about art and trauma (Patreon)

(trigger warning for grooming/CSA)

This is very difficult for me to post, but I feel that I have to speak up about what I'm going through in order to continue to work as an artist and to share my work online. I have been struggling with PTSD, as I've mentioned here before, and after beginning to write down my experiences it's opened the floodgates of all these repressed memories and things that I was completely dissociated from.

The way I started out making explicit art for commissions was through being groomed at a young age. There was one person in particular who directly pushed me into making explicit commissions, but due to the circumstances of my home life and the PTSD I was already dealing with at that time, there were multiple other people who led me down a dark path of breaking down my own boundaries to where there were simply none left.

I have written a blog post offsite about these things that I'm struggling with. I hope that it helps contextualize what I'm talking about, but please only read if you are in a safe enough mental space to handle it.

https://blog.spacehey.com/entry?id=1724550

My hope is that sharing this experience with people who enjoy my work will help me regain a sense of control and safety over my own life. Healing will take time, but the bottom line is that I have a desire to create, despite this. My art isn't going anywhere, but I may be slow as I try to heal and get to a more safe place mentally, especially when it comes to explicit artwork. I will continue to share as much as I can, when I'm able.

Thank you for supporting me. 💜