The first part of this journal was actually written several months ago, when I was not yet sure how to go about explaining it, and I was writing purely based on my symptoms and experiences. It was very stream-of-consciousness and written out of frustration, and is therefore poorly organized, somewhat rambling, and often redundant. The second part (I marked where the parts split, don’t worry), contains some other thoughts and snippets that had come to mind in the period since that time, as well as some additional bits added in the last day before posting. So, there may be some odd tonal shifts and additional redundancy, and it almost feels like two journals mashed into one. Like it has multiple main ideas and multiple would-be closing remarks. I don’t think any of my English teachers would be very proud, lol. I neglected to go back and properly reorganize this or work the two parts together because I never felt fully comfortable with it, and also simply my condition has not allowed me the energy to spare for it. But, after yesterday’s journal about my troubles post-covid, it felt like these feelings still held some relevance, and even if disorganized, should be expressed.

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I titled this journal after a vague memory of a book I half-read back in school at some point in my life, the title of which happened to pop into my head purely due to its relevance to the “expectations” theme. I have no idea what the book is about.

I've always wanted to handle my galleries and profiles in a casual personal manner, but with a professional level of quality. I've never wanted to bloat it with unnecessary updates and posts. I wanted to keep things "streamlined." And part of that even included not posting journals like this unless absolutely necessary. And of course, I mean no offense to others who maintain their profiles differently! That's perfectly alright—if anything, my hesitancy came from being so "new" and "unestablished." I didn't want to have a profile overloaded with personal things or emotional things without enough good content and a stable history to balance it out and "justify" it. To post art once every six months, while having journals about my hardships every other week, ain't exactly how you build yourself up! And I'm fortunate enough to have enough support from friends that such public-facing expressions were not generally necessary. This time, however, I feel that it is.

Ever since my traumatic experience in 2018, I have struggled to rebuild my life in a way I could be satisfied with, and while I had made significant progress in a few specific areas, I ultimately never managed to make any headway toward my ultimate goal. However, I still managed to do a lot. I started streaming, and people told me I was good at it! I kept doing it, and people seemed to keep liking it! I started playing D&D, and people loved my characters and the energy I brought to the game! They were even encouraging me to DM a campaign myself! And most relevantly, I started drawing! Sure, I wasn't much, but people appreciated what I did! I met lots of people, did interesting new things at conventions, and even built up a small community—all thanks to art! I hoped one day I would be big and successful, have cultivated and improved my skills, make interesting and impressive art, have a healthy thriving community, be "someone" in as much a capacity as a furry artist could be. I know that those things aren't everything—they are only one way to measure one type of success—but they were still goals, still something to occupy myself with and to focus on while I worked on my life, and something I hoped to cultivate so that, should I ever manage to emerge on the other side of my difficulties with trauma, I would at least have something to show for all the time that had passed.

Before I knew it, all these efforts even started to create expectations! This was stressful, but also a sign that, hey, something was working! My efforts were not in vain, not unnoticed! People looked forward to my streams and were curious or worried when they didn't happen for a while. People followed me for my art, noticed my improvements, recognized my fortes, and (most surprisingly) flocked to my commission openings! It was all difficult, and it all took me way more time and effort than I ever wanted it to. Had I done any of this pre-trauma, I often thought, it would be smoother and more successful, because I wouldn't have the burden of trauma perpetually dragging me down. Yet even so, I still managed to get that far.

Then, this year, after things already began so roughly, I contracted covid, and that has left me damaged in a way far more insidious than even the trauma did. I hadn't even realized all the ways it was affecting me at first, but as time went on, and I continued to carry on with life "as normal," more and more of the long-term effects became clear, and the "continuation" of life as normal became clear as far more of a "struggle." I simply haven't been quite myself. I haven't been quite as capable. Everything I've been doing and working so hard at just "wasn't quite working out." It didn't make sense at first, and I didn't understand why it was happening. I thought it was just a phase I would push through and get over, but as time has gone on and the difficulties have only increased, I've started to have to recognize and accept that no, it is not a phase, and it will not end, and I must start to understand and learn how to live with yet another new, unfortunate change and loss within myself.

To that end, I wanted to address the expectations people have of me. The more I tried to live up to them, the more apparent my newfound inadequacies became. These last three years, in spite of not making any truly monumental progress in terms of growth or following or skills or activities, still have managed to create quite a level of expectation for me, in what until now I probably would have considered a good thing! Expectations from others, as well as myself. I was learning what post-2018 me was capable of, and others were recognizing the sort of work I do. This year, I've been trying to live up to my own expectations and being continually let down. Not by setting the bar too high, but by simply continuing to operate under the assumption that I was the same now as I was a few months ago, that I could continue the slow and steady pace of what was clearly working, and for it to continue working slowly and steadily! Yet for some reason... it wasn't. So I tried harder! And I failed harder! And as I began to recognize this more and more in myself, I then noticed that other people's expectations of me had not also magically adjusted (because why would they?). And while I was already feeling like a failure based on the already seemingly-low standards I had set for myself and trying to get used to that fact as the new normal, other people still expected my drawings to get better, and for my streams to be pleasant, or even just for my D&D skills to stay sharp! I was still seen by everyone as the confident, capable person I had set myself up to be and established myself as, even if it was only to a very small group. And I suppose the very long-winded point of this journal is to say, I'm sorry, but I can't meet those expectations anymore. I would like my new problems to be recognized, and I would like it if people could, well, expect less of me. I don't think I'll ever be able to be a great artist. I don't think I'll ever be able to be a confident streamer. I don't think I'll ever be a creative DM. Maybe I'm wrong. I sure hope I am! But it will take a very long time to ever find any of that out. I'm not ruling out that maybe I can "recover," or that maybe I'll achieve those former-goals after all, but if I do, I imagine it will have to look different than it previously would have. But for now at least, my life has ground to a relative halt. My ambitions have disappeared, as well as (or because of) my confidence. I tried to continue being ambitious and being the "me" I've gotten to know the past few years, but it wasn't working, and the more I tried and saw how it wasn't working, the worse I felt about myself and the more confidence I lost that I even could be that person. All the time and work I put in to build up that confidence was swiftly undone, and now I simply can't be that person anymore. I don't know who I am now, or what that means I'll be doing, but for the time being at least, it doesn't seem like "the usual" is any longer an option.

I'm trying to draw, but it's "not working," and rather than force myself through it, I'm trying to accept that it may not be in the cards for now. I've been streaming a lot lately to try and distract myself from my worries and "retrain" myself to have the confidence I had before as well as prove to myself that I AM still capable and things aren't as bad as I feared, but repeatedly the result of each attempt has provided further evidence to myself that I am simply different now and not able to function in quite the same way as I once did.

It's pretty weird, to put out a big huge dramatic journal like this when I'm still virtually nobody. "Artist that nobody notices unless they make a post announces that they will no longer be making posts, and no one notices." That makes me a little sad. And yes, I know, not literally no one. I don't at all want to diminish the support of everyone who did actually help me make as much progress as I did and who are actually reading this—it's for all of you that I am making this after all, otherwise I'd have simply let my galleries die without a word. It's almost as if this whole announcement is pointless, like what am I really announcing anyway? Who do I think I am? Well, I know who I wish I was, and what I wanted to be. And if things had gone a little better in life, maybe I would be there. But I'm not, and I might not ever be. Maybe one day I will be, but please don't expect it.

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That was the original ending to the journal, and frankly I kinda like it better that way. In the days and weeks following, however, I had more thoughts I wanted to somehow include. I told myself I’d go back and work everything in together, to create a more coherent piece of writing and tie ideas into each other, but as I mentioned at the top, I did not. So please just keep that in mind as you finish reading through the journal.

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I also ask that people please be mindful of the “out of sight out of mind” sort of fallacy. “I see Ettie feeling bad right now, so they feel bad right now. Then later, I’m sure they’ll be fine again. Ettie will be back to normal.” The whole point of this is that no, I won’t. Maybe things will get better over time (and if they do I’ll tell ya!), maybe I’ll have “good days” here and there, or I’ll sound energetic and happy on a livestream. But when people are not able to see any huge obvious difference in the little snapshots they get of me in public, or when I’m squeezing out my last ounce of stamina to put up a good performance on stream (or hell, even when I end a sentence in text with an excited sounding exclamation mark!), they incorrectly assume, “See? Ettie’s doing fine now,” and that misconception is very invalidating of the hardships I face, and is again, very damaging. I don’t want people to forget that I feel this way based on one good snapshot. I don’t want to be judged based on what outwardly appeared to be a “good” day, because what’s not being seen is how I might have felt any other time that day, or how difficult it might have been to get that far that day, or how little else I accomplished. Typically when you are seeing me, it’s because I am feeling just barely enough energy to be seen. Such snapshots are by no means representative of my baseline or what a typical day is like—of all the days and times you are not seeing me.

People tell me that they think highly of me, that they have confidence in me and my abilities, and I know they mean it as a compliment and as encouragement at a time when I’m feeling so down on myself, but actually, it hurts. It shows that people are not recognizing the difficulty I am facing, and it feels like I’m being compared to and held to the expectations of my former self, which I am no longer capable of meeting. In fact, being held to such standards is actually quite damaging to my self-esteem.

“Look at all the great things you did before! You are a great artist! You can do those things! You did it once, you can do it again!” I know when people say that, they only mean well, but I hope I have been able to explain why such words of encouragement have expectations that create pressure, that holding such expectations of me right now is wrong, and why the pressure of those expectations is extremely hurtful to me. I simply can’t do what I used to do, even if it wasn’t that long ago. It’s not merely a state of mind or matter of effort. Most of you have only ever known me since after my past trauma, so you didn’t know what I was like before and how I had changed after. Now I have experienced something similar again, and I’ve already been seeing and feeling its impact in my life very clearly. I’m handling it more stably overall than last time, because for better or worse, I have experience with it, and by that token, I also know what to expect, and I understand what I am experiencing. Things are changing again, and they’ll never be like they were.

I mentioned in the big journal from January how the trauma hurt my relationships and changed my life, and there were even some relationships that were not able to survive the transition and carry over into what my life became. Now, I have even more relationships and more personal/emotional “assets” built up than ever before, and I would like to not lose any again. That is why, even though no one can fix me or help me, I am at least trying to get you to understand me.

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And now, in the (actual) present again, looking back on this prior to posting, it seems to actually still have a vaguely hopeful note to it. “If I can remove the burden of expectations, and if people can understand me better, then maybe I can get through this better.” I wonder if that can be true, but I suppose, based on the journal I posted yesterday, I don’t exactly feel like it matters anymore. Sorry to take the wind out of my own sails. I hope I can be wrong, though.