Hey everyone! It's been a long time since I last updated my profile, and as some of you are aware, I had disabled my profile entirely since last summer. I apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have brought, but I had a lot of reasons why that I will explain in a moment.

To be frank, this year has been the hardest year of my life. In a short summary, I've had a handful of rough years since 2014, and the challenges and tribulations of my life have often times come in the form of waves, or tidal waves if anything. I'll have hard moments, then a break, then more challenges, and so on. I want to go back a little and give some context of things so everyone has a better understanding of things, and why I've been so dismally active in the online community over the years.

// For tl;dr & the summary, scroll to the bottom! //

Back in 2014 I had restart my life by moving from WA state to Utah with some friends and my, at the time, new partner. Without getting too much into it, it was a hard reset for the both of us, but we had good friends and good supporters to help keep me going, which I'm thankful for. There was a lot of stumble bumps along the way until 2017. We had moved a few times, my partner left unexpectedly a few times, I had switched jobs a few times, and things were often rocky. It was a hard journey, and my naivety being in my mid 20s didn't help either. Everything was a massive, giant learning curve for me, and many times I was very much alone to face those challenges, aside from the help from my contact with friends. I was facing a lot of confusing circumstances and situations that were forced onto me by my partner, and some experiences with bad roomates.

In 2016, my partner and I had a son, and while it was exciting, the months of pregnancy and afterwards only got harder. I had also started working roughly 50-60 hour weeks, and the work only got heavier once we had our little man. There was a lot of expenses, and I was completely on my own with it all, and the pressure from a lot of people in our families. It only got harder and harder for me from that point, and the difficulties and challenges never seemed to stop. For awhile my partner left with my son unexpectedly, and it only took a heavier toll on my mental health. Thankfully they came back at the tail end of 2016, but only for our slumlord to kick everyone out of the house we were living in because I refused to suddenly get rid of my german shepherd ESA (Which is illegal...). So we all were kicked out without much of a warning, and it was a huge stress on all of us.

Jan 2017 rolled around when we left, and with the help of friends, I was able to get my partner and my newborn son to their family up north, as we planned to head back to WA state. A lot transpired through this time, and long story short, our convoy of cars got stuck in a bad blizzard, and one of the cars had an irreparable breakdown. I had to stay behind to deal with handling the broken down car that had all of our belongings and cash in it, and I had them continue north. Unfortunately for me, like a domino effect of bad luck, I ended up getting stuck in Utah for 5 months homeless. It was during this time it felt like thing after thing after thing after thing just hit me again and again. No matter what I did, I faced extremely challenging odds, and while I ended up getting out of there early summer, I had to face a lot of difficulties. There were times I had to sleep outdoors in the cold, or in my car, or on bench seats so i could stretch. Luckily with the help of friends, donations, and my tax return finally coming in after months and month of playing cat n mouse with the IRS (First year claiming our son), I was able to get what I needed to leave.

From there, I moved back up to WA alone, and the place I had planned to stay in was sold underneath me before I got up north. So I ended up homeless again, and stayed with a friend for awhile. Started to get back on my feet, got a decent job, then bought my future shop's location. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see my partner or son very often, as the family they stayed with weren't keen on my presence. It took a huge, huge and heavy toll on my mental health for the absolute longest time for almost two years, and it was an extremely challenging situation for me.

Form there I shuffled between jobs, moved a few times, my partner and I got married, then was offered a place to stay later on with an old friend. Long story short, the friend's ex lover had suddenly left them, and they really wanted to fill that roomate spot (And had a crush on me). Unfortunately for me, I didn't realize how awful it would be, even trying to be responsible and not accept the constant invitations to move in even though I temporarily had no place to go. I knew I couldn't pay for awhile, but eventually I caved, moved in, and my partner soon after moved in with us. It was the biggest mistake. I had the plan to bring our kiddo with us, and start over... but it just never happened. Not only had I moved far, far up north from everything I was familiar with and my shop, but the apartment was expensive, and this person ended up being extremely manipulative with not only my friends and coworkers but my partner. Only wanted to get between us, even bragged about it. It was an extremely stressful situation... so much we later left.

I had started working for Amazon at the time making good money as a driver, but we had no place to go. Our plans had fallen through, so we stayed with a good friend up in Seattle for a few months. I'm extremely grateful to them... but then COVID happened right when we were to get our own apartment... not only did we have complications come up with the apartment, but then my Amazon job terminated all of the in-house delivery drivers, and pawned all of them off to contractors (Known as DSPs). It was like everything hit at once. Then right after I got extremely sick in Jan 2020 (Pretty sure I had COVID), but then COVID happened.

So we moved back down south and stayed in the loft area of my car shop. I had plans to turn the shop into a full business, and had a few clients, part time, beforehand. So I dedicated all of my time and resources into turning it into a full shop, and honestly it's what saved me during COVID and the lockdown. Businesses left and right either completely shut down, or had to lock down for months. My business being an essential business was able to stay open, and we barely scraped by. I worked my butt off, and we made it through. Along with the stimulus checks, we were doing well compared to a lot of others, though it was still a struggle.

We were planning to get a new place to stay from there, but like a case of extremely bad luck, nothing ever worked out. Lots of times the few places I could find that would work were rented out before I could get them, or fell through during the process. It didn't help I tried to streamline the process by myself, rushing things for us, and it only ever kept backfiring. While my partner did art commissions at the time, I had to work for 80-90% of our income, and during those COVID months until early 2022, it was hard. Extremely hard.

It wasn't until spring of 2022 that my business started to take off, and in the right direction. My clients were getting better and better, and my work was spreading more and more. I had created a good, solid reputation for myself. With the help of a few friends, and my hard work, it felt like we were finally seeing the rewards of our hard work. I had put together a plan to finish a handful of car projects we had while I worked with my clients to then later sell everything all at once to bidders, get a bunch of cash, then set a down payment for land. For awhile it seemed things were going well, even with a few hiccups along the way. We even had some homeless drug addicts squat in the commercial unit next to ours, and even with that hell hole next to us, I still did great for our situation.

Unfortunately late summer of 2022, when I had my biggest clients (I had a 69 Chevelle, a 68 Ford Futura, and a heavily built 75 El Camino), disaster had struck for me. Not only did I find out my partner was hiding a lot from me for a long time, but I got COVID from someone they brought by. I was out for nearly a month. Then beginning of August, I rushed myself to the hospital when I suddenly started going blind, and it was the beginning of a stroke. I was left to stay at the ER by myself, then transported to another hospital for more examinations and scans. After several days, it was concluded that I was clear to go home, and the stroke I had was extremely small. My vision had returned, but it was found that in combination of my chronic migraines and stress, COVID was the main contender.

When I was cleared to go home, unfortunately I ran out of 4G connection, and couldn't use the wifi inside. Not only that, but I had no money left as I had used everything I had in savings days before to pay all of my bills. I wasn't making any money being out for weeks and weeks. I tried calling around, but couldn't find a ride. Eventually my partner agreed to meet me a few miles away at a local Walmart, but I had to walk there to meet them; they didn't want to drive down the hill. That sucked. I about passed out on the way because 75% of the way there was up a 30-35% incline for almost 2 miles (S Meridian in Puyallup, WA hah). Thankfully I made it up the hill, then we went back to the shop.

From there things only got worse. Days after I returned, and days before my birthday, I found my best friend's body. They had suffered a heat stroke after passing out from their low blood sugar. I was extremely, extremely close with him and his family. I was able to summon the courage to make a speech for his funeral, and glad I did... and I still keep contact with his family. But it was extremely traumatizing on top of what I had already endured, and I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life.

Then later, long story short after a lot of surprises, I had my partner leave. It was hard, and sometimes I caved to my emotional attachment.. but eventually we separated at the end of 2022. Hardest Christmas I've ever had. I had to fake my emotions and pretend nothing was wrong seeing my son, the family, etc. I had absolutely zero support, and often times had to step outside because I just would break down. I didn't want to cause a scene. It was hard. Over the next few months they had left with all their things.

// IN SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION //

After facing all of this, all of these challenges, I had to figure out what I was going to do with my car shop business. I had lost my biggest clients during all this, and I was having a hard time conducting business as usual. I was at my absolutely lowest point in my life. I struggled with alcohol and suicide, and if it had not been for my closest friends (You know who you are) I would have unalived myself. I was at the point several times honestly.. and a few times the people I came to for help just told me "Nah you won't do it just deal with it" and boy did it just destroy me mentally. But I'm glad I had my very small circle of friends at the time. Not many people cared about my situation, except a select few. I'm thankful and grateful to them.

From there I've had to restart my life, with divorce, losing my business, losing all of my money, losing half or more of my things, tools, equipment, cars, etc just to survive. Fortunately I was able to get therapy with the help of friends and networking and finding an extremely, extremely helpful therapist. I know him personally, and it's been a blessing tbh. Around this time I met my now-boyfriend. At first we were friends, took things slow, but things ended up just.. clicking together perfectly. Like putting puzzle pieces together, everything we started doing was just the right fit for me. It has single handedly been the best decision of my life up to this point. I don't know how I got as lucky as I did, and how supportive he is and how loving and caring he is... I don't know what I did to deserve it.

Since then I've been seeing my son again (I was unable to see him for a long time), been spending more time with him, been rising through good paying jobs (Just started my newest one this week), and been getting back on my feet. With the help of exceptional friends, my boyfriend, and amazing new family members, I for once in my life feel okay. I suffered so much anxiety (Still struggling with it..) and stress the last year and half.. but I'm doing better. I'm focusing more on myself, learning more about myself, and no longer letting the patterns of ill-will'd people control my ability or decision making.

Good things are coming. I've started hosting PNW events again, I've participated more in my local communities again, I've restarted my comic (More info to come) and have already released the first comic page. This is the first time in a decade my partner has supported my artwork, and it's the first time in yearrssss I've felt good about my art. So I'm slowly getting back into the art groove, and getting a schedule down. But more to come! You can support me and my comic by sub'ing to my Patreon at @ https://patreon.com/raphial or join my Discord @ https://iraph-studios.com/discord.php

It's been a year of learning and progress, from being nothing to becoming something again. I thank you all who supported me along the way, and who helped me get this far. I truly, truly am thankful for such good people in my life. <3