WIPs and pausing for December (Patreon)

Hey, everyone!

I was supposed to pause for October, but A LOT happened this month and it completely slipped my mind. As such, I'm going to be pausing payment for this December.

A little update on what's been going on:

As most of you know, I've been dealing with chronic pain for years, and in the last few months, it has become debilitating. I've spent a lot of time on our couch with heating packs and ice around my arms, as my nerves are severely impinged and it's been shooting down into my fingers. I've gone through all the procedures. Radiofrequency ablations, medial branch blocks, epidurals, all kinds of injections, massages, acupuncture, physical therapy. Nothing ever worked, and I had started to to lose hope. I'm still struggling with hope. It feels scary to imagine a point where I WON'T be in pain.

But a few weeks ago, my husband brought up trying a massage THERAPIST, and I'll say this. This one woman has helped me more in the few weeks I've been seeing her THAN ANY OF THE ABOVE THINGS COMBINED. She knows what she's doing, understands the body, where muscles and nerves and ligaments connect and overlap, and even though it has been a painful experience, she has helped me in so many ways. I legitimately have tears in my eyes as I'm typing this. Part of why I was unable to draw/have been drawing but with severe pain, was because my muscles are so constricted and shortened, that they basically have nowhere to go and can't actually expand, and certain areas in my body haven't been getting proper circulation for possibly years. (This part is a little uhhh, squicky? Uncomfortable to read, so just a heads up) My muscles were (and still are in most places) LITERALLY pulling my bones out of place. My right scapula is pretty much suctioned to my ribs, and my right shoulder was somewhat out of it's socket (she put it back in, but FUCK it hurt).

I went through a trauma years ago, and I've been carrying immense, life altering guilt, sadness, and stress with me since April 2021. I knew my pain had gotten worse, but I had NO idea HOW bad it was. I've been seeing her once a week at least (she also gave me her personal number if she doesn't have openings, and has squeezed me in because she knows how fucked up my body is (my words, not hers lol. She described my body as "impressive, and that I could take that however I wanted" lol.

I've been in unbearable pain for such a long time, and I keep trying to find ways to make commissions and Patreon work for me, but I always end up dropping the ball in one way or another. It's been hard.

My advice to people struggling with unresolved trauma: DO NOT ignore it. DO NOT bury it. Seek help and KEEP FIGHTING AND ADVOCATING FOR YOURSELF. Things WILL feel hopeless at times. You will have days and nights that are bad, you may lose track of who you ARE in all of it, but please don't give up. DO NOT let people try to tell you it's all in your head, and that it will simply go away. It won't. Trauma affects everything in your life. Your mental health, your physical health, your relationships, your work, your hobbies (I haven't been able to hold a Switch in over a month because of the pain.) Please don't stop fighting.

I have some diagnoses, but what's been going on with me in a muscular-skeletal sense has been HELL. I'm such a broken record, but to all of you that have stuck around and supported me DESPITE everything. I can't thank you enough. My dream is to be able to do Patreon and commissions full time, but my time hasn't quite come yet, but I KNOW it will. Thank you SO, SO MUCH to all of you that have stuck around. I know I'm in and out and oftentimes forgetful. You all mean the world to me. TRULY, you mean so much to me.

-Kelly