Monsters Inside and Out (Wall of Text) (Patreon)

First of all, you guys are amazing, and kind, and patient. Just reminding you in case you forgot. There's been several kind and worried messages asking how I'm doing, I'm sorry I haven't been in the right headspace to respond to them all, but I have read and appreciated each one. And I'm finally in an emotionally stable enough place I feel comfortable sharing what's been going on. At least, on a small scale, with you guys who've been some of FE's longest and strongest supporters.

The Wall of Text below isn't to excuse my being unresponsive, not updating, or letting projects and commissions hang in limbo for so long. But I hope it will answer the questions you've sent in asking how I'm doing, fill in some gaps of what's been happening outside my internet connection, and maybe help if you know someone who's been going through the same thing.

****The following wall of text is going to discuss mental health issues, including self harm, if this is triggering for you PLEASE do not to read, click on the art image captions and enjoy!****

For the past several years, I've struggled with anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. Many people do. I think mental health going to be the disease that defines this era of history - like how every Victorian tale has a looming threat of "consumption" hanging over the populace. And after the past two years of CoVID, I've yet to meet anyone who's come through it without emotional scars.I am a firm believer in the power of time and hard work. If you keep trying your best with whatever you're struggling with, you will eventually make progress. This mindset has helped move forward and find success in my life. But it's also made me stubborn, not always able to recognize when I'm in a dangerous situation, or ask for help when I'm overwhelmed. And when things go wrong, this mindset makes it hard not to internalize the failure was all my fault.  For YEARS I have taken sole responsibility for managing my mental health, with some success. Regardless of the meltdowns, depression spirals and panic attacks, I'm grateful I've always be able to take care of myself just enough so I can keep living an independent, average life. Sure, I would need a weekend each month to get all the crying, self-loathing and inability to leave bed out of my system, but afterwards I could be the Best, Happiest, Most Productive Adult EVER!

Until I wasn't. As I got older, the anxiety and depression episodes got more intense, it took more time to work through and recover from them. Add the traumatic loss of family members, job insecurity, professional failures, the fear, isolation, and illness of CoVID, and the other standard ways adult life will add stress to your life, and the episodes started getting triggered at any time. My anxieties blew up into full paranoia. The depression now came with brief but intense waves of anger - leading me to say some very stupid, hurtful things to people I cared about. Leading me to do very stupid, harmful things to myself. Some days, the pain and adrenaline of hurting myself was the only way to break up the cycle of paranoia, despair and rage in my head. And then, I was Kind of the Best, Happier, Mostly Productive Adult EVER!Obviously, DON'T HURT YOURSELF. Hurting myself did not help me manage my stress better. Or mend bridges with the people I hurt. It was literally putting band-aids on my problems. And it wasn't the only way I was trying to help myself, either - I was getting therapy, taking anti-depressants, exercising regularly, even cutting sugar and caffeine out of my diet. And those things would work, for awhile. But then, like clockwork, something would trigger me, and I'd be back where I started: in bed, paranoid, depressed, angry, and hating myself for not being able to move past this. 

Recently, I was diagnosed with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). My doctor recommended I keep track of when the medication was and was not working for a few months, when I did I noticed a pattern - the worst episodes happened right before my menstrual cycle, and I was the Best, Happiest, most Productive Adult immediately afterwards. I'd suspected the hormone changes from my menstrual cycle was affecting my episodes, but I never realized it could be causing them. Figuring that out completely changed how we moved forward with my medication and treatment. After being on the new prescriptions for awhile, the other things I was doing - exercise, therapy, diet - started being more effective. The episodes are now less frequent, and when they happen they're milder. I don't hate or blame myself when things go wrong. I am so grateful to not be carrying that feeling around anymore.

I don't want to give the impression that "I'm fixed, and everything is okay now!" There's still a lot of work to do in learning how to manage my episodes. But I'm doing better, and I'm not doing it alone. My friends, my family, my bishop, professionals like my therapist and doctor, they all  listened to me when I finally broke and asked for help.

When I started posting my FE, one of my personal rules was to not share too much of my private life online, especially if it was negative. Everyone struggles with stress and negativity in their life, and I wanted FE's community to be a break from that. But this led to me not contacting people, on and offline, for months with no explanation. So, I'm going to try opening up a bit more. I promise not to turn FE's social media into a dumping ground for my emotions, but maybe if I get more comfortable with sharing what I'm actually feeling, hopefully it'll be easier to ask help when the next episode comes.