return to the self

2022-07-26 20:18:54

I had left my main Instagram account well over a year ago. I left it because if people could tell my art had become worse after psychosis, I would be so ashamed. Beyond words shamed, feeling inhuman in how reduced down to nothing I felt.

And so I hid away on moondisorder_ and made this website, all in attempt to hide and restructure myself from nothing. It was right for me to want a separation of the self I had formed under my real name online, in exchange for a place I could start fresh. So I started posting a lot of my specialty at the time, slutty Fate/Zero garbage. I then grew into doing a visual novel but before long, the great Berserkfire of May 2021 had hit. I was outta' it and my life was changed yet again, forever. Changed in ways that other people grow awkwardly silent when I try to mention, those non-believers. In Glenside ward I was the proudest of my art, as it took on a wild, crayon and poster paint smeared aesthetic and communicated the chaos around me while institutionalized. It's visible on my art2 page.

I then spent the rest of the year on Instagram, attempting to communicate the wonders I'd seen and felt. Yes people didn't really react to me, but I did it for catharsis nonetheless. I found solace in my small Instagram of only around 100 followers, half of which actually looked at my stories, mind you. I didn't feel so alone.

Seen this as an apparition basically

Now only a few days ago I decided I wanted to go back onto my old Instagram, velanoble, under my real name. Why is this such a drastic move? Well I had the baggage of years of (mostly) excellent drawing on it, well excellent compared to what I'm capable of now.

I had to accept that this past is part of me. That it is even something I can return to. It is me. I am a proud artist who storyboards, paints and does the lot! Going without this concept of 'me' has been utterly...I lack the words, as I use 'soul crushing' a lot.

It doesn't help that my psychiatrist gives me an example of an artist who was his client, who got better from psychosis in 6 months! Should I be discouraged or enthralled? Is that proof I too, am not broken?

Yet I am told the best thing to do is to find a way to return to my happier self despite me being upset with my art skills. What is this mythical 'way'? Positive thinking? Just sucking it up and telling myself I'm awesome? It's been brutal. I guess because my ability to draw really had made 'me' in my minds eye?


One of my newer pieces.

But it isn't. It isn't me. Still. It's something I excelled in because of elements of 'me'. Being hard working, creative, intuitive and passionate. Art just was an outlet for any emotion. Hey, it still can be? Can't it? You don't suck that much?

That's right, I have to be grateful for every life drawing I do that doesn't look like shit. For every part of a painting that carries some charm, even in its flatness.


Autodesk phone painting I like

I am perfectly aware of all the ways my new work doesn't match my old work. I too know viewers aren't stupid and will notice it eventually. I cant lie but also, I don't owe people constant explanations. I talk about my feelings in depth here, that should be enough. If people want to know the story in depth, it's sporadically written all here. Put the clues together.

Still from my psychiatrist, he has conveyed a sense that these other psychotic patients consider their 'loss of art' more likely 'their creativity', as with every bipolar artist I've read about online. :| This is not the case with me. Still it could be a dire depression shrouding my brain, but I really doubt it.

Point is, I've been ashamed of the artist I've become, the person I've become. I know, people will leave, because I'm not offering the art that I used to. It makes sense right? Oh, how much I dread it. Being found out simply for something I couldn't control. That I loved my mum too much and went psychotic after watching her die.

In the end, I am not nothing. I am all these experiences and choices and emotions. To work hard and pursue art is a part of me, but not all of me. I feel like there is a constant storm in my head, of being unable to do the art to the caliber I had so prized for myself. I'm kinder now on newer artists as I've learnt, art is damn hard!


Dreams and psychoses

People may leave, but I can't hide who I am. Coming out as bipolar apparently is a thing. It's not like I've kept it in the closet, but I sure as heck don't toss the word around much. Because it's the thing that's caused all this suffering, apparently. I truly doubt that. I feel like I am destined to not draw, for now.

At the end of the day, I'm bipolar to everyone else, although my experiences are vividly magical and beyond all reason, I have to accept that others will not see it this way.

I have massive insecurities, about who I am post psychosis. After feeling the art vanish from beneath my fingertips the moment I left the ward, and deteriorate down to nothing. It's a mystery. It's weird to be told you're fine but this massive chunk of you is gone.

Because it is, people don't understand, I've dealt with a core of myself, years of hard work and perseverance, gone?


Cant do anything right

It's something everyone can see in your posts. In your identity online, in your hobbies or in your career in your capacities.
Gone.

That is what I'm dealing with, a misery beyond compare. Yes maybe it's a first world thing, but I've endured my share of death witnessing. Now I have to deal with not only the cosmic voyage into misery and beauty that was psychosis, but something that's messed me up and stolen years. I'm not out of it looking back all happy like 'wow I survived that'. Literally, in my dreams. :(

I've been told that doctors only research blahblah things they wanna blah blah basically. So in summary, they wont research one participant who lost her niche art skills if they can't sell a drug outta' it. Noice.

So you cling to your shitty movies, games and fun nightmare fuel. I've lived it. I don't get no shitty award for it, I get nothing but a wounded heart.

The verdict is, it's my Instagram so I'll post what I want.