what's been goin' on with me!

Hi everyone! I have a few quick updates on what I’ve been up to lately, and then a slightly longer update regarding my health.

Firstly, I’ve begun streaming artwork on Twitch as of about a month ago! I don’t have a mic set up so I don’t talk on stream yet, but I do have a little mascot character (just some basic pngtuber stuff right now). He's the little purple guy in my icon here now. I guess this makes me a Vtuber??? Or maybe I will be one officially when I start talking on stream sometimes?? It's fun having a little guy to represent me.

I really enjoy being able to chat with people while I work, when I’d otherwise just be sitting my myself and going hours without really talking to people. I’d love for you to come check out the streams if you haven’t already! You can also watch the VODs for past streams and see what I’ve been working on. (At least the purely SFW stuff!) I’ve also begun to use Picarto for NSFW art again, although I no longer have a partnership with them like I did a few years back, so there’s no VODs of past streams unfortunately.

Some of the work that I’ve been streaming has been a couple big projects that are still ongoing: a stream background commission for my friend Cereza, and a Vtuber model for Tetsuo!  The background commission has been a challenging but very fun project. I’ll be creating animations for it, and there will be multiple different scenes she can toggle between, like a desk scene for game streams and a BRB screen, etc. I’m about halfway done with it: the base illustration of the room is complete! It might take a little while before everything is finished, but I’m excited to see it all come together.
Tetsuo’s Vtuber model has also been in progress for a few months now, and things are starting to come together nicely! If you’re interested, come by sometime to watch me work! 💜

For the longer update regarding health and stuff:
(cw: discussion of dissociation and mental health issues)

I’ve mentioned the situation with my mental health a couple times here and wanted to speak about it again because I finally was able to get in for a new mental health evaluation in January. Starting early last year, I had begun to suspect that I have been dealing with PTSD, and I finally got an “official” diagnosis. Having my experiences validated has been a big step forward – I finally feel like I have some explanation for why previous treatment of depression and anxiety symptoms has never helped me much. The psychiatrist I spoke with said that I don’t actually meet the diagnostic criteria for depression and anxiety, and that PTSD with dissociation/depersonalization is what I’ve been dealing with.

Since January, I’ve been making a lot of progress with my self-care, but it can still be very overwhelming and at times debilitating. My PTSD is closely connected to my chronic physical health conditions, and flareups of pain often coincide with the PTSD symptoms that I experience. Dissociation and depersonalization have been my “coping mechanisms” for this pain and trauma for so long (though it doesn’t help me at all). Especially in 2023 and 2024, I struggled with feeling like I was at all connected with my body or my own personality and thoughts, and often completely shut down from communication with friends and loved ones.

This also extended to my art, and whether I felt comfortable or even able to post my artwork at all. I had gotten so afraid of being vulnerable to criticism simply by being visible and putting any of my words or artwork out there for someone to see, even though I have so many wonderful people who care about the art that I create. It often felt like being perceived, let alone criticized, was something I mentally and physically couldn’t handle. Often, I would just push myself to my limit to get commissions done, but then be afraid of posting them, and was even more afraid of creating things for myself if I didn’t feel like they had some kind of “work value.”  
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I’ve described some of these problems here in the past, but now I understand exactly how much it’s been affecting my life and preventing me from living genuinely. I think it’s important for me to talk about this, because I am not just an anonymous person that only makes artwork for public approval, and my experiences and my health have shaped the kind of artist that I am and the kind of things I care about creating.
I still have a ways to go when it comes to unlearning the negative coping mechanisms and the shame, but I’m proud of the fact that I’m trying to change.

To summarize my thoughts: I want to be more visible and share more of the things I like with you all, and hopefully make more art and post more than I did last year! I’m a bit behind on the posting part still, but I’m making slow progress!

Streaming has been really helpful in breaking out of my shell lately, and dropping Twitter as the main method of sharing my artwork and switching to Bluesky has helped a lot too. And although I’ve been very quiet there in the past, I do want to mention that I’ve been more active on my patreon/art discord server, so I recommend popping in from time to time if you’d like to see more frequent updates about my art, and/or to chat in an LGBTQ+ safe space.

 Finally, thank you all as always for your patience with me – I know I’ve been slow with the Patreon polls and other posts, but I always hope that I can make it worth the wait. I hope it doesn’t come off as insincere because I feel like I say it often, but I really am grateful to all of you for being here!! Your support means so much to me and has kept me going through all the difficult times. I’m looking forward to sharing more things with you all 💜