I’m just a ghost :’( and I deserve to be a ghost...
Sorry... turned into a ramble there... gonna stop here before I keep running and be more depressing...
——
Thanks for reading...
1. I have started a hyper part-time job with my dad, who is basically in the beginning stages of starting his own company. Although it’s ‘usually’ 5 hrs a week, $18/hr; it’s actually been a genuine joy to work here, however it’s becoming a struggle to keep up due to Pox’s new work schedule. Which gets me to...
2. Pox’s work schedule has become a practical nightmare for both of us. I am the only one with a license and the car, so I have the responsibility to drive him to work every weekday at 4 AM. My body unfortunately can not adhere to this schedule (if you can see by what time this journal is posted). My circadian rhythm 100% disagrees with going to bed at 8 PM to get that sleep to wake by 4 AM. So instead, I sleep for maybe two hrs, wake up, feed my cats, get ready, spend a lot of time to wake Pox, finally get to the car, drive 20 mins to get him to work by around 5 AM, drive back using the back roads, and go right back to bed and sleep until around 11 AMish-noon, feed the cats lunch, have a shower, get dressed, get back in the car, drive to Pox’s work, wait for Pox to come out of work (most of the time he’s not out by 1 PM), drive home. Sometimes we run errands, sometimes we just go straight home. By then, and only then, do I even have a chance to pick up my tablet and actually start drawing. But when 6 PM rolls around, I’d have to make some semblance of dinner, which is often our first and only meal of the day. By then, we watch a few YouTube videos on our smart tv, wind down, get to bed... rinse, wash, repeat.
Basically, I’m really at wits end. I’d really like to catch up on my commissions, but everything is so slow because I’m in a perpetual mode of exhaustion. Most of my weekends are being spent asleep, playing some games, walking outside (for sunshine purposes cause I like rarely ever leave my house), or just being with Pox.
Basically all projects and commissions are severely slowed down, but I am working through them, it’s just taking way longer than I like at all. If my body could flip to being a morning bird, I wouldn’t have this issue, but it doesn’t work like that. I’m notoriously a night owl, no matter how much school and other “morning activities” force me to be awake at those hours, it just doesn’t work. =/
Sorry.
3. This one is one of the biggest recent developments.
So I have two cats, Shadow (19) and Samhain (7). Shadow has been with me literally through thick and thin in my life, obviously way before Samhain bounced into my life as a kitten, all I really had was Shadow to comfort me. Despite my dad threatening to give him away a couple times and even going as far as threatening to ‘just put him down’ the next time he got remotely hurt or sick, Shadow is still here, safely with me.
Lately, Shadow and Samhain started showing general signs of a kitty cold, which knowing Shadows history was typical for him. Unfortunately, with kitty colds, there’s nothing more you can do about it than just let them ‘ride it out’ so to speak and eventually it goes away again. However, Shadow started progressively getting worse to the point where he was coughing (rather harshly sometimes) and sneezing. Recently, he started breathing heavily especially when he was asleep. Thusly, I finally got him to a vet (which admittedly I haven’t been able to for years) to where my suspicions of a URI (Upper Respiratory Infection) turned out to be something worse... Bronchitis. On top of this, he has developed a heart murmur, an after effect of his diagnosis of bladder stones (which he’s been at least 5 years clear of so far!) which unfortunately makes taking care of the Bronchitis extremely tricky to treat when you have a relatively healthy cat with a heart murmur. Due to the medication to treat the Bronchitis absolutely had to be a steroid to treat the inflammation in his poor little lungs, it can be very tricky for his heart to handle if going through the bloodstream. So I was given one single option as opposed to a syringe to give him so he could ingest it, which is an inhaler. This medication I have found is absolutely not cheap, $298 to be exact. This is just the inhaler, not even the AeroKat (which is the inhalation chamber made for cats) is included in that price.
Long story short, Pox and I pooled literally all the money we had with vet bills and paying for the prescriptions (still pending on the inhaler because we are getting it through other cheaper means, and still pending on the AeroKat), that I basically became tapped out of everything I’ve got. Haven’t even paid my car (which is due the beginning of the month next month) or have anything for rent.
Even if I am tapped out, and have no savings, I had to make sure Shadow got the medication and care he desperately needed to at least help him breathe and be happy again. He’s deteriorating before my very eyes right now while he waits so patiently for his medication, and it’s broken my heart everyday since last week.
I don’t,can’t, shouldn’t ask for any more commissions right now because my queue is at my limit, but if you don’t mind waiting for a couple months for me to get to it or just want to help me survive through this, you’re more than welcome to drop me a ko-fi (link on my profile) or PayPal.me/Rukamae . I can drop you a couple doodles or something else cool for your help. And I deeply appreciate it.
In terms of Samhain, she’s thankfully fine, just generally sniffly. She’ll have some antihistamines to help her out a little, but she’s good overall
4. My general state of mind is fluctuating honestly. I would like to see a therapist, but unfortunately due to my dad potentially losing the health insurance I thought was going to be guaranteed for me until the end of the year this year is probably going to get cut short. Meaning I can’t go see a therapist, let alone be able to fund the visits. And I’m not about to go find one now, only to feel ‘rushed’ to feel better or to start and then not have the money to see them again.
I’m genuinely doing my best to “power through” the bouts of depression and anxiety I struggle with on a daily basis, but some days it just gets extremely hard. Rarely (thankfully) do I ever get ‘triggered’ to the point I have a bad panic attack, which does not help the condition of my heart either. I’m still reeling from a lot of the four to five years of trauma I’ve experienced in the past in combination of losing adminship (which frankly exacerbated a lot of emotions). But I’m not going to touch on those subjects anymore...
Honestly, my emotional status is frankly broken and fractured. My mental status is pretty fractured to the point now that my depression has taken my memory away now... I’m genuinely doing my best, but with all I stated above, my spoons run out fairly quickly and yet I still struggle to create even more spoons to try to keep up with what is my life.
Nowadays, I’ve become unfortunately comfortable in being distant. There’s very few people I generally trust these days, and an even smaller number of people that I 100% trust and can concede with when I need a safe place to vent or generally speak with. Isolation is a vicious beast, and unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be comfortable with letting myself be surrounded by a group of friends to connect and be with anymore. I’ve been thrown to the side too many times before to the point I’m considering it a ‘me’ problem.
I’ve come to believe that I’m worthless as a friend. That I don’t deserve to belong anywhere, I’m too different of a piece. I’ve lost a great deal of self confidence, and my willingness to share myself so emotionally and intimately with certain people has been shattered one too many times. I prefer to be genuine and honest, I try to be fair and communicate with those around me, even though I collapse in confrontation, I still try to voice from the heart. Unfortunately I’m not good with articulating my honesty in a way that doesn’t stab people. So I’ve fallen into a great silence with many, many people. The most I do these days is share the things that make me laugh or smile on twitter and Facebook, occasionally I share things that are relevant to my life or speaks words I can’t. Otherwise... I see myself as a ghost, invisible, a nobody.
I’ve genuinely come to believe people don’t really like my art anymore and the commissions I get are just cash made from people that feel sorry for me... it’s really affected my mood. I’m working on changing my mindset to remembering there are people out there that still enjoy my art. I’m just in a state where I’m currently unable to fathom that I actually matter in any community. My worst enemy? It’s me. I literally struggle with this dark entity in my mind that tells me I don’t matter and I should go drive into a pole. But I always counter it with looking at things that make me happy.
I’m just. Fractured.
I’ve literally wrapped up everything I am into a blanket and shoved it deep into my soul to hide the fact that I’m genuinely screaming and fearing being alone.
I’ve come to believe I’m safer within myself, and don’t trust with being ‘out there’. I’m my only best friend, I’m the only one to trust, and I’m the only enemy to myself.
Right now, I don’t believe I deserve friends. I don’t deserve to speak. I don’t deserve to be ‘me’ in public. ‘I’ cause too many issues between everyone, so I’ve become silent. I’m just a ghost :’( and I deserve to be a ghost...
Sorry... turned into a ramble there... gonna stop here before I keep running and be more depressing...
——
Thanks for reading...
I honestly love your work and I wanted to for so long to commission you for art of my characters. I would rather you take your time with my commissioned art because I want you to be mentally well that means sleeping, eating, relaxing, and all around taking care of yourself. I care more about the artist then about the art.
I can wait. your health cannot ( also cuddles your fur babies )