This weekend I had an exceptionally difficult time with myself and my art, with several weeks of slow-mounting, self inflicted pressure coming to a head.

One morning, I got hit by a sense of clarity regarding a recurring issue I've been dealing with for a very long time now. Something that I've talked about in the past, but which I realize has grown more chronic and pervasive across various aspects of my life, especially as of late.

It led to an idea of how I might be able to express this issue in a compelling way through my art. I started workshopping it in my head while I was still in bed, but as I progressed the more I realized this wouldn't be easy at all for me to pull off. The pervasive dread of committing to such a large project started to loom, all the while the unbearable need to get this intensely personal art out of my system continued to mount.

Within an hour I was being held in my friend Plushie's arms, crying out of sheer frustration that I felt with myself.

After some well-needed TLC, I was left alone to tend to myself, and I tried to face my fears and start working on the project. Planning and storyboarding only further magnified my apprehension of working on something considerably beyond my comfort zone, and it genuinely felt like I couldn't get the art out of my system quickly enough to sate my need for it.

At that moment, I remembered something I'd watched months ago that had clearly left its mark on me, and in a frenzy I set aside that pressing task to start on another. This one.

As gruesome as it may seem, I think it's a perfect illustration of how it's felt lately to be so completely immersed in so much potential for creation for so long. Writing down all my ideas, browsing social media where I've curated my feed to be absolutely packed with other artists' amazing work, thinking constantly about what I could make, and should be making... I'm entertaining and surrounding myself in so many viable, attractive, and wonderful ideas that it's overwhelmed my system; leaving me unable to harness any of them - let alone all of them - or let them out of my system in any positive or constructive way.

It makes me feel stuck; full of untapped artwork that will never be made, languishing until I grow increasingly impatient, frustrated, and unwell.

As uncomfortable as that moment of clarity was for me, getting this out of my system (pun intended) was intensely cathartic and healthy for me, to say the least. I hadn't intended to make it, but now, I'm glad that I did.

That having been said, this pattern of behaviour has been going on for quite a while now, much as any of my closer friends will attest to, and it's not something I can so easily shrug off and stop subjecting myself to. It's an awful confluence of a lot of bad mental habits, each playing a different part in exacerbating what would otherwise be a simple problem to fix:

Perfectionism making me unable to make things with ease,
High expectations I set for myself to perform consistently, if not constantly,
Being unreasonably ambitious without focusing on follow-through,
Impatience with achieving results above all else,
Fear of failure making me apprehensive of trying in the first place,
Comparing myself with others to an almost obsessive degree,

And perhaps even more besides, but you get the point.

I'm doing my best to keep my head above the surface while working on breaking those patterns, so it doesn't have to be this difficult throughout my day-to-day. Several years of therapy will attest to that much at least. It's easy to fall back into old habits and coping mechanisms though - especially when I've got a lot on my plate - and that's why I've struggled to stay afloat as of late.

As I prepare to post this up for all to see, I worry about coming across as complaining about a good thing. Being entirely fair to myself though, I feel this way because I know what I've got, and I'm scared of losing it due to my mistakes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.