Greetings
WARNIG! There is a lot of text here, and tevious topics are also raised (suicidal thoughts, apathy, mention of military actions)

In this post I want to tell you why I was absent for such a long time.
To be honest, I feel really bad about the fact that I abruptly stopped the activity on the account and left some clients waiting.
I’ll tell you about my future plans for this account and, in principle, about my plans for my work, I’ll also share tips that helped in my situation, but first things first.

There were several reasons why I disappeared:

1. Emotional burnout, apathy, devaluation of my future and life
In the last 4 years, I felt pretty unstable, there were ups and downs.
I was often haunted by some background feeling of anxiety and meaninglessness of existence,
however, this did not prevent me from living and working, but things got worse by mid-2021.
Then I actively plunged into creativity, literally with my head, only in creativity I saw the meaning of life and nothing else.
I drew a lot, took orders, was in front of the computer and tablet 24/7, I thought that if I stopped drawing, I might die.
But this behavior could not continue forever, and burnout was already waiting for me around the corner.
I began to draw less and less and began to delay work to order longer, while my activity did not finally disappear.
Here began one of the most difficult periods for me. Since I could no longer draw, and the tablet disgusted me,
I finally lost meaning in my existence. Everything seemed unnecessary, I doubted my every action "I will never finish the job", "I will die anyway", "I can't do anything and I
absolutely useless”, “someone will definitely succeed, but not me”, etc. These thoughts literally destroyed me, I was still sitting at home 24/7,
playing video games avidly and endlessly watching the tiktok feed, since the opening eyes in the morning,
until late in the evening I knocked down my sleep schedule and ate just TONS of sweets
and junk food.

In the summer of 2022, I realized that I needed to get out of this, because this lifestyle was literally killing me.
I watched a lot of videos on YouTube about motivation, dopamine pit and burnout (I didn’t even think about consulting with specialists, it was too expensive
for me). In the winter of 2022, I decided to get a job with a 2/2 schedule (2 shifts of 12 hours and 2 days off).
The work was hard physically, I was constantly on the move and performed assigned tasks.
This work has helped me feel better with exercise, and finally my sleep patterns have returned, but my diet and cravings have remained the same.

By mid-spring 2023, I started planning my lifestyle more seriously. I studied a lot of materials, videos and some articles,
after I compiled the plan I'm following right now. I adjusted my diet and drastically excluded all sweets
(I'm not kidding, I don't eat it to this day. P.s. I have a greedy sweet tooth and it was pretty hard for me),
I added physical activity and work on my thinking, excluded tiktok and other stupid contact from my life.
All this began to pull me out of this terrible apathetic state little by little and return me to the rut of life.

2. Military actions
I think it's no secret that this has greatly affected all of us and our loved ones.
During this period, I saw how people changed dramatically, I saw a lot of hypocrisy, aggression and bitterness of loss.
It is still complicated by the fact that all this is happening between fraternal peoples,
there are families that are separated and parents can be in Ukraine and their children in Russia or vice versa.
They cannot help each other, they are even banally unable to send material assistance.
I am very sorry that I brought up this painful topic and I apologize to those who were hurt,
but all this also greatly influenced my life and perception of the world in general.

3. Success of others or blocker in creativity
Quite a long period of time has passed since I stopped doing creative work.
It seems to me that my disgust turned into a fear to take the tablet in my hands and start doing at least something,
I was very afraid that my skill would suffer greatly, plus I always compared myself with other artists (a very familiar topic for all of us)
and from this I it got even worse. I thought that I was not worthy even to call myself an artist, that my skill had slipped to the level of a kindergartner.
But of course, I can't just drop my favorite hobby like this, so now I'm also working on it (if you are an artist, I would appreciate if you share materials that helped improve your skill).

Plans for this account and creativity:

I stressed a lot to myself during my period of apathy and here's what I'm going to do:
First of all, I will finish the small number of orders that have already been taken from me.
I will focus on fanart and full-fledged arts, I will also add interesting sketch works for a change.
Completely reformatting my old YCHs and adding a couple of new ones.
I will make a queue of orders so that the client can see the readiness of his work and work in the queue.
I will reduce the number of orders that I can take in a month.
I will change the prices for my works.

In general, at first I will not take orders, as mentioned above, I will focus on full-fledged works.

So tips that helped me get out of this terrible state:

1) PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IS MANDATORY, you should not run marathons or load yourself with training until you lose your pulse,
start with morning exercises for 10-15 minutes as soon as you wake up. Go outside and walk for at least 1 hour, if desired, add workouts to keep your body in good shape.
I also take a cold 30-60 second shower in the morning, I feel much better after that.
Remember! lack of physical loads are much more harmful than nicotine addiction, and movement is literally life.

2) Don't beat yourself up for things you didn't do or missed
If you missed a workout or ate something you shouldn't have. NEVER blame yourself for this.
The most important thing is consistency and habit, start gradually, !without violence! above oneself.
Make it so that you do not want to break, and if it so happened that you broke, then just continue to stick to your intended plan and do not give up.

3) Nutrition
Nutrition is just as important as exercise. loads, food directly affects your biochemistry
(the stomach even has its own "intelligence" and it helps in the production of serotonin, you can read studies on this topic).
Try to gradually eliminate sweets, fast food, dairy products (with the exception of cheese and cottage cheese) and other junk food.
Be sure to eat greens, fiber and complex carbohydrates, we also need fats. Eat 3 or 2 meals a day,
but high-quality and satisfying food (this affects insulin production, you can also read about this and intermittent fasting).

4) Food for the brain
Please stop watching tiktok and other stimulants that increase your average dopamine levels (as your average dopamine levels rise,
life will seem less eventful, anxiety and apathy will increase), I can’t describe all the reasons here, so you can find this information in the Internet.
Try meditation (no, this is not about sitting in the lotus position and enlightenment) meditation is the practice of concentration and perseverance,
as well as control over your thoughts. Start from 1-5 minutes a day and gradually increase this time to 10-20 minutes, and maybe even up to 40-60 minutes.
Take a comfortable position and start scanning and concentrating on your body and its individual parts (you can also find more information on the Internet).
Write down positive thoughts and keep a gratitude journal, write down at least 5 things a day that you are grateful for.
!And remember, the one who does it regularly, and not a lot, achieves great success!

5) Clearly distribute the time of rest and work
I got burned very badly at this stage and am still improving myself in this. Set aside time for rest and work.
If you are working, DO NOT get distracted by the phone, TV, games or other entertainment, concentrate only on work.
With rest, if you are resting, do not fill your head with work or other information that makes you worried,
do not think about opening your phone or laptop to complete any business at work, you should rest well
By the way, a very useful video about concentration [How To Unlock Insane Focus On Command] https://youtu.be/l86xggdQcKQ?list=LL

6) Planning and Purpose
It will be easier for you to follow the path if you have already mapped it out. Make a plan for the year, what do you want to achieve, what to do?
Things can be global or insignificant, the main thing is that you have outlined a Goal and a Path to it.
I have a visualization board, you can also watch a video on YouTube on this topic

That's all
You can ask questions or write tips that you think can help people with the same problems.

Thank you for your attention!