long time no update. I feel like I have a lot to talk about and explain and apologize for; this is gonna get long, so I'll put a tl;dr (too long; didn't read) at the end of this. Also I'm sorry in advance if this feels all over the place oops.

  I know I haven't been talking or drawing (or really anything) a lot over the past few years, and especially over this past year specifically. This feels really lame and generic to say but whatever!!!: my depression and anxiety have gotten fucking terrible, which I feel like is partially my own fault and partially the fault of some stuff in life I don't have control over. I could go into the whys and the hows but it doesn't really matter.
   The main thing is: I get super anxious and in my head about talking to people, in-person or online, and I've let myself get so paranoid that I'm annoying people, weirding them out, etc. when I talk to them that I end up barely talking or not talking at all, not even getting back to people about commissions or adopts that I bought from them. This anxiety compounds with my depression, which already gives me the propensity to put off doing things, like responding to said people, or drawing stuff, or doing,,, anything really?? I've lost friends because of this and tbh I don't blame anyone for it. I'm not using my mental illness as an excuse, just an explanation; I still let shit get bad and a lot of my problems like these are of my own making. And I'm sitting here trying to come up with a way to word all of this that doesn't sound trite and cliché and self-pitying but I cannot. I get into cycles of hating myself, getting anxious, letting the world and experiences and joy pass me by, then hating myself for it, and it continues over and over. This goes for both the online stuff I mentioned but also for almost everything in my life. But I've beaten myself up mentally and actually physically enough and it never actually helps me change anything.
   I really want to start doing better and become healthier. To stop getting in my head and freaking out so much, to get my depression under control, to talk more to people and actually respond to messages and draw the things I say I'll draw. Which brings me to another aspect of my depression that hit me around this time last year and hasn't really left me since; I lost a lot of motivation and inspiration for my own stories and characters, for just imagining things and new ideas, for art in general. I experienced a very weird, very sudden physical thing where it feels like my hand, eyes, and brain are not communicating and I just. physically have so much trouble with drawing, like I forgot how to, lost the muscle memory involved, and it's honestly scaring me so badly. It's gotten a little better recently, but I'm still struggling a lot. I really don't know what happened. And again, it's not an excuse for me not doing owed art (especially because it happened a year ago and I know I owe people art from way longer ago than that OTL) but just. reasons and explanations. I haven't written this much on a public journal like this in a long time, and I guess I just want to get as much out there as I can. I think not using journals/recording my day-to-day thoughts in any sort of format for so long has also not helped my depression; I've gotten extremely bad of keeping track of days, months, years, life passes me by and I do nothing!! absolutely nothing!!!
   And because god hates me apparently, I also have some physical health problems. I got diagnosed with arthritis in my lower spine, which hurts so bad sometimes that I could cry. I'm trying to see a specialist about it but I've had no luck so far. I also developed tendonitis in BOTH of my wrists last year, which hurt so much I could barely do anything with my hands for months. I've since had physical therapy for it but it gets reignited if I'm not careful. But the main condition that bothers me the most is my stupid essential tremors. I don't remember how much I've talked about them but they cause my hands to shake and twitch constantly, and they get worse when I try to do more intricate motions like draw, write, hold cups/utensils, hold anything too heavy, anything too light, etc. I've had them for about 10 years now I think? and they've slowly gotten worse over the years and that also freaks me out bad. I've seen several neurologists, had CT scans, MRIs, whatever, and no one can fucking tell me why I have them, where they came from, or if they'll keep getting worse. And while I'm venting, sometimes I feel terrible about getting upset over them, or about my mental health, because "other people have it so much worse, you're not actually disabled" keeps going through my head. I'm otherwise relatively healthy, I'm in a safe home environment, I've never been without food/clothes/shelter/medicine/etc, so why should I get to complain??? but that's not helpful thinking either!! And I end up just wanting to smash my head into a wall.

TL;DR - physical health bad, mental health very very bad. Lost a lot of interest and inspiration in my own artwork and characters. Got stuck in cycles of getting socially anxious, getting depressed, not doing shit, then hating myself, then repeat.

Within the next few weeks I want to make another post asking about anything that I owe anybody; art, replies to things, ANYTHING, no matter how long ago it was. I want to make things right. It wasn't fair of me to just stop communicating at all, and again I do not blame anyone for being annoyed with me.

if you read any of this, thank you so much. like I said, I really want to talk more, I miss a lot of people and actually doing stuff with you guys. if anyone wants to add me on discord, my username is unclelucky; feel free! I promise I'm working on replying faster and not getting so caught up in my own head.