local anon · 6d
Thank you very much for responding to my question. There's a lot to thnk about. It's scary to me re: how life can be without succumbing to stress, and I find it very difficult breaking out of what I've learned as a child (thanks parents lol) but from friend pressure and your recent skeets I have been warming up to going to therapy. I've built a life where I can function but art for me comes in waves and I get tunnel vision until I burn out and wait forever again to draw. To me this feels like taking a huge risk as this is the only lifestyle i know. I feel there's hope with what you wrote. I wish more artists loved their work so openly. (it always felt like taboo, i'm glad to see times change.)
I hope your day is filled with things that make you happy and smiles. You've definitely given me hope. Thank you!
First: Please, absolutely seek therapy. I think everybody should see therapy, it's a good investment in yourself and finding the balance you want. Therapy isn't a fix -- nothing is a fix -- but it's a step toward recovery.
Second: I do agree it seems taboo that people openly love their work, I've been told a lot I'm up my own ass and narcissistic and arrogant for being so unapologetic (I think the only adjective out of that list I agree with is arrogant, I totally am, which I'm fine with). Still, it's never stopped me, because the one thing I also understood all my life is people who dislike themselves will always dislike others who don't, and there's absolutely no harm to being happy about your own art to absolutely anybody -- but there's a lot of harm in the opposite, especially to yourself.
Third: Yes, life is terrifying, and stress can be overwhelming. Please know managing stress doesn't mean that it stops being a burden. There are plenty of days where I succumb to it still and the best I can do to stave it off is rest and play video games. I find the best way to learn how to manage the pressures of life is to accept the pressures will always be there, make peace with that, and then do your best to not war with it. In an office there's always the coworkers that annoy the shit out of you, but you still have to work with them, so fighting with them will only make that harder.
Fourth: I know leaving a toxic but familiar situation (lifestyle, relationship, habits, you name it) is intimidating because you don't know what anything outside of that looks like. And that's okay.
In fact, I let that be the thing that guided me in the past 5 years. When I decided I had to change my relationship 180 with my drawing habits, I confronted the fact that if anything I did felt familiar, predictable, or in any way in my control then I was doing it wrong, because it meant I was still operating in what I already knew. But a better outcome is one that would be completely new to me, so if something felt foreign or foolish, I knew I was going in the right direction. It wasn't always the answers, but it was exploration and in the exploring is what opened up my world to something that was beyond my imagination, which was the point.
You don't know what a better life feels like, if you did you'd be living it. So the first step towards it is to allow yourself to be a pioneer and discover what that looks like.
Anyway, I'm glad you're finding hope. If there's anything I can do, is to encourage you to be brave about that hope.
