uhh disclaimer: i opened your blog several months ago and promptly forgot about it, and while i have the vague impression that you give guidance and encouragement, i can't remember any specifics about it, and that may not be true anymore.
with all that said, i'm just gonna shoot my shot anyways i guess. and i'm sorry if this comes across as traumadumping or oversharing. i genuinely don't mean to overstep boundaries, but at the same time its a complex topic i have complex feelings about so theres not a short version... genuinely sorry. feel free to just delete this if you want.
how do i stop hating the art i make? how do i stop being jealous of my friends, who can create art much better than mine/receive more attention than mine? how do i get the discipline, and the motivation, to return to creating things?
i know that creating only for The Numbers :tm: is a surefire way to poison it for yourself... but i also have a crippling need to be loved, via my work usually, and an inability to love my own work on its own terms. as for the discipline thing, i have ADHD and building habits/discipline and learning new things has been incredibly demoralizing as of late.
again sorry about all of this and feel free to not respond
dig deeper. your relationship to art is an extension of you, and your problem does not lie in the process of making that art, your problem is that you don't love yourself. i dont know the intricacies of you, but i have a hunch, that in your pursuit of external assurance, you compromise your own nature by trying to become what you think will be loved.
people can only love what is conveyed to them, if who you are is an idealized performance, then you will never be truly loved in the way you want or need. seeking assurance from only the outside will lead you to a vicious cycle that leaves you hollow.
my advice to that is: start listening to your feelings and yourself, and just acknowledge all of it, don't push yourself away, be honest, be vulnerable, start journaling about your feelings, desires, and needs. start exploring new things outside your comfort zone, even if you arent sure you'll like it, it work. approach things with an open mind. if you are very loving/caring to those you connect with, then you should treat yourself as if you were another person, affording yourself the same patience and assurance. please, reward and encourage yourself even. this isn't a switch you can just flip on in your mind, it takes effort to build up an open and supportive relationship, even with yourself. it might be uncomfortable at first, but you have to push through to get to a better place, you probably hate yourself because you aren't being yourself.
