Happy New Year everyone!!

This is the first drawing of 2024, nothing all that exciting, just some portrait practice to make sure I still know how to draw (:P) and to revisit some fundamentals. They took me around an hour and a half which is eh, not great. But they look okay!

I'm feeling better after a few weeks spent with my family and I've started to pitch back some owed work. Miss drawing so much. Love you all~

(Credit to a lot of reference photos from Pinterest)

I don't like sharing personal stuff that much, less of all when it's negative. I'm not well, been sick on and off since August now, with just a week or two as a respite. But 2023 isn't over and this year proves again how hard can it hit. I don't like sharing but I need to speak about this, as it feels like a thorn in my heart right now.
A few days ago, my boyfriend and I lost a very dear friend. To say this on social media didn't feel right, as if it were some sort of public service announcement: "Hey you all! Our friend is dead!" But here, which is smaller and more private feels adequate enough, somehow.
You don't know him but his name was Rei, or that was the name he chose for himself. He was an artist, loved to create and laugh at the worst possible memes. He loved anime and science fiction, he loved creating stories. He was sick, but still fought like hell for what was right, even at his weakest. He was queer, had a lovely girlfriend and we knew he wanted to marry. He wanted to move to Spain next summer, where life is more gentle and being queer isn't a crime. He could not sell his work anymore cause he lived in Russia and he was being targeted for writting LGBTQ fiction, the war didn't help. He was just thirty, and the other day we knew he passed unexpectedly due to health reasons.
You didn't know him and I wish I knew him better. I hope this small text painted a pretty enough picture of a friend who is no more. We miss you Rei, may your memory live within the books you wrote and your spirit rest among the stars.

We did it! ?

Thank you guys for your swift support with this ❤️ I'll be closing the sketch headshot slots now cause I don't wanna overwhelm myself or get too much work to do besides my already existing queue. I'll show you the results once I have them all done! I expect to have them all finished in a few days.

I also did this sketch yesterday as practice. I won't show you the multiple ugly ones hehe. What is my style anymore.

[Also, this is not part of the convo but I'm so fucking sleepy you all. I've been practicing for around 9h on my art these days to get back in shape. Also today I've managed to do so many chores, shower, write on my journal and to-do list again. I hate those meds and I hate what they did to me, every day the difference is more clear. But I feel energized and once my art is on a stable enough level to be consistent, I'll get back to work on everything. Also If I haven't answered you yet: This bun is managing anxiety at this moment and talking to around 2-3 people per day. I'll get back to you, I have everything listed and accounted for, love you so much and thanks for the patience.]

[CLOSED]❗️❗️EMERGENCY SKETCHES, PLEASE READ❗️❗️

Money has been tight for a while, but I've been managing with my savings and some help from my partner. I barely spend anything besides on my meds or basic things like food and electricity. I was supposed to end this month with enough money to pay my freelance monthlies. Two days before those taxes (around 300euro) I had to pay, my electrical company decided to send me the bill early; it wasn't supposed to go trough until next month (they are not really scheduled) so now, in the middle of the night and a few hours before having to pay my taxes I find myself with my bank account in the red, literally. I already paid some fees over being on the red.

I don't ask for charity, but if you would like some art I'm gonna be offering some cute headshot sketches.

KOFI Headshot sketchesI need around 100euro to pass this month, but anything extra would be very appreciated. I don't wanna offer bigger commissions while already having a few people waiting on my queue.

Hello again guys! These past two days specially I've been feeling so much better and that's why you may have noticed me becoming more active around here, taking care of stuff etc. What you haven't seen is that I've been trying to get back on the groove of drawing and even if my first attempts at it were... questionable (lol) they are looking so much better now after some needed practice!
I'm still taking things easy, or at least I wanted to. I hate to do this, but I kinda need your help here a bit. Details on the following post, as I didn't want to clog it with this small intro which is more personal and just for you guys :')

I've created a bsky account if you want to follow me there. Only a presentation post for now, I've mostly given up on Twitter...
https://bsky.app/profile/mespeth.bsky.social

Also starting to feel so much better! I think the damn meds are starting to clear out of my system (I had like a backlash period after stopping them). Not sure how am I regarding to work yet, doing my best! This is a new experience for me :')

Bluesky Social

Mespeth (@mespeth.bsky.social)

27 yo illustrator from Spain. They/She, furry and human art. AuDHD. Antifa. ENG/ESP ¤ Commissions CLOSED¤

Other factors that I would call bad luck are that of course my Psychiatrist went on holiday leave trough the end of July and all of August, so no chance of calling him and saying "Hey! I think these are really bad for me! Can we book an appointment sooner??" and also my therapy group, which has been a BIG factor in me managing my mental health, workload, etc also went on holiday leave all of July, August and start of September :') So I was left out of my support channels, alone, incapable of reaching out to other people and not even registering days passing.

Then, of fucking course, I got COVID, again, on August. Remember that part when I said I'm already ill and my body is kinda weak already? Yeah. So my boyfriend is a bartender, so he interacts with strangers every day. Masks are not mandatory and even if people who are ill and are conscious enough will wear them when they are going grocery shopping or to the doctors, that's not the case with bars and pubs. Cause the people who are sick and aren't pieces of shit won't go out drinking while ill! The ones who don't care about other's well being will still go clubbing even if they got covid and they know it cause they don't care about other patrons and even less about the people working there who are exposed to thousands of other people per week. So my boyfreind got sick (and his coworkers, the partners of said coworkers and other workers at different clubs lol) and before symptoms could appear, he passed it on to me. At first I tought it was a cold, but soon enough it would show it wasn't a fucking cold. Both of us are vaccinated obviously and that is the reason maybe I'm here writting these comfortably. I don't want to relieve the experience too much, but I spent more than 3 weeks, almost a whole month (normal covid time is around 2 weeks, for reference) in fucking hell. Being unable to speak, drink, sit up, be awake. Having trouble breathing, terrible headaches, a running fever for days on and off. It was very very bad. Thankfully, my mother in law was able to come a few weeks and help us (me) out a bit. I dropped quite a lot of weight in the time and was focusing on just being awake and waiting for the next day to come. I hate hospitals so much.
But it passed and I got better at the end tail of August and dude I surely hope I don't catch Covid again any time soon, cause that was HELL. My heart goes to those who also had a hard time with it or worse, that lost their lives against it. It's 2023, but it's still a danger to those of us who are more vulnerable. Please, mask. If you are feeling sick or someone you know is feeling sick, please don't go clubbing and endanger the worker's and their families lives. You can go out witouth a drink but I'm rather attached to my lungs..

And that's it! It's a lot and at the same time not that much, just wanted to leave it out here in the open. I hate talking about my own shortcomings cause I feel at some time you are all gonne become fed up with me ? I just want to be a good reliable artist and friend, and I feel like I come short every fucking time. I didn't choose to be born in this body and there's people who have it worse than me, but idk, I still feel guilty about it. :( This Jackalope just want to do funny drawings.

TLDR: I started my first med treatment for ADHD for 3 months in July, which backfired inmensely and the meds were so bad for me I lost my passion altogether, sense of time, where I was or what I was supposed to be doing. I've since stoppped taking those meds and will be seeing my psychiatrist soon to get different meds that work best for me and aren't just the cheapest. I also got a very very bad case of COVID in August which left me almost a month incapacitated with fever, respiration difficulties, high pain, the whole package. I was severely ill but since then have recovered and I think I'm not experiencing long lasting symptoms.

Hello guys, here is the long post I promised explaining a bit what happened to me these past three months. It's a bit long so I'm gonna write a TLDR at the end.

There are two things that you must know to understand this. First of that is that I suffer from several chronic illnesses on my day to day life that make my health more delicate and sensible to external factors (illnesses, mental health problems) due to my body being exhausted in the fight against these chronic conditions. I've been somewhat sick since my teenage years, nothing too serious, but on the last years (re: 2021, 2022) they become a bit more serious which drove me to seek medical help and treatments which I'm currently going trough. It's a long process to rebalance a body!

The second one is my mental health, it's not been good for some time, but for those newish to this channel, I was diagnosed with ADHD at the start of this year. This is not a bad thing! It helped me understand my struggles and work day to day to make a good routine for my work and social life and even if it wasn't perfect, it was working much better than my routine prior to knowing about my own ADHD. I know a lot of you are also neurospicy and I'm sure you can relate with what I'm writting about right now. Burnout, apathy, time blindness, extreme anxiety, suicidal toughts, having a very hard time to focus, etc.

So, back to July 2023. I went to my first psychiatric appointment and they gave me my first meds. They were not tailored to me as the doctor didn't even ask about my personal struggles or necessities. From his words, they were just the cheapest and the ones we would be starting with. I was supposed to take them for 3 months and then report back, so I went to the pharmacy and after a few weeks (I had to go to my family doctor after to get them aproved by social security system so they would be even cheaper) I started taking them. I read the instructions as I always do, having to take several pills a day this is specially important for me to do! I was suspicious at first when I first read that those meds (Ritalin like) were not supposed to be taken by adults and specially not adults medicating for the first time!! (And as a 27 years old, I would consider myself an adult cough). But I took them anyway cause you know, at some point you have to trust your doctors knowing better.
I didn't feel them at first, to be fair. I didn't feel much of anything, besides some anger issues the first weeks and a sudden ability to do house chores for an hour or two after taking them. They didn't help me work, didn't help me focus. One thing I guess they did was prevent me for overworking my body to exhaustion working because, as I would realize almost a month and a half later (yeah, that long) they made me INCAPABLE OF WORKING. Suddendly I found myself out of energy, not being able to paint or even wanting to, not being able to talk to people, not being able to leave the house. They just blurred my days. I tried describing the effects to a friend of mine a few days ago and the closer I've come to what it feels is this: They don't make me depressed, they don't make me a zombie, but it's like someone just took all my passion and all my ambition and rooted it out from my heart. Just fucking nothing, and I didn't even realize this until in September (two whole months had gone by!!!) I forgot to take them for two days and I suddendly wanted to do things and draw and talk to my friends and go out and grow my business and interact with all the amazing people that form my community.
Now I know these meds are NOT right for me and maybe I should have known sooner and stop taking them but the thing is, I didn't realize (I couldn't) and I wanted for them to work so badly... I tought if I gave them more time, they would kick in and help me, but they did the complete opposite.