November Delay (Patreon)

There are a couple of things I’d like to address in this post.

First and foremost, I apologize for delaying rewards again. I am in desperate need of time to finish up the monthly illustrations. I’m almost finished with the 1st one for the $5 tier, and I have the sketch prepared for the 2nd $10 one.

Along with hurdles of unexpected things that consumed my time & delayed the rewards, there’s been a lack of updates & responses from me overall. I want to apologize for that, too. There’s no other way to explain this than; I’m on the brink of falling apart. I do my best to care for myself to avoid scenarios like these, and push through it while using as a professional front I can. But I have to put the front down right now, so I can shed light on what's been happening behind the scenes.

I think some of you have already noticed the steady decline of my ability to keep up at the same pace. Less art, twitter posts, streams, chatting on discord, etc. It’s been slowly diminishing since August, where I pushed all the rewards into September due to wrist issues + school starting. Even when working every day I had school off for that month, I still struggled to finish art in a timely manner. I had to skip days where I had classes to complete September. Same for October, even though I had minimized my workload that month. And yet, Octobers rewards still got delayed into November.

Currently, I’m 11 school assignments (and counting) behind, + the current November rewards. I feel guilt, shame, and inadequate. My ADHD symptoms worsened over this past month, even though I’m medicated. The stress of feeling incompetent due to my inability to press through the constant exhaustion, makes me cry at any moment I'm able to let my shoulders down. I sleep 10+ hours on days with no classes, trying to catch up on lost sleep & rest. I wake up 12PM in a haze, struggling to stay awake. I’ve begun having stress attacks again, which I haven’t experienced since I was unmedicated.

My ability to evaluate how much & how quick I can get things done is horrendous. I always seem to end up with too high expectations of myself. Which inevitably sends me crashing into the ground when I don’t reach them. I’ve kept procrastinating looking through Patreon, even when there’s new notifications. I felt as if couldn’t face you guys before I’d finished something. I had no excuse to come back empty handed. I was too ashamed of it all, and I still am. But pushing it away doesn’t help, and it certainly doesn’t fix anything. Regardless of much I want it to.

So I'm here to own up to it all.
What I want the most is to be a trustworthy creator, and leave good impressions on those who have been kind enough to support me. I know there are so many stories of people being scammed by creators, who run away with their money after making empty promises. I never want to become that, and I never want to make anyone go through that. That’s why I’ve tried to build as much clarity as possible around my Patreon. (i.e, the "Patreon Guide" In the "about me" section on my profile, & the direct link to a google doc about the content planned for the month.) And... as a result, I'm completely crushed by guilt. I’m incredibly disappointed in myself, because I feel I've let you down. It’s made me resentful towards myself, ‘cause I don't understand why I can't just make it work like I used to.

This is a very emotionally charged post, and It’s not something I like to make. It’s painful to not be reliable, and to be openly vulnerable in a line of work that's considered professional. But unless I'm honest, I cannot build upon the trust you’ve put in me, nor create a clear path for communication.

If you can be patient with me for just a little longer, I sincerely thank you. The dropbox link will be re-sent to everyone that was billed for November, once rewards are complete. And as a reminder; the billing cycle for December has been paused. Moving forward, I’ll use that time off to figure out what the best & fairest option will be. I don’t want to full-on stop making content for Patreon, but the rewards might change again and/or be dialed back further.

If there’s anything on your mind that you’d like to tell me after reading this, do reach out. My DM's are open to all Patrons on here, and I'll reply to any comment.

Thank you again, everyone. I wouldn’t have the opportunity to do any of what I’ve managed so far without you.

❤️