I need help! Please, read below and if you can, I want to talk to you! (Patreon)
Content
TLDR: Bad English ahead. Rant. Dramas. I need help with shadowban. I think about quitting, and not just in art.
As you know, I've been feeling down for a long time now, and it all started mostly because of my highly disastrous past, but also because of the drama surrounding my drawings. I've had 2 main ones - the December NeuviClorinde drama and the February SilverWolf drama. The first one didn't seem to affect me as much, but I'm afraid the second one ruined everything for me, even after my apology.
I've got hateful videos made about me, every day for 2 months I've been receiving death threats, posts on pixiv encouraging others to hate me and someone even made an AI model out of my style to spite me... My haters managed to suspend my pixiv account, which got me feeling like I was losing everything. Even now, when I sometimes see my drawings being reposted on bilibili or anywhere, I can still see hateful messages about me. I got through all of it, but I will be lying if I'd say that it doesn't affect me still.
Since February, I've been getting more and more anxious and depressed, not only because I still feel guilty and as if I failed so hard I will never be respected as an artist, but also because of the issue I wanted help with - the shadowbans.
In the past 4+ months, I've been getting banned from both of my Twitter accounts. As much as I want to say I don't care about it, I do, because it affects everything I have - engagement, people seeing my art, and more recently it affected my monetary gain as well. If the shadowbans continue, realistically, I will have to quit art and find a job following my recent graduation.
I really need help with this, because I can't figure out why am I getting banned. The shadowban usually lasts 18+ days and in the past 4 months I've got banned 8 times, which is not realistic for me to continue. At first, I thought it was because of NSFW, so I decided to post SFW art on my sub, and today I got banned regardless of that.
I'm afraid that if I'm getting banned from constant reports from people, who are still hating me after the SW drama, I won't be able to do anything about it and will have to leave art behind.
I know that it might be a temporary issue, but for the past months I've been dealing with it every day, which lowers my motivations, makes me depressed and even more guilty about what happened in February and I can barely concentrate on drawing, since I know I will fail and get banned again and again. I'm very tired of battling with constant banning and even though I enjoy making art, I don't think I'll be able to enjoy it by myself. I always wanted to be a famous artist since I was a kid, but if my dream is getting ruined by reports from my haters, I'll have to find a different one. I'm soul crushed and tired, and it doesn't help my depressive state, since it's more about just engagement, because I was planning my future around my works being appreciated and me being a full-time artist.
So, I wanted to ask you for help. Simply anything at this point - should I delete all my works? should I quit being Qiandai, change my style and become someone else? what should I draw to not get banned again? should I change media and be somewhere else?
I want nothing more but to post my works and not get punished for it. I don't care about money as much as I care about people seeing my art, since I don't need a lot to live and my supporters already help me. It's draining to sit down at the canvas and think how should I draw something to not be banned, to make it be liked and not fail like always. It's restricting, and I hate the process so much. I always fight against the bad luck, but at this point I wonder if it'll be better to disappear. I will really appreciate ANY help. I don't think I can do this any more... I'm completely alone in this mess, and I've been quiet about all the things that affected me in hopes of it getting better, but it just got worse. I'm depressed and suicidal, I had 2 attempts in the past year and I don't see a future for myself. I know that I'm pathetic by making my well-being relying on my art and other people, but nothing else makes me happy. I was planning on getting therapy and meds, but I have to move to a different home in autumn... I just don't know if I'll want to live until then.
I know not many people will see this, considering the shadowban, which makes it even funnier. But I do hope that you can give me advice. Please...