leozaur

Hey, buds. I miss you lots. Sometimes, it's really hard to tell folks when I'm hurting. It's just easier to smile and tell myself everything's okay. I lost track of how many times I wrote and erased this post I hurt my drawing hand. It's been really difficult and depressing

I started developing trigger finger. Basic tasks started to get difficult. Looking at my hand and wondering if it's only going to get worse was really hard There's so many more things I want to create in my life There's just so much more I wanted to do

It's more than "I drew too much" - I had an unhealthy work ethic. In a lot of ways, I think I defined my self worth by how much content I could put out and how long it took. I loved to keep myself busy. Busyness was one of my most prolific coping mechanisms.

No amount of content, no amount of views, no amount of anything has been able to replace self respect, love, and compassion. For some reason, it's so much easier to love other people than it is to love myself. I'm trying to work on that.

The sad thing is, I know where it comes from. When I was a little girl, my needs weren't important. I was violated and I was frightened into being silent about it. Working hard felt like a viable way to earn self respect and love.

I tried speaking out, as a child, and I was threatened for it. Things only got worse. "Bad things" were a personal matter, and you don't share that with anybody. Doing so feels really bad. It's a destructive perspective imo and it's never done me any favors.