important post #2 (Patreon)

My apologies it took me a long time to actually type this out, I really really needed the break time to sort out things,  my thoughts and generally take care of alot of IRL life events that have been happening here. 🙏

Good thing though, my thoughts are a little more sorted now, brain is no longer completely deep fried and I've been feeling much better. I'm not particularly good at wording things but I'll try.

So where do I even start?

Initially with last month I had planned taking on a bigger workload and changing my system a little to offering a few more exclusive doodles/smaller illustrations, taking potentially more simple style comms again,  to hopefully gain a little more traction here to up my income to compensate with the fact that my Partner has quit his job recently after several months of awful workplace practises & abuse that ended with my partner's former boss attempting to sue him for several thousands of €€ over a machine error that couldn't be fixed due to understaffing that the boss is responsible for since he wanted to save money .🙃

I haven't spoken about this here since I didn't really expect it would impact my ability to work that much since technically it doesn't have that much to do with my work but the overall situation did end up being the final drop in the barell to make it overflow after a loooong series of events.

 Since my partner was the only one on the particular shift the thing happened which would've required multiple mechanics to fix it (at least securely and appropriately), which was not possible until the next shift and calling in more people was also no option ( night shift) so the only options were either turning off the machine completely until enough people are present to fix it or letting it run but only wasting material in the end, loss-loss situation. But alas his boss was hellbent on the fact that somebody had to pay for the loss of money made during the time either way so that's how the whole situation came to be, my partner being the only person on the shift it was obviously his fault and totally not the fact that you should always have enough people on shifts to fix any potential error and not one person only 🤪

Thankfully we were able to stand our ground and after the whole thing dragged on for a while - including several shady offers from the former boss to get my partner to take the blame -the lawsuit was over and we thankfully won but especially the last few of the ordeal were very stressful.
He would've quit regardless of the outcome, just in case we would've lost there would've been the looming debt of several thousand euros over our heads , which to put it simple would've sucked big time and put alot of stress on us during the time.

So my partner quit the day he got the news because he was so fed up with the place and the initial plan was for me to then cover some of the extra expenses until my partner has a new job, which we were really uncertain about and still are. Alot of pressure was on me with this and the overall financial uncertainty and with the accumulated stress of the past two years, some health problems and some people also actively deciding to sabotage my efforts to help me and my partner literally pay our rent & bills, I ended up being so overwhelmed from the stress and pressure that I broke down and my partner was contemplating if it wasn't best for me to stay in a hospital for a bit after I passed out.

Normally I do not care too much about people sharing my works since I'm versed with how the internet works and piracy is universal (and I'm well aware of it) and hard to prevent but please keep in mind that artists are people too that have to pay bills and rent, not some big corporate and no matter how much we might love our work, the world wants money from you. Art is still work and you choose to essentially take the income from a single person, which is just downright malicious when you know the person is struggeling with a pretty big life event and financial uncertainty and if anything it sure doesn't help me wanting to draw more nor does added frustration make me want to draw some good spice, more of the opposite which in the end nobody profits from. So maybe just think about that.

In the meantime I've been seeing a bunch of doctors and my therapist to learn that I'm suffering from a burnout after all the events of the past two years , not just feeling a little burned out for maybe a few days but to a point where I wasn't able to draw at all without getting an existential crisis and even the thought of anything work related filled me with dread and frustration and overwhelming pressure to the point where even drawing personal art was a dread and caused me nothing but frustration and I was pretty much unhappy with 99% of the things I drew. On some days I felt nauseous enough to throw up from the constant stress, as some people also noticed I got less and less social too because I simply didn't have any energy for it at all, been running on no energy for a long time now and believe me I have been feeling awful about it.

The last two years with the pandemic & the flood were pretty much mostly eat>work>sleep and then repeat for most days with little options to do anything else at all, no ways to spend free time, travel and visiting restrictions, events and vacations getting cancelled, due to the flood here not even access to normal grocery shopping or some medical services at all for months, it was awful. The only regular vacation time I took for the longest time was in last October which as you know was very much ruined by Twitter shenanigans. 😔

A vicious cycle that led to me feeling more and more exhausted as time went on, I spent most time working through absolutely awful events instead of giving myself time to take a break and actually cope with them appropriately and then feeling worse and worse for not being  able hold up to my own standarts, feeling exhausted and taking longer and longer to finish art and growing more and more unhappy with it . I've been doing my best to restructure things with the new year, thankfully also getting better with dealing with my POTS too and the regular excercise and lifestyle choices did pay off  but one can only do so much when life keeps on giving and hits you with a potential +10k lawsuit.

I've been too stubborn to truly admit how bad things were for a long time, feeling constantly like I have to just keep going and just work harder to make up for awful things happening and that in the end only made things worse. Basically the whole 'This is fine' comic with the dog sitting in the burning house. 😓

So after some longer talks with my partner, we decided it would be best for me to take this month off , which you already know and I did and it massively helped me with destressing already and sorting my thoughts and my mind. I was very worried about it considering it meant no income for the month but he assured me it's alright and we can rely on our savings because I really need the break for my health and sanity. We've been considering even getting a proper burnout coach but right now we're unsure about it still, mostly because of the overall finances involved for it.

Now that the month is almost over, I gotta make a decision for the next month though and after another set of long talks with my partner and therapist, we decided on me resuming patreon next month but I will only do the voted picture and decide around the halfway mark of the month on if I do the patreon reward sketches, if I end up not feeling comfortable enough doing them I will refund all people in the tier (if you want to) . Otherwise I will probably be doing mostly studies and maybe some doodles and see how it goes, if it goes well I will plan my next steps, if I find myself too overwhelmed by it I will pause again and give myself a longer break . I don't want to ruin the little progress I've made so I gotta take it easy. Again, I do not want to quit my work as I normally love what I do and art is and always has been my passion but I have to take care of my health to be able to make art that I enjoy making and can be proud of.

I also learned last week that my eyesight has gotten worse and I'll be getting new glasses on top of the physiotherapy I'm attending weekly now to deal with my recently diagnosed scoliosis, both things that have been making drawing for me alot harder in the recent times too, initially I only though my constant back pain that's been gradually getting worse over the years was just bad posture? But no, turns out I had scoliosis all along. So yeah, fun times in the health department for me /s  .Been feeling alot like I'm collecting health problems like other people collect trading cards and that it never ends, but I'm doing my best to appropriately deal with them so I can go back to full power again and have a blast with drawing again and especially draw the fun spicy goods c: That's the big end goal, having a good time again doing what I love and having a good time drawing great shitposts and spice for you guys that I can look at fondly.  

TLDR: Burnout's a bitch and the last two-ish years sucked big time, my vision got worse and I figured out my constant back pain is not normal & getting physio for it, My partner's shitty boss got fucked and he quit his job, people being awful, my brain is no longer completely deep fried at least so I'm trying to do a little work next month but not sure about the overall workload yet because I don't want to ruin the progress I've made in the meantime because I might be impatient.


So that's about it, sending lots of love to you guys and especially those of you who left me kind messages or comments, asked me to send me their month's patronage regardless or just sent wished me a speedy recovery and met my decision with understanding. I'm ever grateful for your support and wishing nothing but the best for you guys 💖