thank you for your support 💜 + some updates about me

Thank you all so much for being here and supporting me another month! I know that things have been weird with Patreon lately, but I appreciate you all sticking around.

I've been inactive here, on Discord and on social media lately because I've been dealing with a really difficult combination of stuff, both mental and physical health-wise. I wanted to talk about it and hopefully relieve some of the anxiety I have surrounding it, because having these things on my mind but not sharing it with friends and people who support me has been weighing heavily on me. I won't go into extreme detail, but if you're uncomfortable with the topics below you can just skip the following section.

(CW: discussion of abuse and diseases, mention of self harm)
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The past few months I've been struggling with communicating with friends and posting on social media, etc. even more so than in the past. Last year I blocked a patron and long-time client for harassment, and this person confronted me via DM on social media in December, and said that me blocking them from my patreon/etc lead to them almost causing harm to themselves. I didn't react to this well and I think this lead me to uncovering some stuff (in regards to my mental health) because of how triggering it was.

Although I've known I have anxiety and talked about mental health struggles before, it's only recently that I had some significant breakthroughs and began to understand my symptoms and what is probably causing them. I believe that my mental health issues have been mis/under-diagnosed, and that I have been suffering from C-PTSD due to an abusive home environment, medical neglect and other traumatic events from life up til my early 20's. Many memories that were repressed (or things that I completely emotionally distanced myself from) have been coming back, and I have been dealing with flashbacks and intense panic attacks. Part of it ties into the physical problems I have been dealing with; my scoliosis was detected when I was a child, but nothing was done to help correct my spine and it progressed without me knowing about it, including other skeletal deformities developing because of it.

Unfortunately, I lost access to the therapist I had been working with due to my insurance changing in January, and have been trying to find mental healthcare through my new insurance. The wait times for care are absolutely horrendous in this area, but I'll keep pushing to get an official diagnosis for PTSD so that I can begin more accurate treatment as soon as I can. The good news is that I think that my mental health can improve significantly now that I understand myself a bit more, but I have a lot to catch up on.

I have also been dealing with an increase my chronic pain due to severe scoliosis, and have been trying to get new treatment established for that too. My previous insurance denied massage therapy for me, and physical therapy was 2+ hours away, so I went without it for the past couple years. I'm on a wait list for those things too, but I did manage to get an appointment with a pain specialist as well as a new X-ray and scoliosis survey. It turns out that it's more severe than I thought (my spine curves left with a Cobb angle of 81 degrees and then left at 62 degrees at another part of my spine. An angle of 45 degrees or more is considered severe). Additionally, I found out that I have degenerative spondylolysis (fractures in the vertebra) throughout my spine, which has probably been adding another layer to my pain. I'm still waiting for my doctors to review my new X-ray, so I'm not sure yet if they will recommend some new treatment options for me.
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I know it's heavy stuff, and it's hard to discuss publicly, but these things have been having a huge impact on my life and what I'm able to accomplish as an artist. I have been supporting myself and my spouse on my commissions and Patreon income since 2020, almost exclusively (aside from a few jobs/internships my spouse has done). My spouse is currently in college and working their ass off to finish their degree, and so we don't have a lot of flexibility right now. Because of the health issues I've been dealing with causing me to not be able to work as much, 2023 hit us hard financially. It is going to be critical that I keep up on my treatment plans for both my back issues and my mental health, which is definitely going to require more days off work during the coming year.

I've been planning to try some kind of a fundraiser to help fund some of my healthcare costs; specifically, I want to make a fan illustration book as an incentive to reach some fundraising goals (like at a $XX I'll make an NSFW version, at $XXX I'll make printed copies, etc). I just need to decide on some of the details and write up a description of my book idea. If you're interested in something like this, I'd love to hear it! I think having a project like this would help me out a lot, especially if I can raise enough money to take more time off commissions and instead focus on a single project.

I'm not stopping my commission work, though, just to be clear! I've been hard at work and have more art to post for you all. I really appreciate everyone being patient with me and want to keep improving as an artist despite the setbacks. 〒▽〒 I'm excited to show you all some of the art I've been working on and the ideas I have for the future.

Thank you so much if you read all this! I'll update you all once I figure out the fanbook/fundraiser idea, but either way, hope you look forward to the art 💜💖