"Perfect is the enemy of DONE" - Life update (Patreon)

I started to spiral pretty badly last month. I began to wonder what was the point of all of this suffering; I've grown tired of fighting everyday. I neglected myself pretty badly and I started to hear voices in my head telling me to kill myself. It wasn't constant, but I would hear it randomly throughout the day like when I would make coffee. I have no intention of doing that, so it just became an irritating thing I tried to ignore. I told someone about it and they asked if I had OCD. I never considered that, but it does seem plausible because I struggle not to waste time on refining insignificant details and I will often get paralysis because I'm afraid of fucking things up. That's why my art is sketchier now. I'm trying to focus on shapes, the overall readability of an image, and the feelings it evokes. It's more important to get things done and put it out into the world than to punish myself for not making it "perfect".The despair I felt took an incredible toll on me. I became desperate to make the voices and fatigue go away, so I decided to start with the most basic self-care to restore my energy. I started with sleep hygiene since that's all I could muster. I also pushed myself to actually eat whenever I felt hungry, go on digestion walks after meals and walks at night if I felt suffocated from being inside; absorbed sun light whenever I could and bought a seasonal depression lamp for cloudy / rainy days, tried taking vitamins again (I'm trying liver this time), continued drinking electrolyte water, honored my breaks and became serious about NOT working past set time limits. Mainly, I tried my best NOT to be so mean and punitive towards myself.For years, I searched for answers on how to fix my depression and anxiety, and now I realize I have to focus on immediate problems instead of seeking special esoteric philosophical wisdom. As silly as it sounds, I realized that I have to simply take care of my health and keep a basic schedule where I can accumulate small wins everyday, instead of hoping for some crazy life changing miracle. I underestimated how much I tortured myself daily by neglecting sleep, pushing off meals (then binging later), and forcing myself to think about work all of the time / never allowing myself to rest. It was the conditioning from my childhood that led me to such self-harming behavior because I was raised to believe that my value as a human being was contingent on my achievements. I'm starting to unlearn that because I have proof that self-care and kindness works WAY better for creativity / productivity than cruel, nasty words and maltreatment. I was too dissociated and cut off from my emotions to realize it before. Self-care is my ticket to freedom so I can move out of my mother's home and live in a safer place where I can truly begin my healing process.Anyway, I have another scary story to tell. So that sketch I did of me walking in the dark actually happened. I like to go for walks alone at night because I don't want to deal with hostile people and I hate the feeling of being monitored by my neighbors. People in my area are unfriendly and sometimes confrontational. When I walk at night, I usually carry a flashlight / torch but I didn't always bring a weapon. I'm usually isolated at night, so I never really felt unsafe. That was until I heard the freakiest sound around midnight. I take the same path everyday and recently, something or someone fucking yelled at me from afar. I heard what sounded like a man yelling out in a high pitch voice "Ooh wah!" over and over again. We do have wildlife around here, but I've never heard an animal that sounded like that, so I assumed it might have been a drug addict / vagrant or a miscreant trying to fuck with me. I didn't want to show weakness by looking spooked, so I just said with a blank face "Ew" and got the fuck out of there. I tried to search online for local animals that could make that sound, but came up with nothing. I also had another weird encounter where I saw some guy heading towards me early in the morning, before he ducked into the bushes. I checked that spot the other day and he had gone down a dead end. I assumed he was trying to hide from me, but I did not stick around to find out why. Since then, I never leave my home without OC spray.