Im lowkey freaking out right now. I haven’t gotten any commissions or donations on my Ko-Fi, and I don’t understand why. Is my stuff not good enough? What am I doing wrong? I’m not going to have enough money to pay rent by end of month, please someone help.
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Once again, my commissions are open and I’m ill do a free additional commission with each request. Plus smaller donations get timed sketch requests. Please support, even a little will help PJ regain her sanity, as well as my own.
Disclaimer: I don’t know how to review. Only flail. No review.
Mind On Fire by Arnold Thomas Fanning. A late entry - I read it over Christmas - but one of my top reads of the year. Fanning writes honestly and unflinchingly about his journey through and around mental illness (bipolar) including time spent in psychiatric hospitals, New York, the streets of London, and the boxroom of his father’s Dublin home. The lows are very low but thankfully the book ends on a positive note and it deservedly got a lot of attention when it was published.
How To Come Alive Again by Beth McColl. A practical guide to dealing with mental illness that’s also very funny. There are first aid tips, example scripts to help you talk to your GP about how you’re feeling, suggestions for when you can’t get out of bed, what to do if you or someone you know struggles with dissociating, and lots and lots of reassurances that you. will. be. fine. I’d also recommend this to anyone who knows someone with a mental illness.
The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. An in-depth look at trauma and the primary and secondary effects it can have on a person, their body, and their relationship with the world around them, others, and themselves. It is full of case studies that explore trauma-related concepts and therapies and it left me wishing that everyone who works in mental health could be mentored by Van Der Kolk.
Special mentions: Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us about Life, Love and Relationships by Camilla Pang and Freedom from Self-harm: Overcoming Self-Injury with Skills from DBT and Other Treatments by Kim L. Gratz, Alexander L Chapman, Barent W. Walsh
Dan Deacon's "Gliss Riffer" was practically on loop for me last year, so I wanted to do my take on the delightful hand friend Joanna Fields created for the album cover.
It had started late Saturday night, Opal caterwauling in the night. Hades had gone to get her but she wouldn’t quiet down, leaving them all awake and grumpy at two am. The teething so far hadn’t been so bad, they kept her on a proper regimen of enchanted frozen rings and rubbed her gums as much as possible. But Sunday night she would not stop crying. At one point, she’d pressed her cheek to Opal’s head and realized she was hotter than usual. After almost freezing with anxiety, she’d taken her temperature.
Sure enough, it’d been 37.7C.
She’d called Tibbs in a panic, despite Hades’ protests (it was a very normal thing for teething, but still--the only other time Opal had ever run a fever was a week after she was born when she’d still been in the hospital and had nearly scared them both half to death for twelve hours.) Tibbs had said more or less exactly what she’d expected him to, but it still helped to calm her down somewhat.
It didn’t help calm Opal down.
She’d whimpered and cried all night on and off. Belle couldn’t sleep, knowing her daughter was in pain and there was little she could do.
The next morning, Belle took Opal to Hera’s for a soothing poultice for her mouth. She had to miss class for it and Hades couldn’t go because he had an important Board obligation. It was the only time in her life she’d ever missed class and at the end of the summer semester. However, Opal had been more important. She hadn’t even thought of anything else.
It had taken until one in the morning on Monday night (Tuesday morning) for Opal’s fever to break. Belle had fallen asleep on the couch with Opal curled in her arms, waking up the next morning much later than normal--a blanket thrown over her, the baby in her play-crib in the living room, and Hades waking her up telling her she had class in an hour.
She had class in an hour!
Belle had dashed out of the house in the same clothes she’d been wearing the day before, her hair uncombed, baby drool caked in white on her shirt, and a little bit of dried drool in the corner of her own mouth.
By the time she made it to class, she was out of breath and five minutes late. The door slammed open, several people looking up startled.
“Mrs. Acheron, good of you to join us,” drolled the professor.
“I am so so so--” she started, but the professor cut her off.
“Sit down, Mrs. Acheron. John, please provide Mrs. Acheron with her test.”
“Test?” Belle asked, feeling her heart drop down to her feet.
“Sit down and stop disrupting the other student’s exams or you will be dismissed and receive an incomplete.”
Belle nodded meekly and moved over to her chair, stumbling into it. It felt as if it was too low to the ground. There was a rushing in her ears. She didn’t even notice when the exam slid in front of her. Her vision was blurred. One blink and it wasn’t there, the next, she was staring down at a white page. She blinked and a tear splashed on to the page.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
Why couldn’t she breathe?
Her head started to go dizzy, her fingers numb.
What was happening? Why couldn’t she breathe?
“I--” Belle said, but her voice was too quiet. She wasn’t even sure she’d said anything at all.
Somehow, she managed to get her feet working and stood up.
“Mrs. Acheron!”
She heard her voice like it was bouncing to her from the opposite side of a cave, across a dark, black lake. All she could really hear was rushing. It reminded her of the Underworld of the fields where the longing and the lonely lived.
It had been so dark there. It was getting darker now. She blinked and the sides of her vision went funny.
Belle tried to take a step and then, everything went dark.
