Its been a while since I wrote here. Actually In all honesty that's not technically true, you see I've written many journals here since the last published one, but I would delete them before they could be published. Today is a different day though and right this moment I feel stronger. I WANT to do something different. I NEED to.

This is a ramble though and has no um..its got nothing to do with art or comics so you wont miss anything if you dont read this.

When I go quiet on here it's usually because I've fallen into depression. I've been on and off struggling with that most of this year and actually pretty much since October if I'm being honest mainly because I've been tussling with who I am really and where I belong and it sorta tangled me in knots that felt really restrictive and hard to breathe or move. I know as long as I keep posting the comics then people wont ask me how I am or worry about me, post the occasional funny thing on Bsky and people will assume everything is okay so I keep posting but other than the comics and the occasional bsky post I kinda went quiet everywhere and just sorta hermitted myself away. Its the easy thing to do for me. It hurts because it feels isolating, but that hurt is familiar so it feels comforting, and safe. It's certainly easier than asking for help.

And help is the problem. As someone who prides themselves on being a helper, when it comes to actually asking for help it becomes way more complex, like, its as if the language isn't there, or not having a clear picture of what help could look like I don't know what options are available so I kind of flounder and flop all over the place and go mute and retreat back to the saftey of just not asking until I feel alright enough to pop back up somewhere and say hi and go back to being more social.

I know this comes from a dangerous childhood where asking for help would often result in violent or abusive consequences, but im not that helpless child anymore and it annoys me sometimes that it still seems to be embedded in me that I can't ask for help, or worse, I distance myself from folk who could potentially help me. There's a lot of folk out there that i care about that I just havent talked to in weeks/months/years as a way of preventing me getting the things I need. It's all self inflicted. It's not that I don't care about them. I care about and think about them a lot. It's more that I have this inbuilt sabotage system that needs me to be alone. Proving to myself that im resilient maybe? Like I don't need anyone? How silly is that?

Like as a helper its like filling a big urn full of water as long as it stays full im okay, so if I ask for help if feels like some of that water is being removed and its like undoing some of the help I've given it's somehow negating the help I have offered and putting myself in that place of my childhood that if i wasnt helping or being useful then I was in the way and useless, threatened with being thrown away. As a 4 year old that sunk in and did some damage and again...I'm not that kid anymore....

I just came REALLY close to just deleting this, like all the others I have written over the past 2 months, but i promised myself i'd do something different today.

The truth of it is I have gotten myself into a bit of a mess health wise. I stopped caring about what or if I ate or exercise or anything really, played way more computer games in the evenings than I should have instead of taking accountability, but writing this here is a step in that accountability and I think thats what i've been hiding from for a while now. This isn't me asking for help. I still dont have the words for that, but this IS me taking a step towards helping myself and mobilising something in me, like a jump start from something thats been dormant for a while.

I'm gonna post here more often, journalling has always helped me get my thoughts in some kind of order, but also feels like a step towards being able to reach out easier. Im gonna drink more water and get more sleep and all of those things, and move more etc. If you read this far, thanks. I just needed to get that all outta my system.