If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you’ve likely heard me discuss my mental health at least once. If you’ve been following me long enough, you might know that the reason this blog exists is because I was searching for a way to continue surviving, even when I was heavily suicidal.
I’ve left and returned to this blog several times over now, and every time I’ve left, it’s been because of my mental health. I’ve been dealing with depression and anxiety for over half my life now, and it’s something that I continue to deal with today.
I never wanted to reach this point with my blog. Ryou has meant so much to me as a character, and the friendships I’ve made through this blog have been one of the best outcomes of making and maintaining occulere. I still have so many ideas and plans for the future of this blog, and things I want to do.
But. If the last two years have proven anything, it’s that I can’t do it anymore. I’ve now officially been labelled treatment-resistant, which is basically just a clinical label for something that I already knew. I’ve been on more than 14 different medications, spent years working with psychologists - if there was an easy fix, or a fix at all, I wouldn’t still be dealing with this to the extent that I am.
When I created this blog, it was in the months before I officially failed my final year of high school, and the thing I’ve been most proud of is that I turned that around. I got a job with a wonderful store, I managed to get into college and pursue the degree I’d been wanting, I was so proud of myself for finally achieving that.
Currently, I’ve had to quit my job, and I’m failing my courses despite cutting down my workload. I may have to drop out of college, maybe temporarily, possibly even permanently. I have to take a step back and reassess my life, because if after ten years I’m still getting completely derailed by the same old bullshit, obviously there’s something I’m not doing right.
I’m barely getting by right now offline, let alone trying to manage any sort of online presence. I’ve tried and failed to get back on in the last couple of years, but I’ve always failed to maintain it for any length of time.
So. Sorry. I didn’t want it to come to this, but I can’t even keep my own life together, let alone somebody else’s. Ryou has meant so much to me, and embodied the fact that I was capable of turning things around. Back when I first started, I would never have thought that she’d become what she did, or that it would last longer than a month - and here I am nearly five years later.
More than that, though, is all of you. I could name you one by one, but I think that you probably know exactly who I’m talking about when I say that you’ve made occulere what it is, and been the reason that I’m still here. You have been so, so incredible to write with, and I can’t thank you enough for your friendship and enthusiasm.
I think by this point pretty much all of us saw this coming, so. Officially, now, occulere is permanently done. I won’t be coming back, I won’t be reviving this blog, and you’re incredibly unlikely to see my Ryou on tumblr again. There’s a small possibility that I might keep her around for the odd thread on discord, but even then, that won’t be happening for a long while yet.
I’m so sorry that it’s come to this, but I’m just not capable of keeping up the act anymore. If you want to find me elsewhere, my main tumblr is midwinterain, my email is midwinterain, literally everything is midwinterain. Thank you so much for the last four and a half years, it’s meant the world to me.
