During a particularly emotional vent/distraction stream, I decided to tackle an idea I had lingering in mind as part of my process of self-care and healing.

As I discussed in an earlier post, I've come to the realization that my realsona, Chocolate (who I refer to Chocolate "Pupbun" for clarity), has acted as my fursona that's true to life, to the extent of offering little in the way of aspirational goals. Put simply, she's so close to how I really am that she doesn't provide me with much to strive for.

This came about from noticing that I'd lost sight of what my other fursonas - Chocolate, Ruby, and Soul - stood for and represented to me. I wanted to remind myself that they're still there for me, waiting for when I'm ready to follow their lead again. It may look rather melancholy, but the intent is actually quite hopeful. Acknowledging that I've not been well, but that I've not lost those aspects of myself despite missing them for a while, was quite cathartic.

I intend to follow it up with more positive scenes once I'm in a better place, mentally and emotionally, and I've already made great strides towards that.

This admittedly is a rather new genre of personal art that has left me feeling ways that I honestly don't think I was fully prepared for.

I'd largely categorize a lot of what I've made in recent months as "vent" art. While I try to create things in ways that conveyed my feelings clearly, and that's often a challenge - they're still ultimately meant to express and share to get those feelings out of my system. This is focused on accepting it within myself.

It hasn't solved the problem, nor has it made the core feeling go away, but I certainly feel a lot less bad about feeling it at all in the first place. It's given way to a whole slew of new thoughts and emotions that were being held back by my refusal to accept this as an okay way to feel, but needless to say, that's a pretty big step in the right direction.

I've stared at that last panel for hours since I made this just yesterday.

As you probably know, I've been getting therapy for many years now, since before I came out as trans. I respect my therapist tremendously and she's helped me in ways I could never have even imagined. I don't take for granted just how lucky I am to have her.

Through my recent struggles, the past week or so has brought with it a rather huge breakthrough, in that a core concept that she's been trying to get through to me finally made its mark: the significance of my inner child.

While discussing my fear of failure and fear of rejection, she eventually led me to the point where I realized that at the core of my struggle, I had been speaking to - or disciplining, if you will - my inner child in ways that weren't at all appropriate for her. I'd always been a sensitive child, and in many ways, I've never stopped being one.

So really, how could I expect to get through to her by being as harsh and strict with myself as I have been for so long?

I was inspired to make this at the end of our Friday session. There's more to follow after it.

When my therapist made clear to me what I needed to do, the awareness of how completely I'd mistreated my inner child and neglected to check in with her - with us - dawned on me. It hurt to think about, being entirely honest.

How could I get her to trust me again after how much I'd been berating her for her honest mistakes? After she'd tried so hard to fix things in spite of being so scared of punishment? After she'd done her best not to do it again, even if she did? Needless to say, the sweet little thing needed a far gentler touch if I was to reconcile with her and rebuild our relationship again.

While drawing her, I tweaked her design bit by bit as I polished up the sketch, but all I knew going into it was that she wouldn't be at either side of the pupbun scale. I think I landed on the perfect balance between the two for her.

I'm happy to report that we've already made progress since then, and I think we've made amends. Now, the proper work and healing can start, but you can rest assured that you'll be seeing more of her soon enough.

One of the myriad things I've been addressing with my therapy is my very strong and habitual tendency of downplaying and otherwise neglecting my own achievements. Every time I overcome a new challenge or milestone in my life, I quickly reframe all of my newfound skills and abilities as the baseline - my new starting point.

This consistently leads me to ignore the past steps I've overcome, taking them pretty much for granted just because the next challenge, the next hurdle is something I've never dealt with before - even if only a small part of it is unfamiliar to me. It's always the next thing that will trip me up. That'll be my undoing - even if I've felt the same way every time prior to that. That'll be when it all catches up to me.

I get so focused on what I'm unsure of, that I seem to forget that I might already know a great deal about what's ahead of me.

This habit more than likely came about as a result of a coping mechanism that I developed over time. I've dealt with a lot of frustration and insecurities about myself and my work for a while, but without going too far into specifics, it helped minimize some of the anxiety that they caused. As I already described, it certainly wasn't without its drawbacks.

The Idea

During our last session, my therapist guided me through a self-reflection exercise where we spoke about some of the bigger hurdles I'd managed to overcome in the past: leaving my first full-time job, making the leap from Patreon to my own platform, that sort of thing. In doing so, she helped me practice acknowledging that in myself a little better.

Even though I've already done this sort of thing with my art, particularly during special event streams, something about it seemed to click with me. In conjunction with my last livestream, which I spent replying to comments on my art, this brought back an idea I'd had floating around my head, and which I'd tweeted about in passing earlier this year.

I want to practice occasionally acknowledging and appraising my own work; looking back on what I've made, talking about what I like about it or could've done or wanted to do differently, and maybe even sharing a little insight into my process of creating it along the way. I believe it'll be good for me, and hopefully interesting to you too.

Originally, the idea was meant for Twitter, but I don't think that sat well with me given how fleeting the platform is; every single post would be quickly buried unless it was lucky enough to get picked up in a wave of attention. Quite frankly, I don't expect this kind of content to resonate with most folks, so why even bother with that while limiting myself to tiny chunks of text writing about complex ideas that I find interesting?

So, here they'll go. I'll be making these "Appraisals" whenever I feel like it - perhaps making up for a lull in creativity, or riding a high, or just because I need a boost in motivation. With a few exceptions wherever I see fit, I'll be putting them up as free posts so they can be shared around with whoever you think might like them. Please do, as it helps me out.

After this post I'll start work on the first instalment, so you can look forward to that. I really hope you'll enjoy them.

Hello all! Just posting a followup from my last update that I'm back home safely from my vacation and feeling very refreshed. I sorely needed that, especially after two whole years of being stuck in my home country.

The whole experience was immensely fulfilling and a valuable experience in learning about myself over and above all that too. I should have more to share about that soon enough, but for now, regular programming will resume shortly.

Thank you for your continued support despite my inactivity here. I cannot overstate how much it helps me maintain my mental health throughout all of this.

I figured I'd post a heads up for you all that I've made some time for myself to finally travel abroad to visit some friends and hopefully recoup a little footing in terms of my mental health.

I'll be back home on the 5th of next month, at which point it'll be business as usual once again. I have some stuff that's pending upload, so the site shouldn't be completely silent until then. Thanks for your continued support, I'll be around again soon!

So, today I attended my first psychotherapy session in several years. I expect to continue going for a while, but whatever the case, it'll take as long as it needs to.

I won't go into more detail both cause it's unnecessary and because I'm still figuring things out for myself; but I hope to have some answers soon. I mainly wanted to follow up on my previous journal post, since I downplayed the severity of what I've been going through as I would have preferred to just be okay.

I'm not completely out of it, but between some additional contract work I'm in the middle of and my pending commissions, personal art will be entirely subject to my mental state from one day to the next, and will likely be slow and not as polished as I'd like it to be. I'm genuinely sorry about it, since the ability to create and express myself freely is one of the main things that sustain me and I know you all enjoy it too.

I've not once had anyone pester me about downtime here or anywhere else so I wasn't worried about that, but out of mutual respect I feel that a little transparency to keep you all in the loop about what's going on with me is the least I can do. I appreciate that you're all pledging to support me and keep me doing what I do, so I'm comfortable with letting you know about my situation.

Thanks everyone.