as you may have noticed, i’ve not been very active here (or much of anywhere else) lately. i’m cutting back a lot of my social media presence, though i’m posting WIP and retweeting things on the twitter with some regularity.

since keeping track over the past couple of years, my summer months are usually my worst, mental health-wise. i go creatively dormant around June, and don’t really pick back up until August. the closest i can think is that it’s like a reverse SAD; i don’t get depressed in the winter, but in summer. i withdraw. life loses its shine.

this year has been especially difficult. i’m normally very productive in the first half of the year, but i’ve been struggling for all of 2019 to find the energy to actually create. in a way, i think it might be burnout.

Lila’s death also hit very hard. i’m doing better. thinking about her most days doesn’t make me cry anymore. i can look at pictures and smile, usually. this is good progress, i think. it will be three months tomorrow since we took her on her last car ride. ((a hard, ugly truth: i still can’t shake the thought that i killed her.)) of course, typing this, i’m crying because i’m processing emotions, but i know it’s getting easier. i kind of hate that. i don’t want to stop being so emotional over her. i know it will happen, though. it’s happened with all the others, so it’s really only a matter of time.

the social media break has been nice. i look at twitter a few times a day, usually to post something. but i have to limit my time on any social media because i can’t handle the constant onslaught of how we’re destroying our planet or ourselves. it’s exhausting to constantly feel your world crumbling around you and not be able to do anything except try to throw some kindness and light back into the mess.

there have been some bright spots to all this time, though. i did a palette challenge on twitter last month, and had some fun with it. i only got four requests, but it got me out of my own head for a while and back to drawing. and my creativity is reawakening. it may be the pot, or the season change, or maybe just the joy of new characters, but in the past week, i’ve tweeted several WIP of four pictures.

slowly, i’m feeling more myself. i’m trying to work up the courage/energy to make a doctor appointment to maybe get on antidepressants. i can’t keep going like this, and i think medication may be the way to go.

people are wrong. admitting you have a problem isn’t the hard part. asking for help is.