kinda vent

TW // HARASSMENT, BULLYING, MENTAL HEALTH, SEXUAL HARASSMENT

I know that this is a new account and all... And I don't want to ruin the mood but I'd love everyone to also know another side of myself that I don't always share... Art is my full-time job and I want everyone also knows things that I go through and stuff.

If you guys have been following me on Twitter, you'd know that I have chronic depression and anxiety, ADHD and I'm currently in the process of trying to be diagnosed with chronic fatigue (ME/CFS). There have been a lot of things that have happened to me in the online art community that I don't like sharing in other places so I truly trust you guys to share those things here. 

The last couple of years have been extremely hard for me and I was only able to go on my health journey earlier this year it has taken so long to fully get me diagnosed and prescribed medication. The process was excruciatingly long and I had to go through a multitude of tests to just prove that I'm not doing okay. I have a great therapist who helps me but I won't lie, those tests were exhausting and took out most of my time and energy in 2022. 

To add to the pain, my family members don't really believe that I have health problems and would sometimes put too much pressure on me. I was basically fucked over by my dad because he chose to not tell me that he had stopped paying for my insurance for almost a year. He then dumped that information on me once the bill turned red and I had to cash out 90% of my savings to get it paid. That is the reason why I've taken so many commissions in 2022 and now, I have at least 50 that I'm trying to complete now. I had to take them because I lost all of the savings I had kept for my medication and to further my studies. I knew that the insurance was for me and that my dad did tell me that I would have to pay for it someday but he never mentioned it until recently. A few days back, my family had a discussion and requested me to help pay for my parent's mortgage and I just couldn't say no anymore, it felt tiring. My dad, never informs us about these things until they become hard to handle.

Aside from all of these, I've had bad experiences in the online art community and it has scarred me so much, to the point where now every day is a struggle to cope and get over it. I still feel so much of that trauma and it's so hard to get over especially since it involved the people I considered friends. When I first started my art career in late 2017 (which never went anywhere cause I didn't make a single cent), I was constantly harassed by fan-police online for the things I was posting and the kicker was, I wasn't really posting anything that was considered problematic. Most of my work at the time was SFW and nothing provocative. It got so bad to the point where people started to leak my photos and comment really bad things about my art. Whenever I retweeted a fandom-related thing and shared my opinion, I would get a bunch of people telling me that I'm a "freak" and I should just quit art. 

This lasted until late 2019 when I was chosen to join a fandom-related project for a band that was coming to perform in my country. I was chosen to create a short animation for the live concert and I did everything myself. I sent them the storyboard and everything, they loved it. One day, I had to go back to uni and I mentioned to them that I'll be a bit slow on production. Then suddenly, I realised I was kicked out of the group and one of the members had messaged me saying that the project was cancelled due to unexpected circumstances. I was a bit sad but didn't care much about it and just went on with my dad. In 2020, when the project was supposed to be launched, I had a DM from a mutual who asked me about the project and said it looked like something I made, even sending me pictures. Apparently, the project was still on but I didn't know anything about it. Because the pandemic was slowly getting worst, they changed venues to smaller places and continued with the project. 

I found out later that they had kicked me out of the group, sent all of my storyboard and animation to another artist, and just asked them to copy the whole thing. The artist that did that talked to me personally and sent me screenshots of the conversations they had with the project manager. I was shocked to find that she said "Don't care about that other artist, he quit the project" when that was not true at all. I was told the project was cancelled. It got worst cause after that they hired my other artist friends to work on the stolen project. These people were my friends, they never asked me about it and just followed along. They all believed what the project team said about me quitting. They even spread rumours saying I was involved with the people that they are rivals with, saying that I was causing petty drama. In reality, I didn't even know these people and I had joined them as an outsider. They even started saying that I was lying about the whole thing despite my having actual proof of them is problematic. What's worse was, my friends were in that project group chat and none of them spoke on my behalf. None of them stood up for me. And this has haunted me ever since.

This brings me to my recent problems that happened on my NSFW Twitter account. Tbh, I'm quite a sensitive person who likes to curate my feed. If I see or sense something I dislike, I will remove myself from the situation and block/mute those people. I won't harass them or disturb them, I just try to block them and move on because my mental health was all over the place at the time. Then came a moment when a popular artist kept asking me why I blocked their other artist friend and I explained my reasons. I was even open to talking to that person but I was ghosted for a few months after they had asked me. Note: I was not doing well this time and I was struggling a lot, almost dropping out after 5 years in uni. I was almost admitted to the psych ward multiple times so you can tell how badly this thing affected me.  I was ghosted even though I was trying to talk to them because they were the ones who messaged me first. 

It worsened my anxiety and I couldn't stop thinking about it. For me, I feel hurt when someone just makes me so emotionally vulnerable and open then ghosts me and does not update me on the situation. This is why I curate my feed cause not everyone is on the same wavelength as me, which I'm fine with. What's not okay is just bugging me and then leaving, acting as if nothing happened. After all of these, I got dms from a mutual of mine asking if I was spreading anti and hate comments on these artists' posts. And I denied it cause I didn't do it. It got so bad that my accounts on Twitter, Mastodon and Baraag were stalked by him and his friends. They screenshotted things I said and just assumed stuff about me. I was ranting about almost being kicked out of my house and being in a huge fight with my dad. I was really hurt by all this cause I was risking my life and they just misconstrue whatever I said as me spreading hate. 

They even shared all of these things on their large servers with other popular artists with big accounts. You can imagine why this thing really affected me and my mental health. It still haunts me to this day and it affects me whenever I try to draw. I know people told me to take a break but I can't take a break when I have so many responsibilities. I even had past clients tell me that I should quit art because "I had a cocktail of diseases". Not adding to the fact that I was still battling the trauma of things that have happened to me in the past.

2017-2022 has been horrible for me, these past 5 years have scarred me so much. I haven't even scratched the surface of all the things that happened to me. Whatever I talked about here is just the 20% of the stuff that happened to me recently and I just needed to get this off my chest.  

Because of all this, I do really hope that you all will be patient with me and be kind to me. I'm just human and I'm trying my best despite all my shortcomings to create amazing art and content for you guys. I'm just a mentally ill, broken AND broke artist trying to make a name in the world. 

I know I'm super emotional but you guys trusting me enough to be my patrons makes me really happy. I really thought that no one would be my patron but you guys proved me wrong. I appreciate that you guys love my work and I can't thank you guys enough.

I have a lot of projects planned for 2023 and I hope that it'll be an easier road ahead for me. All I want is your patience and support, it'll help me in the long run.