What's going on with the hibbary

Heyo, everyone. Got some updates. 

Figured out I for sure have a pretty bad case of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I've been working on that and hashing it out with my brother, who went through the same trauma. We're kind of tag-teaming that garbage. 

As a result I've been a little slow on art. They're really very intertwined in an interesting way: firstly, because making artwork was one of the only ways I could elicit little scraps of attention from my zoned-out mother and secondly because the pressure of making artwork really tips off an anxious perfectionist state. 

So I'm working on noticing and combating when I'm triggered into a trauma state (which right now is pretty much perpetual) and also I'm trying to slow down and really focus on artwork. One of my major problems right now is getting so hung up and panicky on time that I let all kinds of issues slide and the result is not-very-good artwork. This bad habit was created and perpetuated by working for Khimeros, for which I needed to pump out mediocre artwork as fast as humanly possible in order to keep the price low. It was not good for my work-flow or my psyche and I've got almost ten years of those bad habits to weed out. 

Truth be told I'm going through a grieving period for myself as an artist. I wasted so much time on these bad habits and now I'm a 35 YO who is behind early 20-somethings just out of school in terms of skill. It feels very what-even-is-the-point? when I'm so far behind, but art is the only thing I have going for me so I need to just pull up my big-boy socks and get my nose to the grindstone. 

Unfortunately studying also brings up a lot of toxic feelings such as: oh my god I can't sell this so I'm wasting my time; holy shit, this is terrible, I'm all off-model; nothing seems to be sinking in and I'm not getting better at all; etc. '

These feelings, of course, start and end in my own brain and don't necessarily reflect reality. They are, however, ingrained habits that began PROBABLY before I even popped out of the womb, because stress chemicals from a mother reach and alter fetuses in negative ways. In this way a safe and friendly existence for me is purely theoretical, and that makes changing a C PTSD brain a little more tricky. I'm working at it and I'm going to do it, but it's nothing that happens all at once.

So am studying human anatomy right now. Anxiety-self-admonishing thoughts pop up at around the rate of one per second and shutting them down takes a lot of energy. It does get easier as you do it but the books I've been reading from psychotherapists that deal with child-hood trauma victims say the road is pretty rocky and it takes years and trauma-relapses will always happen because the somatic response is broken. Basically you have to train yourself to be more or less a buddhist monk. Which TBH I'm kind of looking forward to; that sounds rad. 

What this means for you, my patrons, isn't really very much. I'll still be making artwork because it's my job, and if you were willing to support me at my worst it can only get better. I've already gone through dry spells and the more impatient already bailed. I plan to do more studies, both human and animal anatomy as well as color and composition and that kind of thing. If you guys want I can make it more accessible with notes and clean drawings. It would probably be better for me if I did.