I’m feeling very heartbroken and demotivated. It’s been over one year since I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.F.A. in Animation in December 2024. And I haven’t been able to make animated shorts for a while now because so much stress had been going on throughout university with handling workload from classes and life. And also so much happening in the internet and in the world, I can’t bear to witness.

Here I am, still no luck finding a better job or internship in animation because not only they ask for experience, but also fake job openings are becoming more frequent. Entry-level is obsolete now, sort of, and I know I’m not alone here. I heard everyone is struggling to find jobs. However, since last Saturday, my mother is there to push me further, and today she called me zero for “doing nothing”, or just “sitting on my butt all day”, or doing the same skills over and over again, or “stuck in the same spot”. Well, I showed her a few animation tests, and today I showed her that the first episode of Kaleo Fox done in comic. However, she claimed that it’s bits and pieces and doesn’t have a “real story”. I mean if my story goes wrong, as expected, I would do better. And animation tests I did she claimed that they don’t count. She said that I’m just pretending to be a comic artist with a work done over almost a year. When she said I should be focusing on doing animation, even if it’s as short as 1 minute. One that has go through sleepless nights working on an animated film themselves or for a company to get results. That is the case when deadlines loom near and that is where things go on the rough edge. But I am not a company, so am I seeing why? It’s not the first time, this has happened every month since last summer. Her friends were “right”, and that I should be doing something too. She was repeating over and over again, the same song and dance.

She called herself a failure because it was all her effort to help me finish my university assignments, including those that are not related to my animation degree, but still required. She thinks I “put her down”, or “I was mean and spoiled”. Get this, university was stressful for me to get through, because of fear of failing grades and time constraints with managing assignments, while I had the practice of getting better at drawing. If a deadline was near, I had to have the nerve to rush, which results in me having mistakes and having to correct them again. But again help was needed. And eventually in the end I had to make sure they were correct before submission. We had these moments where we get lost and stressed. But I feel that as a man with autism, too much stress can kill me. Animation and art takes time for me to get stronger at it, but not when I force myself to do this every day. She kept bringing the past of, “oh, you’re not making enough effort”, to make her feel ashamed about herself. And she said she doesn’t care about how the world and generations are doing, only about me. Like, does she not see that the job market is very rusty, people in my age are financially suffering, and openings and some courses are a scam now?

She won’t let me travel abroad too. Traveling is expensive and is a luxury, I get that. But what if I want a summer vacation for myself or better yet with friends? I’m sure going with friends would be that fun, but I’m sure my mother won’t let me go. Sucks really.

And I’m not sure moving out by myself in advance is possible. Because I don’t have enough money to buy for a home, utilities and needs myself without a job in this terrible time of an economy, I’m afraid this won’t happen any time soon. If she wants to kick me out of the house with a snap of a finger, then I need help. Financially.

I feel like moving to a different country myself, but again it’s very complicated to get through too. And there are a lot of reasons why it’s difficult, from expenses to bureaucracy.

My mother kept arguing and yelling at me for “being a zero”…I’m so sick of this crap, seriously. Is there anything I can do to make her feel better? Like should I take more courses and get started on building an animated short film? I didn’t do anything wrong to her, she was just acting on me for “having nothing to show” after more than a year.

Apologies for the recent inactivity or me being barely active on social media, but I won’t be making Kaleo Fox Webcomix or drawings for a little while until I feel better, because of the argument that happened yesterday. I can’t even enjoy anything without mentally and emotionally being pressured or let down anymore. I admit any struggles in the past, but I’m doing my best to grow myself and it’s not easy to manage as a person with autism. I will let you know when I feel better, and any help would be greatly appreciated. 🥲

~ Alex (TheEnderToonist) 2026