Oh look, another post. Hi. Having encountered a positive feedback on my previous one, I decided to keep writing about this kind of topics. I understand its not my usual content and that this blog has already shifted from it’s original purpose twice, and for this reason I apologize for how heavy this reading may be and hope that whoever’s still interested will keep sticking around.
I just found out that the ‘’chronic illness’’ I’ve lived with for 4 years wasn’t actually chronic and I finally received a real diagnosis. Just for context, at the age of 15 I started having frequent respiratory issues and severe asthma attacks out of nowhere. Could’ve been a coincidence or a billion other things, and I thought it would go away on its own.
After catching a bad case of pneumonia, it only got worse and it wouldn’t be the only time it would happen. My doctor told me I still had to fully recover from pneumonia and that’s what was causing these “episodes”, so I believed in it. After the 6 months & more that were ‘’required’’ for me to gain my health back like my doctor had said, nothing had changed, and again, it got worse. Everyday I woke up unable to breathe, every time I heard myself wheezing my whole body would shut down in fear. It wasn’t ‘’just’’ asthma and I knew it. ‘’There’s nothing wrong with you, just take your medication and you’ll be fine’’ ‘’Oh, you’re just conditioning youself’’ is all I heard during those months. Panic attacks blended in and I started living in fear. What if I go out and then I start feeling sick? I came to the point where I couldn’t live my daily life without heavy steroids to be able to breathe. And they destroyed my body in the process. I felt like I had been stripped of everything, because the hardships I faced during that time simply weren’t enough. I used to go out everyday and out of the blue everything changed, I found myself unable to walk without running out of breath most days, I had to stop working out because I got tired too easily. I blamed it on so many things, trying to find an explanation, trying to understand WHY this was happening to me. I knew something was wrong and what my doctor was telling me was wrong, that he wasn’t really understanding the severity of the symptoms. Should I just give it up and accept this? Should I just surrender? The anger I felt everyday was killing me. I gaslit myself into thinking it was all in my head, I made up explanations for it because I desperately wanted one and I couldn’t have it.
Why was this happening to me at such a young age? Why does it have to be so unfair? It was all I thought about daily for 4 years, it consumed me to a point where I started going insane. I thought it was my fault, so I stopped taking my medication to prove that it was all in my head. I counted down the day without them, and I only lasted a week before it happened again. I tried staying calm, I tried meditating and it didn’t help. I couldn’t breathe and there was nothing I could do on my own, it was real. My chest felt heavy to the point where I thought I’d suffocate multiple times, like my lungs were being crushed. Of course it couldnt simply be a “bad asthma attack”. Anger blinded me and I still didn’t understand. 2024 started and so my social media art journey did, too, even though getting out of bed was a challenge most days I still wanted to do it. Not everyone knew about this, at least, not like this. I fought to keep it to myself as much as I could because I didn’t even know how to explain it. What would I even say about it?
The past year, I pushed myself in every single way I could with art. Starting to post my drawings on social medias helped me defeat one of my biggest insecurities and I did it, scared, but I still did it. Now that the main goals had been accomplished, I had to focus on the next one. Improving, improving, improving. And my poor health dragged me across the floor by the hair everyday. Everyday it was new challenge. I had never been as hyper aware of my body as I was in 2024, it really was my last straw. I compulsively checked my own breathing every single time of the day and when I was out of the house it was ten times worse. As someone who has always been deeply passionate about what I do, having to compromise my creative productivity for the sake of resting (and/or working) fucked with my head even more.
Because during all of these 4 years, I went to school, studied and worked a full time job everyday. Balancing everything was hard, and of course I had to sacrifice something to keep it up (=my personal & social life). It’s not something I’m saying just for the sake of it or to get some compassion, it’s a matter of fact. Still, last year, I still accomplished things I wouldn’t have dared to dream of. Turning 18, the desire to make drawing a profession loomed over me day and night. And this is exactly what leads us to my next topic: creativity breaks.
In September 2024, after lots of life-changing life events and responsibilities that I had to take upon myself, my health and my job, the need for a break started calling me. I pushed through until October, and then I stopped posting on my socials. It weighed heavily on me, I cannot begin to explain how many times I felt like I had to apologize for it or to explain myself. Social medias algorithms aren’t kind, and if you’re an artist in this age, you feel obligated to stay relevant. If you wanna be a professional, you need to get out there, you need to post. How else are you supposed to make it, then, I asked myself? October and November were my worst months health-wise, and even thinking about it makes me want to throw up, but yet, I still felt the need to apologize. To an invisible audience and to myself, for betraying my nature, for wanting a life outside of art, drawing, mangas. Because if I wasn’t giving my life away I wasn’t learning and if I wasn’t learning I wasn’t on the road to ‘’make it’’, and if I didn’t make it I was a traitor. After an unexpected turn of life events in December though, something had changed. When I finally got the answer I was praying for, I cried tears of joy. When I actually understood what was causing my health issues, that I wasn’t ‘’stuck’’ with something that I’d never get rid of, it felt like I had just come back from a war. Now that I officially have an answer and stopped taking my medications, I feel like I’m living for the first time again. I finally feel like I can actually lean back and relax in 4 years, and I don’t know what to do with myself, because even now, at times, I feel like I don’t deserve any of this.
I can finally take my life back and instead of feeling overwhelmed by motivation, I find myself in a fragile state where I gotta process everything that has happened, where I actually have to face sides of myself I thought I’d never would, and actually finding the root of my vicious cycles and destroying it has been hard. If I was torturing myself for my health then, I gotta torture myself for resting now. If I’m not resting and being productive, then I gotta torture myself to be more productive and so on. It has been incredibly eye-opening to notice this kind of pattern and finding a way out, even though relapses happen more often than I’d care to admit. Art, illness and guilt are three unrelated things that have been deeply intertwined during the most formative years of my life and finally being able to speak about it is liberating.
What I’ve learned is that, in the end, its mostly about perspective and the way we perceive things. If I didn’t perceive art as something extremely important to me I wouldn’t overthink it so much and wouldn’t give it this much power over my life and guilt wouldn’t eat me alive, if I had perceived my illness differently it wouldn’t have consumed most of my teenage years the way it did even when it wasn’t there. I’m not sure if there’s a real message to this story, because to be completely honest, I didn’t really start writing this post with the though of teaching a lesson in mind, but if there’s someone that could benefit from reading this then it’s better than writing to myself on a simple journal.
Managing creativity is hard. Being a creative person in general is hard, and I know how quickly passion turns to obsession. How the idea of creating can eat you alive when you don’t know how to control yourself, especially if you’re as goal oriented as I am. I know how easy it is to want more from yourself and what it feels like to stray away from the only goal you’ve pushed yourself to chase ever since you were a kid, what it’s like to make it 90% of your personality to the point where even the simple thought of changing paths and trying something different makes you physically sick. I know how it feels to not be able to move on and forgive yourself for growing, but I’m learning to embrace it bit by bit. Even letting go of my illness felt like this, in a way, no matter how badly I prayed to get better every day. Because if I don’t have that anymore, then how will I allow myself to be sad or stressed, even when sad or stressful things happen? How can I forgive myself for being unproductive, if I don’t have a reason to be anymore?
I would lie if I said I didn’t think this way at least once, but ultimately, the biggest lesson I learned is that I’m human like everyone else and that goals can’t transcend this simple fact. It’s not possible nor realistic to think or feel the same way about something your whole life, it’s ok to grow, to change your mind. And changing your mind doesn’t make you less of a reliable person, that there isn’t an imaginary audience who’s gonna ‘’boo’’ you if you dedicate yourself to other things. That you can not draw for months and still be an artist, and that not accomplishing the realistic goals you set for yourself at 15 doesn’t make you a failure. I’ve come to understand that I want more than what I’ve always thought was my calling, that there are things that mean too much for me to simply give up in favor of one of them and that they all matter the same, and not being consumed by my health 24/7 helped me think things through clearly. I don’t really want to come across as a victim since my case resolved with the best-case scenario, but I think that even if I had to ultimately accept it a live my life with what I had, I’d still work hard to make it beautiful for myself. I brought it up because this and my art have been on the same paths for too long. It pains me to think that I was so blinded by my goals that I still couldn’t make myself understand that it wasn’t that serious in the comparison to all the other struggles I was facing.
Even though everything seems unbelievably hard at times, I still do my best to keep myself positive and push forward, because if I didn’t do it when I was at my lowest I wouldn’t be here now.
I’ve always been reluctant to dedicate too much time to my other hobbies and develop new creative projects, thinking of picking a major that didn’t specifically involve drawing scared me, but it’s not like that anymore and this is why I’m writing so much. I don’t think I’ve ever exposed myself this much, and it’s not even half as bad as I thought it would be. I love writing, if I didn’t write I’d feel lost. I started drawing first, but writing is a basic need like food and water to me, sharing something that could potentially help someone else in a way that isn’t downright insufferable means a lot to me. I’m slowly coming back from my drawing break and, even though my priorities have shifted, its still very dear to me. I wouldn’t be able to give it up with a gun to my head, but it’s freeing to say that I didn’t set any specific artistic goals for this year. No more drawing style rules, no more tight productivity schedules. In the end, maybe doing it for fun will bring me more professional opportunities than driving myself to madness ever did. What I’d like to do, though, is also share my other projects. And not just as silly little things that I do during my free time, but giving them actual attention.
What I’d like to tell to everyone who took the time to read this and has come this far is, give yourself some grace. Be patient, be kind, take yourself less seriously. Really, that’s all it is. Don’t take yourself so seriously, life can always start over, doing other things is good for you, straying away from your ‘’purpose’’ won’t make you a failure, it won’t kill you and your life won’t automatically end the moment a goal isn’t accomplished. And also, remember how young you are, and if you don’t feel like it, read a memoir. Seriously. It may seem unrelated but trust my word on this minuscule piece of advice, and also, you’re allowed to grow and get wiser. Don’t wait for horrible things to happen to make you understand what truly means to you instead of getting caught in these thoughts like I did. What truly matters is your wellbeing, your loved ones, your health… whatever it is for you. Not productivity, not social medias grids, not portfolios, not posting consistently. Allow yourself these weaknesses but don’t carry them on for too long. As someone who may sound lie a professional complainer and full-time burnt out drawing-obsessed loser, I’m finally re-learning to give myself some space and not suffocate myself in apologies to non-existing people for not constantly performing my ‘’artistry’’. Don’t create burdens for yourself in your head. And its fine to take breaks, even long ones, yes. They’re needed. Use that time to have fun, not worrying about how to start creating again as soon as possible, unless you wanna be me. Just kidding. Kinda. But I’m getting better.
As always, thank you for reading this, it means a lot to me. I’ll soon upload other links on where you can find more of my content and keep this blog only for personal topics/life updates etc… and hopefully for more creative projects from now on. If anyone has their thoughts or stories to share I’d be happy to read them.
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