I've had a tumultuous first half of the year, heck, I haven't had an easy life since before my mother passed away two years ago. Even then, I fucking hated aspects of life. I digress, but you can imagine given all the shit I've endured, I don't have the most glittery sunshine and rainbows outlook on life.
Following psychosis, I lost a large amount of my art abilities. Yes, just like out of some tacky anime, 'trauma' was capable of doing such a thing to me. To me this 'trauma' was, and still is, a supernatural phenomenon. I accept however, that nobody on planet earth is willing to accept that as a fact and thus, I call it trauma. Blackout, mind-warping, soul-crushing, psychotic trauma to be exact.
It messed up my life. I couldn't do my career, so shied away from animation work. I tried to rebuild my life out of a pit of destruction. The word 'destruction' doesn't even cut it. It was sheer desolation, despair, distraught...hey those are a lotta 'd' words. Gradually (after 5 months) I began to find things I could do again that made me feel whole. I started gaming with DDR, I started this precious blog and of lastly, I started drawing and creating again. I started feeling invigorated with my drawings again, as I was drawing a fair bit of eroguro and other saucy pictures. I found refuge in Ren'Py with Rubble and Rust, which is valuable to me for providing more emotional catharsis.
I enrolled in Adelaide university in Semester 1 of 2021 doing a Bachelor of Arts and tried making friends there, to much avail. I enjoyed writing some essays and the two language classes (I was doing French but also baby Japanese just for an easy grade) but linguistics was taught by a madman and extremely overwhelming. It was right when exams were starting that disaster struck, or was it disaster? Supernatural shit happened to me again, under the pretense of 'mania' of course.
Since I've written this blog post, I don't need to elaborate on that experience here. Basically I had to withdraw but luckily passed 4 out of 5 classes. I had missed the final exam for pesky English Lit, and failed.
The next few months following my escapade is something I haven't blogged about much, because such strange things happened even within my own home. I'll try and share a bit of it here.
June to August was still quite vividly full of 'the spirit' and weird memories. Like dancing in a random persons driveway until they called out 'um what are you doing?'. Dancing in the median strip by Marion shopping center and flipping off the cars, yeesh I almost repressed that memory. But I don't want to repress them. In fact, I wish I could communicate them better. How my head was running an alien operating system, it is so beyond explaining.
I thought a slipper contained the psychic essence of my soulmate, far away in Japan. I clung to the floor (below photo) and crippled over in (hallucinated?) pain, thinking a supernatural wave would lop off the heads of anyone not clinging to the earth. I had visions of a glittering Falconia on the horizon. I scrapbooked up a storm, all perfectly synced to whatever song was on my phone. Sound like mania? Well, then explain having a 'psychic' force tug and pull you around all the while. It's not in any psychiatric handbook, my dudes.
I wasted a lot of time drawing strange bad drawings in things I called 'spellbooks'. Featuring images like above and below, but not as well drawn. :| I set about trying to uncover the secrets of the universe, but this thing I called 'the spirit' had mostly subsided with each passing day. Still I was desperately trying to recount all that I'd experienced and retell it to whomever would listen.
In the second half of 2021 the wild craziness had drastically died down. In an attempt to find something to do, I started to study for the JLPT, Japanese Language Proficiency Test. I had thought; Hey, I love Japanese and feel fairly competent, maybe I'll get something good for my resume. Little did I know, I truly chose a level that was too advanced for me. As soon as I ripped into the auditory CD examples, I knew I would struggle in the exam. I didn't go to the test and yet again, put Japanese study on the back burner.
We did a lot of wonderful travel during August through to December. Caravan trips and boat voyages. The caravan trips offered more magic, but I am at a loss for how to explain them. Flash forward a few months and gradually I end up at the start of this year, 2022! It started off well enough, I was content with my GameMaker Studio attempts and my art as the new years clock clicked down. I did the Global Game Jam late January and was feeling pretty confident about my art and game dev expertise, which was a big step for me, as I had been avoiding my computer for months. I started a TAFE course in Disability Support around February when, as expected, disaster stuck again.
After my making and consumption of a cheese toasty being precisely timed to the epic songs in the Prince of Egypt (yeah hard to explain), I began to 'lose touch with reality' yet again. Or whatever the god-forsaken-fuck people keep telling me I'm experiencing. My dad noticed my behaviour but I demanded to be sent to a ward, and not tranquilised in a hospital. They understood and heeded me. The ward was an unpleasant place, not like my last two experiences at Margaret Tobin and Glenside where the world glistened and glowed, all according to my head only of course.
The voices however, told me disgusting things around this time. When I was released, I went home but my dad and his girlfriend were still travelling Tasmania so an incredible loneliness struck me. I did the unthinkable, as I was beyond distraught with what the voices were telling me. I did a thing. I called an ambulance and puked up most of the ingested evil, and the doctors did their work to keep me alive. You may be able to put the pieces together.
I understand that is drastic but I was pushed past the brink and genuinely attempted you know what. I don't know why I am comfortable speaking about this only here, but it's not to get pity or worried comments. In fact, we need to talk about sui*ide because it may help people like me, who experience unreal mental agony within their mind. When there is no sanctuary even within your head, you would want to die. We need to be open about our experiences to encourage sufferers to seek help and hang in here, and to not succumb to what voices tell them.
After that I was taken to the hospital, where the voices told me I was evil and tortured me 'within my own head'. Then I was released to Margaret Tobin ward but ironically, in the direct opposite wing of the ward than I had been 2 years prior. This ward did not sparkle and shine, to my disappointment. The spirits weren't possessing me like they had before.
Boom, my March was gone. After being let out of Margaret Tobin, life still took a turn for the weird. I experienced a massive feeling of being outside of my body, which is impossible to put into words. Like the entire universe is one sci-fi simulation and you're the only one aware from it. I didn't sleep for 4 days, it had felt like. My art turned surreal for a week before aptly fading. We went on another boat trip from Tasmania to NSW and then I end up at around this time frame.
So now we're almost all caught up. I've withdrawn from schools 2 times in under two years, however they were due to unfortunate and unavoidable circumstances. I didn't ask for this voyage into eternity, experiencing my head travelling to another dimension which affected my actions in a plethora of ways.
In an attempt to get better at coding, I researched some local things. This leads me to here. This week I attended a completely free coding bootcamp with 42Adelaide for a few days. Sounds enticing right? Well after 4 days, when it came around to today, I calmly came to a conclusion. I decided it's not worth me destroying myself when the learning isn't fun, what's the point in that? I learnt a bit, but it was frantic, rushed and overtly depending on social aptitude. I don't want to write all the ways 42Adelaide didn't suit me, because the bootcamp is free, I'm just not turning up the rest of this time.
How do I feel after ditching this bootcamp? Disappointed but quite neutral really. I realised I don't want to go to a school that depends on turning to the random besides you, more than quiet dedicated studying alone, which is how I operate. I am not going to let it dissuade me from programming, in fact, it has inspired me to look at online courses as I realise I work best with self study somewhat. That and some lectures and guidance maybe, helloooooo?
I worry, if the impact of my psychosis and um, sui*ide, has messed up my cognitive skills more, keeping me from learning to my maximum potential? I can worry all I want, it doesn't help me. I'm still capable of writing this blog post, aren't I?
I have just summed up the schooling pursuits I've taken in the last 2 years, I'm not trying to sum up my life, but rather express that finding a place I can snuggle down in hasn't happened for me yet. Still, I think that every experience brings something new for me to learn. I sure as heck learned a lot about Shell and C in one frantic week.
Well I have a few hunches now. I've accepted hardcore programming may not be for me but I can still learn programming on the side. I've accepted I still love Japanese, as evident by my Berserk reading goals above. I also love media, because I am still an artist. I'm just not as confident as I once was. Far from it. I hate to bring it back to art, but of course that is my essence. Communicating, whether through visual art, or writing like I am here, or even the tidbits of game dev I'm capable of doing. I love it all. I have some plans on what I'm doing next. I'm feeling strangely invigorated actually, because bailing on this other junk has just narrowed down the options~
Over and out.