Hey! Long time no see for some of you. Hope you guys are well.

I've been thinking about my person here in (public) online space, particularly as a commissions artist as well. I have not drawn for weeks, sometimes very few times a month (for reasons I will delve into later), nor have I really did anything with my characters for a pretty long time. I found myself spending more and more time in my private circles - and even then I am either so involved with the real world or trying to, because lately there's not a lot of stuff I get from being online. Not that I've become disinterested or anything, but it seems to be a natural shift.

Since 2019 after graduating high school, I began to experience severe brain fog and apathy to the happenings of my life. I couldn't bring myself to care for what I did for the day, and consequently I tried to cling onto something I can do just to keep myself going - this was drawing and making characters (as I've done since forever, really). For whatever reason, things spiralled to become worse and worse, and for the last two years or so I couldn't bring myself to do anything - whether it was fun, or urgently needed finishing. There were days I slept for 2/3rds of the day, and the rest I did nothing but feel guilt that I didn't do anything at all. My art deteriorated severely as my brain fog got progressively worse. I take pride in doing good work, and I'm really ashamed to say that there are people out there who have been waiting for a year, maybe more, for a commission from me. I couldn't see that at the time, I really shouldn't take on commissions, because indeed there were some days I could get out of bed, and I deluded myself that I would finish my work when I had more energy. I was wrong a lot of the times.

Fortunately, I don't have a crazy long to-do list, so it's not like I've bitten more than I can chew and the work I took is manageable - if I was at normal function and not living through a haze. I'm forever grateful to those who bought commissions from me that are still waiting patiently for me to finish them. 

Within the last year or so, just about every day has become some sort of strange haze. I was living through it of course, but all of it seemed like some distant memory that I was passing by. I could barely register my own emotions to anything, and it became so difficult to live. Since 2019, I unfortunately developed a habit of lying in bed and sleeping off any lack of energy or emotional inconvenience I had. Last year and this year, it got so bad that sometimes I couldn't even take my laptop out of my backpack to sit on my desk, because that was too complex of a task for me for whatever reason. 

December of 2022 I decided to bite the bullet and go to the doctor's. At this point it's just a miracle how I could keep up with my internship (and recently a job) without getting fired and do adequately in uni (the South Asian fear of failure is stronger than my weaknesses, it seems). February 2023 I was officially diagnosed with ADHD (hyperactive type), and May a few months later I was diagnosed with autism (on paper Asperger's syndrome, they use the old ICD here).

I'd suspected so for a long time, and even identified with the diagnoses previously without professional evaluation, but I could not predict that it was ADHD that gave me greyouts all hours of the day, week in week out. I had loss of timely structure and daily rhythm post-highschool, and apparently this was debilitating enough that it made feel like I was experiencing life half-asleep for four whole years.

Not much was done after my diagnosis - 6 months in the Danish public psychiatric system is actually lightning-speed. I've had several friends attempt to seek help in the public system, and they are either deferred to 12+ week waitlist to see a therapist or up to a year to see a psychiatrist - not including the diagnostic process. A lot of Danes here pay out of pocket to see private doctors - which are also subsidised by the government in many cases - but for me, I don't have a lot of options. My place in the system stops here. I was lucky that they even wanted to take my case as I was declared "urgent", despite no plans to end my life (which would usually prioritize your case).

Few days ago - June now - I finally had an appointment in the system for the possibility of medicating my ADHD, as it had become so severe that I could barely function. I've been prescribed 18mg of methylphenidate, which I took immediately after getting the prescription, because at this point I'm just desperate for a solution to this haze I've been experiencing for 4 years.

I can't even describe the relief I feel. I couldn't even see that I've been living inside this dark hole all my life until now. For the first time, I felt awake, alive, lucid, and properly registered everything around me. The fog cleared. I was suddenly able to do things I couldn't before - like sit for several hours to focus on a task to completion. I can't believe that people around me just… decide to do something, and actually do it. 

I've been on it for less than a week - but I can only say that this is such a lifechanger for me. Things need adjustments of course - it made me clear-headed, but my sleep latency shot up, and I've pretty much gone 72+ hours without REM sleep. By day 2 my speech has become slurred and deteriorated because I couldn't even get an hour of sleep the first day, haha. It's my fault that I was too stubborn to also pick up the melatonin they prescribed me, but lol alas…

I'm getting my life back. It's been a bizarre few days because it's like I can see colours clearly now. Just feels weird to get a diagnosis at 21 years old. I'm still sorting out my work schedule and such, but I want to be done with my commissions to-do list (and a couple art trades I believe) stat. 

That being said… I think I'm done with commissions. Not that I've had any bad experiences, but since I now have a decently paying job, I don't see a reason to open them anymore as I usually did them to get a bit of extra money. Of course, I'll still draw and write about my characters - maybe way more so privately with my friends - but I suppose publicly it's just going to be way less frequent than I would usually be. I also decided that I'm going to stop being a public/commercial artist, and just enjoy drawing and posting it out there to like, my 10 private twitter followers, or something. I was able to keep up an online presence when I was younger… but not now, and I don't feel the reason nor need to.

My time online has been extremely fun! And I'm probably going to continue slinking about, but it just seems that I've grown to prioritise other things in life. I used to buy so many commissions and trade around characters and it gave me so much joy, but I think spending that money towards more tangible experiences irl would be more awesome. 

I'm not going away or anything, if that's what you deduced from this post. But I realised that I was so present online because I could barely function offline, irl. Now that I can think and actually do things, my presence on the web will be much smaller. I'm going to clear out my to-do list and that's essentially my final responsibility - and after, I'll try to think of ways I can enjoy the summer, now that I actually have energy to get out of the house, haha!

I'll see you guys around :)