So December, and most of November really, have been very intense for me. I feel like I've been kind of absent feeling from my galleries, from drawing, and from streaming, so I thought I'd talk a bit about what's been going on. I'm not going to share some details, because this is a pretty personal thing I'm experiencing, so I apologize if my explanation is too vague to properly grasp.

There's a big tangle in my emotions that I've been trying to work past for the last couple years, and for a while I thought I'd gotten around it. But it turned out that's totally not the case, and the thing had been slowly eating me alive until it became particularly bad very recently. I think what made me unable to push it out of my mind like before was due to the pretty trying year I've had. I was fostering that dog for several months, and that made me pretty much unable to work until she was adopted. Then I had to play catch up on commissions and projects for the next several months. After that, I had two conventions to prepare for, which ate a lot of my time. My car breaking down was the biggest kick to my gut; I'm already quite isolated, working from home all day and not knowing anyone in the area. My neighborhood is also a very unsafe one, and I've experienced a couple things here that have left me incredibly shaken. I can't go on leisurely walks through this part of town without feeling like I'm risking my safety, so I stopped going out pretty much altogether. Being cooped up in a house with mostly my own troubling thoughts to keep me company just wore me down in the end, I think.

At the beginning of December, I was in rough shape. Drawing was becoming routine and un-special, streaming my art was an emotional nightmare, even talking to friends online was leaving me drained. Doing the smallest things left me in heart-pounding panic attacks that I didn't understand, and couldn't seem to stop. In spite of phone anxiety, I finally got an appointment scheduled to start seeing a therapist, though I had to wait until after my week-long visit to see my family.

After spending a week away, I felt... different. Nothing felt resolved or fixed, but things seemed more in perspective. I spent several days with my dad, stepmom, and youngest sister, and we talked about so many things. We went through a photo album, looked in the bin of manga and things I'd left when I moved out, and rewatched Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. We had a lot of discussions between all of us, about gender, religion, bullying, addiction... a lot of stuff. It was remarkable to be able to have those kinds of conversations with my family. I don't know how to describe it, but it felt very important. At the end of the week, I saw two of my grandmas on different days, both of whom I hadn't seen in about 10 years. I got them caught up on my life, including my job and my gender identity... all of it. I asked them a lot of questions about our family history, in return. There's a lot of stuff from when I was little that never quite added up, and it was nice to finally understand some of those things. I also saw my stepdad, who I'd been avoiding for reasons, and I ended up telling him those reasons and talking it out. There were some lighter visits with friends mixed in with all this, which was a relief and a joy, too.

So obviously, this was a very emotionally laden week I'd just had. After coming home, therapy was literally the next day. I felt like a completely different person from when I'd made the appointment two weeks ago. It was odd to try to remember what specifically I was there for, when I wasn't presently feeling those issues. A couple other things happened over the course of this last week that made a big impact on my state of mind, but I won't be explaining those.

Which brings us to present. The year is drawing to a close, and for once I feel ready for it. My emotional state has improved in this last week, and I've gotten help to ensure this continues. I've also started attending a D&D group, so I've got more chances to get out there and socialize with people. I'm sure I'll still have some downs ahead of me, but I think that overall, I'm confronting what's been causing a lot of issues for me, and in time it's going to heal up and become a manageable thing.

I don't know when I'll be streaming publicly again. I've been doing little test streams with just friends, and so far they haven't made me feel negatively like before, so I'm hoping it will be sooner than later. I might try to stream sporadically, depending on how I feel, but no promises.

Thank you all for sticking with my art and my self through my various stages on these galleries. I hope the next year is one of productivity and peace.