My Candle Is Burning Out...

In an earlier post I talked about how I am just a hobbyist blogger, and how I'm not in business. You can read it here: https://artofladyseshiiria.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html

Shortly after writing that. I have been hitting a burn out wall. I released four patterns this month. Some have been in development for a few weeks to a couple months. I have two more in the wings both of which are in the two to four months development windows. One is finished and just waiting in the interim, the other just needs a second tester run. It's already written. A second tester run allows me to find out if there's errors in my writing, but also gives me a chance to take the photography for the tutorials that I make. 

I was not expecting myself to burn out this quickly...

I started making patterns and sharing them in... well my first really serious one I really did in November of last year. (2025) But I'm not new to making patterns I've posted some in the past they were just really amateur comparatively speaking. So some of those have been taken down over the years. Some are still up and I probably need to update them. I will eventually get to it I just don't want to do it right now. 

My problem is I have a whole to do list of ideas and drafts but I'm tired. And even though I disconnected from social media platforms last year (for the most part,) the lasting effects of competing with the algorithm are still there. Even though I've never really competed with the algorithm and I've never really posted for trends or done any of that. That pressure to pump content out is still there. I mostly blame IG for that it's super toxic. Your content gets swallowed up so fast I thought deviantART was bad when I was a kid but holy s***...

When I produce something and I share it I don't really get a sense of pride or accomplishment. I get a sense of relief. I think this is due to being neurodivergent and having ADD/ADHD. It doesn't really feel good to me. It often feels like pressure to follow through and perform perfectly. If you grew up like many of us did you were criticized for every little thing you did wrong and you weren't allowed to just do things wrong and learn from your mistakes. 

I feel like anytime I start something whether it's work or leisure it's still hard. It's more exhausting than people think. They often think that people that are neurodivergent are lazy but we deal with so much executive dysfunction that even our hobbies can be crippling at times. I think for me it also stems from a lot of trauma because I use art to cope with my PTSD and my mental health. For me art is supposed to be a safe haven, but once it goes from production or the process, to sharing it starts rubbing me a certain way that hits my freeze and flight responses.

This might be partially due to RSD or rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Which a lot of people dismiss as irrational fear but when somebody's had enough trauma throughout their life to recognize patterns consistently that's not an irrational fear. Though, I don't compare myself to other artists anymore and haven't done that for a while because I just don't care anymore. I guess that's what's nice about being in your thirties. I'm more for myself and my art journey.

The fear of rejection part for me isn't something simple like 'your art sucks,' or 'insert critique or criticism here,' it's the silence. It's feeling alone. It's feeling unseen. Because in my life. I have gone unseen, ignored, bullied, and the things I consider important to me have been dismissed whether it was things like special interests or how someone at school was treating me.

I think the algorithm heightened that. But where I feel better just sticking to DA, here, and Tumblr, that pressure to be seen it still there. That fear of being left behind or unseen.

It doesn't help that in my personal life. I lost all of my friends. Either I cut them out of my life because they were abusive and toxic people. Some of whom used suicide to emotionally manipulate me into not doing things or doing things I don't want to, or growing apart, or even the cult ruining my social life as an adult. And then having to start over again on learning to socialize after leaving the cult in my mid thirties and being isolated. (Some of that isolation is self-imposed and self-inflicted because of trauma...)

So as I'm recognizing all of this currently with where I'm at. I promised myself I'm not posting anymore content this month. I'm going to sit on my two patterns. Even though for me sitting on them is causing me a anxiety like an open browser tab in my brain... And even though they're finished it feels like I have not finished said project because I haven't an uploaded it yet. 

I'm going to allow myself to sit in that discomfort. I deserve my break I spent four months on one of them and two on the other ish. From concept to draft, development and testing, to finalization for publishing. I am not a content machine I am not AI. I have limited energy and capacity. I am human and it is okay to feel tired. It is okay to say no to creativity and it's okay to say yes to rest. 

I know I said I'm not a small business and I'm not. I have been doing some research and I found out that I don't have to be a small business, I don't need a small business license, and I can make a little bit of money at my hobby without having to register as a business. I don't have the capacity to run a business. At least not right now. The taxes are different that's fine. I don't care about that, that's easy. 

And after really watching my own process and documenting it for the first time. Like really actually documenting it. Not unlike my costume of 2018 and 2019 that I did and posted to DA for a short time before pulling it down. While I know I took photos and I talked about my process. I didn't pay attention to how much time it took for me from concept to finalization of my idea. I didn't pay attention to how much work and investment I placed in that project or any others. 

Because I'm more about the journey...

But part of my journey and healing recently has been paying attention and being more present. Seeing all of my work that I haven't been seeing which was largely invisible to me. My scheduling of my time, my photography, my writing, my drafting, my testing, all of it... Was finally seeing my work and progress and actually acknowledging it. Not going through the motions like I'm along for the ride.

With all of this said and in closing, I think... I deserve to post a couple of things as paid patterns even as a hobbyist. I worked so very hard on these two and I'm so exhausted. I don't know why I feel like I have the need to justify it. But it gives me a chance to test run and see how well I can potentially do. It'll give me much needed perspective. Because I've been wanting to be self-employed since high school as a small artist business. I want to see if it would even be feasible or worth it. Even if it's a future endeavor. I need to know this something of myself. Will it be worth the executive dysregulation and capacity for potential burnout? Because it will be worth it if it means I can pull myself out of this extreme poverty. Even if it's only a little bit and it raises my standard of living even a small measure to alleviate some of the stress that I've got. I think I just want to not live so hand to mouth... 

Disabilities are life on hard mode.