What's going on with Tanraak? (Patreon)

Long post warning. Life stuff. tl;dr: I think that a health problem caused by the air where I live is at least partially to blame for a serious decline in my presence here lately. I've been trying to write this post for several days and every time I do, it turns into a very long post, so that's how it's gonna be.

---

I want to acknowledge that I have not been with it in this past year in terms of staying on top of content for patreon, or in general. I've had periods of being depressed, I've been lacking energy, I've been hard on myself over it; I made all kinds of new year's resolutions about stuff I'd make for my community, how I would stream for Patreon, how I would work on a personal animation project and more. I've fallen through with so much of it. I've been facing the challenge of, "Why can't I do the thing? Where's my energy?"

Over time, I've not shared much about my struggles because a lot of the advice I get is well-meaning but can make me feel babied by people: well-intentioned acquaintances will tell me I am burned out, that I just need to rest and recover, maybe I'm working too much. Self-care is important, but I'm usually the one leading yoga and meditation, giving sleep tips, reading pop science books on nutrition, and acting like the self-care guru in my friend group. I do know how to take a day off when I need it. The problem is one self-care day turns into two, into three, starts to stretch and blend with unproductive tired workdays into long periods of malaise and suddenly you're weeks behind on your agenda. The fact remains that something is different now than it was before. I know that this is not normal.

The reason I'm writing a post about this now is because I've slowly woken up to what I believe is the cause of - or at least, a huge underlying factor contributing to - the problem. I've become convinced that the air in my home is contaminated. I moved to this apartment a little bit before I finished my graduate degree, over a year ago, and when I first moved in, I noticed the smell. Didn't think much of it. The apartment's kinda old, has musty carpet floors etc. Over time, the symptoms have set in for me. One of the telltale ones has been my chronic sinusitis, which does things like cause me to salivate way more than I should be. Or the fact the both me and my roommate have identified having low-grade brain fog when we're in our bedrooms, especially (my bedroom is where I work on art). I used to go running regularly, and now when I run, I am constantly nagged by having to spit and hack up mucus that has been building up from just being indoors at home. I have still being going to the gym, but more and more intermittently as exercising has gotten more tiring. My roommate noticed a new need to sleep on their side because when they sleep on their back, now they can't breathe well, and I have the same issue. There is other stuff, but I won't go into more detail because I'm not trying to get diagnosed or have y'all troubleshoot the problem for me. I just want to emphasize that these health issues I've been having - they're really getting in the way of things. It's so hard to get art done with fatigue and brain fog.

The insidious thing about this problem is that it's subtle enough that it's taken months to become obvious, and has only started to feel urgent recently. I get relief when I go to conventions or travel, and lo and behold, I feel better. I finished two commissions recently, and the case of both of those, I did major chunks of the work at a con. The same is true for when I've visited and stayed over at friend's houses and, even though was on vacation, suddenly found that I happened to be getting way more done than I ever had in months, simply because of the extra mental energy and self control that I had. It was easy to miss because, when I came home from cons, I usually brought con crud back with me, and was preoccupied with that.

The wake up call has been coming home from cons in the past couple of months and feeling the symptoms hit me afterward. Having some really bad nights struggling to breathe and even feeling like if I go to sleep up on my bed, I may choke up and not wake back up. This week, I finally, temporarily, fled my apartment just to find temporary shelter staying at a friend's home to get breatheable air and be able to sleep peacefully. It's that bad. I don't feel like home is a safe landing place anymore. I may wind up bouncing over to friend's home's a lot in the near future, as much as I can...I'll still be able to take my laptop and work, although I'll miss my desktop and not be able to use certain tools, like 3D software.

We're trying to figure out what the hell's going on. It's not a problem I wanted dropped in my lap and it's a big distraction, and it's probably been steadily, subtly affecting me in the background for a long time. :\

One possibility that we (me and my roommate) are investigating is mold. Over time, I've taken lots of different steps: I've bought allergy proof mattress covers... stripped my laundry with a deep clean... sprayed tea tree oil and dusted furniture for dust mites... we moved all our stuff out and then back in so we could have our whole carpeted floor deep cleaned by a professional, in case the floor is carrying allergens and dust mites... and it persists. We'll do our best to extract due help from apartment management. The problem is that getting up and fighting the problem, and fighting for yourself, takes energy as well. And when my energy and executive function are being sucked away like a vampire, it's hard to get up and make appointments and phone calls and figure out how to get inspectors to come look for the problem for you. Besides, I'm sure I've lost a lot of potential $ by lacking energy to work, and it so happens that it takes financial resources to hire outside help on an air quality issue. It's like fucking AIDS: the problem might be stealing from me the ability to defend myself from it.

It's daunting to wade into fighting this problem. Depending on how it goes, I may have to replace a lot of things I own, my bed if nothing else. I'm not looking for drive-by troubleshooting advice from the public internet (I love my community of followers on the public internet very much, though); I anticipate that I'll get a lot of same pieces of advice ("have you run air filters?" Yes, I have three HEPA filters. "Have you seen a doctor?" in the past year, yes. "Have you had your allergies taken?"... that kind of back-and-forth belongs between me and my social support network and friends). I just want sympathy and support right now. I want people in my life and in my audience online to know some of what's going on, to be aware that there's a problem, but that I'm not taking it lying down. Thankfully I'm in a safe place and have resources, but I feel like I had a big chunk of my life taken away from me in the past year and it's going to be choppy waters for a bit if this is what it looks like. Thanks for hearing me - that's all I want from sharing this. Just to be heard out and supported through it.