I’m alive

Actually I’m really doing well; I moved to London and got a job that offers more than 20 hours a week! My aunt (who I live with) has let me live rent-free for a couple of months so I can crawl out of debt, and I’m finally in a position to pay people back! I haven’t been out of my overdraft in legit 10 years, so it feels. Good. A weight is gone. Going. I’m working on it.

My best friends live here so socially I’m doing well, which means that mentally i am SOARING. Suicidal thoughts? I don’t know her. I’ve lost weight, i have a social life, my skin is doing.. Still shit but w/e…. I feel… really fukkin good, i didn’t realise how bad I was until I got out y’know??

I fucked up really badly with commissions, like. Real fukkin bad. And rather than do something about it I just shrivelled up and hid and told myself that I’d do it someday/somehow but mostly I just got more and more depressed/unmotivated/ ‘i can’t make anything else until i’ve done this’ so I haven’t made anything in close to 2? 3?? Years now…

And it took a long time to accept that I wasn’t going to be able to make what i’d promised, and I mean a LONG time, and then it took even longer to get the funds together to refund everyone, but I think it’s for the best. I think, that i just needed to stop, and go back to square one, and now that everything is cleared I feel lighter and like maybe I’ll be able to do something again someday…

Something that isn’t commissions, because if my attempts have taught me anything, it’s that i say yes too easily and take on too much, so I think if I ever want to create stuff again, i’ll have to have a blanket ‘no coms’ mentality, and only ever make something, THEN offer it if that makes sense...

I’m not sure if/when I’ll make stuff again- we’re actually moving from this flat into somewhere bigger, and the process is a nightmare especially bc we uhh got dogs! Rescue greyhounds! (They’re great tho they shit far too much)

Before people ask:

Are you still into TFs?

Not really! I went hardcore on that for like a good 8 years, I need a break and nothing about it inspires me in any way anymore :C

Will you open your shop?

new job is super chill, like it’s all older women and every five minutes they’re like ‘take a tea break’ and i’m like... but work???

Okay, so that new job I started?

Literally the job from hell. No set hours, I’ve been doing anything from 24-40 hours a week, but on an ever changing pattern so earlys followed by lates with a few night shifts thrown in. Every shift is between 9-11 hours. I’m typically doing one on-one off shifts, so I haven’t had a two day weekend in a few weeks, and when I do get days off, I just sleep. Sleep, poke at the internet from about 9pm-4am, nap, go to work, sleep, repeat.

The actual work environment is draining bc the Site Director is a fuckin tyrant ((I was bitching with ppl from admin the other day, and apparently in admin at least one person every day is literally crying bc of how awful shit is????))

My physical and mental health have been at literally the lowest in my entire life?? Like, I’ve always been depressed, but I’ve never //actually// wanted to kill myself before?? That was an interesting and quite alarming development. The 1am crying sessions became daily for a while, and oh boy the intentionally self-destructive/self-abusive shit I’ve been up to has been insane now I look back with a slightly clearer mind...

BUT GOOD NEWS. I quit. Tomorrow is my last day and I’m going to work at a smaller shop a lot closer and it just seems like a decent job this time.

What this means for my sewing:

I might actually have energy/time to sew again? ?? I’m finishing long overdue etsy orders atm, and then I need to prep for TFN, Not sure what’ll happen after that, but it can’t be any worse than the last six months...

‘I don’t want my etsy order anymore, it’s been too long’

Like, up to my mid-teens, I was a forgetful mess, but as long as I wrote a to do list the /second/ i knew of it, I was fine and I’d get stuff done

Okay, so been a little longer than I’d hoped- we ended up switching some rooms in the flat around, so everything was a nightmare for a little bit but it’s all settled now so I’ll be finishing off and getting in touch with Etsy ppl asap!

Trying to sum my year up, I think it’s best to use bullet points:

Good things!

Moved out of my parents place!

???

Oh! Designed some new products, and sold a load at TFN and Etsy :D

Got a lot better at Illustrator :3

?????? Not sure what else, everything blurs together a bit

Bad things!

Mmmmmm that mental illness feel

What is time keeping? and Self-motivation? Willpower? Discipline?

(My god my brother is a slob to live with)

Kind of lost a lot of money? Turns out fabrics and materials cost a lot more than I was able to get out of them, esp with my ability to sew severely hindered by my brain trying to get me to hibernate all year

i fUCKED UP GUYS

(jfc I also put on like 3 stone bc I’ve been too busy/stressed to like, eat properly god I feel terrible, my knees are fuckin up so bad with this unhealthy shit)

Mmm on a more serious note, I bit of way more than I could ever possibly hope to chew, and while I can say ‘I work 25 hours a week, therefore I should easily be able to find 10-20 hours a week to sew too’ it turns out, a) finding ten hours is hard and b) ten hours achieves NOTHING, I misjudged on a lot of stuff and was too optimistic in what I could achieve in a certain time frame, and ended up falling behind and never being able to catch up :/ It’s been like, a long continual burnout phase for the better part of the year, maybe longer tbh...

On a more positive note, I DID learn a lot of new techniques and I’m better at sewing than I was a year before!!

Going forward, at least I’ve had this experience? So I know never to do it again?? From now on, I’ll be making stuff /then/ putting it on Etsy, no more ‘made to order’ stuff I think, or at least not as much. I don’t want to open Etsy again until I’ve finished sorting out the mess of orders I’ve got left, including some larger plushies I still owe people.

I think once the burden of ‘you need to work bc this is late therefore you can’t relax or have fun until it’s done therefore you’re too stressed to work therefore---’ cycle is stamped out, I’ll be able to be a lot more productive, esp if I can just make what I’m in the mood for :/

work: we need you to come in on Monday my body: here’s that period we magically skipped for a few months  my house: raNDOM POWERCUT TIME my half finished Bob: Yeah I’m gonna... hide the finished parts you need somewhere who knows

And I’ll try and make other big ones and sell them somehow, but I’d rather like, please more people by selling smaller cheap ones, than only make one or two big ones a year...