myblackeyeddemon:

Drawing is hard, but not just for the technical aspect.

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Drawing is hard for me because I have an illness telling me to die. It started subtle and slow, built over years of dehumanisation, but I see where it’s going.

Two years ago my minor dissociative episodes were getting more frequent and longer lasting. I used to not notice them. Then I started losing 30min, 45min, two hours, three at a time if no one interrupted to ground me. They’re terrifying. When you dissociate, your brain malfunctions and doesn’t let you look away from the wall or the mirror. You’re still there, inside, thinking and aware, but it feels like the controls for your body have been cut so mashing the buttons to get up do nothing. The only movement I COULD make was to destroy my skin, so these episodes were paired with bouts self-harm. Skinpicking was the only thing that made me feel like I was real at those times, and now I’m covered in blood, scratches, and scars. You would have done the same thing if you felt how I did. (I’m not alone in my experience.)

One year ago my work performance was suffering due to my inability to exist. Getting myself to work on time was turning into a Herculean feat. No, this is not the same as ‘the doldrums’ or getting tired of a job like everyone does. It was scary. I physically couldn’t move in the mornings. I nearly crashed several times trying to get to work because I was fighting a massive weight holding me back. I wouldn’t choose that on purpose. I tried harder and I could function for a short time.

I started dissociating at work. It’s painful. It’s full-body pain, like a charlie horse everywhere. I had to fake a smile from fifteen feet away from my own body and move it like a puppet so that no one knew my anxiety was killing me. I had a panic attack out of nowhere just getting coffee at a Tim Horton’s and felt like I was going to die so I ran out and locked myself in my car until I could calm down.

This year I lost my job. Since then, the idea of lying down and disappearing has gotten much more appealing. Since nothing matters, I want to go to sleep and stop existing for a while.

But I can’t do that. That’s called “dying”.

My illness is trying to get me as close to dead as it can, and is dressing up the idea in soft pastel colours. It tells me to stop breathing, go cleanly and quietly. But I remember I saw my illness years ago in a dream/nightmare when it first found me. I saw a dark wall with an external force hooked in my heart, giving me the inexplicable urge to toss myself in. I knew the feelings didn’t belong to me and weren’t coming from me. I knew that if I did allow it, I’d be erased. Obliviated. Stop existing, entirely, permanently. The concept of ‘me’ wouldn’t be around anymore. So I ran from it.

That dream continued into some themes of anxiety, giving myself to protect others, yadda yadda but the point is: My mind knew it was broken before I did. It warned me about The Call of the Void before my symptoms started affecting my life. It’s been growing unchecked for years because the same people who did this to me were my only access to healthcare in my formative years. I still don’t have help, and now I’m so mentally crippled that even typing this is taking half my spoons for the day.

I can’t support myself. I used to be able to do a thing and now I can’t do it. I don’t choose not to do it. I don’t choose to feel this way. I never wanted to fall apart. Self-medication helps because every time the illness tells me “nothing matters so stop”, I have the capability to say “if nothing matters then I might as well be productive for equal value”. Without the right to choose my own medicine, that internal dialogue option doesn’t even exist. Depression comes around and I just say “okay” because fighting it is a war of attrition and I’m losing. It doesn’t help when bystanders tell me it’s my own fault if I didn’t care enough to properly defend myself. You don’t seem to know how fights work.

Even if I wasn’t ill, the hurdles in front of me would trip anyone. I’m immigrating to a new country, unemployed, trying to get my real gender and name legally recognised, trying to get married which means outting myself to potential employers. Any one of those things can fuck up and set me back for months. I don’t have months. I’m unemployed and can’t get a green card for months. Living costs money, and I’m already below the line. GC is struggling too. We’re doing our best but we need help.

Drawing is hard. It’s very hard. I have to flip off Depression before I even open my eyes in the morning, if it’s even still morning by the time I wake up. (Insomnia is an asshole. Imagine a noisy roommate but worse because you can’t punch them.) Then I have to prepare to hunt for my breakfast, because putting energy in a body that has none feels like I’m running fullforce to maybe catch a waffle, if it doesn’t get away. After putting up with the worst roommate in the world, getting in a fistfight with the grim reaper, and stalking my cereal across the Canadian wastes, then I have to think about art. Because my art is my sole income right now. My art pays for my bed, my roof, my food, my medicine, my right to live. Without it I might as well lay down and die. After the triathlon of waking up, I have to poke holes in my brain with a stylus and bleed out all over the screen for $15/hr. That’s what it feels like. It’s hard.

But it’s the only thing I can do right now.

This is where you come in. GC and I can’t do it alone anymore. We need you to tell people about us. We need people to care about a couple of queer, starving artists, because it’s not just us; we have two small cats that can not, ever, be allowed to be homeless. Please reblog us. Please share our art, mine and GC’s.

We’ll do art for money. We’ll draw whatever you want, throw a number you can afford at us and we’ll tell you what kind of piece that can get you. You can support us monthly on Patreon. You can drop a little change into our donation button. It’s always appreciated. You can commission us directly through email and paypal (mine’s tarrantgargouille at gmail dot com, GC’s is youspeaklies at yahoo dot com). We have debt and bills so even if you see this again in a month, chances are we still need help.

I want to get to the point where I can afford to work for free. I want to invest my energy into my own stories, write them, illustrate them, publish them, tell them. I want to have the freedom to choose to make free gifts without sacrificing hours and spoons that could have paid for my groceries. I want my basic needs met. Please help me get there.