art blog

back then i obv never knew that this was a “bad” thing. i knew it was abnormal how obsessed i was but i thought if im happy then thats all that matters. but then all the anxiety started coming in. it’d make me anxious not to be thinking about uk.us, i’d start feeling wrong if im enjoying an anime that can’t be turned into uk.us, etc. most of all, if i wasnt drawing uk.us, then i’d just completely deny it, i wouldn’t let myself drew it. just the thought of doing something NON-uk.us was too much for me to handle, and i didnt know what to do about it

so instead, i just dug myself further down the hole. if nothing was as satisfying as uk.us, then uk.us will be the only thing ill enjoy. but at the same time.. there were things i loved. i loved other hetalia ships. i loved the whole of hetalia itself, and there are plenty of other ships from other fandoms thati loved. but no matter what i did, my mind would go absolute nuts if i stopped thinking about uk.us

what used to just be a way to escape became, idk. im not sure what was going on here, but i would say its because of depression itself. i had no self-worth, and no self-love, i didnt find any value of myself outside of my obsession with uk.us. i genuinely believed i was nothing if i stopped enjoying uk.us. i would have panic attacks with just the idea of not drawing uk.us, and i couldn’t think of a future for myself that doesn’t have uk.us in it. it was bad, it was really really bad

there were a variety of more problems here like social anxiety (this was insanely bad) and other things that dont come to my mind but yeah depression was just fucking around with me at this point. it got even worse and, if i didn’t think about uk.us, id have panic attacks, but if i thought about uk.us, id have self-hatred as i never felt like i was worth it, that someone like me wasnt worth loving a ship (as beautiful as it)

and the self-hatred got worse after i got into the uk.us fandom, because i’d feel that pang of self-hate and shame everyday. but i couldn’t do anything about it, because this was all i had, uk.us was all i ever was, and all id ever be.

but even w/o uk.us (altho a huge part of it) there was also the fact that i couldnt parse the thought of being out of hetalia itself. there was a time i really believed that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I can leave hetalia, because it is what defined “me”, so again, it all came back to that self-worth, but i also so badly wanted to leave it if even just for a MONTH, it was driving me insane and im obviously not happy here, but i couldn’t, i couldnt even watch anime or anything during the duration of this addiction because my mind was like “NO, you can only enjoy hetalia, and nothing else”

but in 2015 it just got so bad, so so so bad, where all of this spiralled into me even having panic attacks just drawing uk.us until i broke down. and then i told myself that enough is enough, and i need real help from depression not escape, because all escape was doing was destroying me. so i took a break from drawing (something that was really hard to convince myself to do at first, because i still had those “but if i dont draw im worthless” thoughts) and finally started taking anti depressants, and they started working and making me feel A LOT better

and then 2016 came in and a lot of things changed, like getting into love live, meeting my gf, and just overall learning to take care of myself physically and mentally. for the first half of 2016, i still had those “if i dont draw them im worthless, and theres no point in continuing to draw if its not uk.us” thoughts, but somewhere in May it all changed. it just stopped, i stopped going on my uk.us twitter, i stopped obsessively looking through the uk.us pixiv tag, like, everything that i told myself that if i stop doing im Worthless, i just stopped doing. and it was just. ok. i was okay, i was alive and was still alive despite all that

but what really made me feel like ive been recovering was the fact that i was getting into new fandoms and being OKAY with it. ever since uk.us became such an awful unhealthy obsession, i couldnt get into anything else, not even into another ship WITHIN hetalia. but in 2016 i fandom hopped like over 10 times or something LOL 

what changed everything was just learning to love myself. i dedicated 2016 to ACTUALLY learning to love and take care of myself, not escape from doing that. i started doing other things, and 

yeah im not sure how to continue this lol but yeah. eventually i just stopped thinking about uk.us as much, but in the process i stopped drawing as much because i only continued to draw for so long for uk.us, so losing that obsession made me lose that extreme desire to draw everyday of my life. 

but i didnt mind it at all, because i was actually feeling happy, i wasnt depressed every second unless i drew uk.us (altho even if i drew them i was depressed as i said lmao), and like... i felt like i was a person outside of a uk.us lover. that no longer was all i thought of myself as, i saw myself as more than that.

i wanted to make a post about it because this blog is where im reminded a lot about all of the hardship i went through, and as a closure for myself. 

im happy right now, i dont think ive ever been this happy in my life honestly. i LOVE uk.us, but i didnt love myself, throughout the whole time that i was into hetalia i dont think i ever shared any of that love with myself, it was all just poured into a bunch of fictional characters.

thats why this blog just somewhat died bc like i said, ever since i recovered, i lost the will/motivation(?) to draw, but i still love drawing, so i told myself that from now on, we’ll learn how to get back into drawing not because “drawing is all i am”, but because i love drawing. and im still in the process (just shows that the reason i drew so much was bc it was an escape from everything, not because i loved it) but im getting there!

and yeah, thats my story on my depression and recovery. the thing i learnt the most out of all this is... no matter how much you love something, if it hurts then recognize that pain. recognize whats going on and admit to it. i lied to myself so many times, “no, i LOVE uk.us how could it make me sad. i love hetalia so why would i want to leave it?”, even after ALL the panic attacks id still think this. but one day i just admitted that yes, i love uk.us, but im literally about to die from massive panic attacks, and even after admitting that i was ok, i was more than ok actually i became capable of recovering from the problem itself.

my worst enemy is shame, ive always just been ashamed of myself and who i am, and even now i sometimes struggle with those thoughts telling me im awful/etc, but im proud to say that it will never be as bad as it used to be. 

if anyone has a similar problem to this... i hope this helps you. becoming addicted into something because of self-hatred/depression is hard to recover from, but its possible. its possible to feel like you’re a person outside of all that.

as for the current me, im doing great rn, 2016 was a mess politically but as a person im doing better than i ever have in my 20 years of being alive. 

P5:

“Englaand! Look below!”

“? Is there something I’m supposed to s-”

“It’s me!”

P7:

“How long do you plan to stay asleep!! Get up already!!”

“It’s cuz you didn’t let me sleep.”

“That’s because of your damn games!” (Don’t phrase it that way!)

P16:

…..

America: “If you keep smoking, I won’t kiss you anymore.”

England: “Why?!”

America: “Because it’s gross and feels weird when I taste it, also since you’re a persistent type of person, it’s even worse.”

England: “Alright, alright, I get it…”

England: “Then, would this satisfy you best?”

kiss

England: “A good night kiss.”

(Ahh…)

America: (Go to hell England..)

(I’m also lovesick in a way too…)

P18:

Icecream day and confession day

…..

….

Staaaaaaaaare

America: “What? It’s hard to eat with you staring.”

England: “Hn? Well, I was just thinking how I wanna eat that so bad…”

….

??????

America: “… Well if there’s something I’m going to say here, it’s that the thing you can eat is right in front of you right now.”

America: “It’s not my icecream though, no way I’m giving you that”

England: “… Haha, yeah.”

(Hard to translate this exactly, but basically America is vaguely saying that the person he should choose isn’t the icecream, it’s him. England agrees by saying ofcourse, its not the icecream I’m choosing, it’s you.)

P22:

(The concept of lovesickness… is just a fantasy girls in love like to daydream about)

(I know that, but…)

England: “Who is it?”

England: “—Oh, it’s you America.”

England: “Wait, why the hell are you drenched wet?! Get inside the house right now! I’m getting the towel now for you so–”

….

…..

England: “Hey!! I’m gonna get wet like this too! Get off me! Are you even listening?!”

England: “………..? America?”

(I can’t care about a cure… when all I can do is be contaminated by your love.)