Thank you for reading this, little star. And I mean it.
By purchasing my art, you will not only receive an item made with love and care, but also a piece of my healing journey.
Maybe you clicked this blog entry out of curiosity. Maybe you clicked it, because you saw the link I will keep on posting the in every of my items found in the shop, so you know where I come from.
I write thise article, because I want to be open about my behavior, so you might understand me better or maybe get to know the reason you read so many bad reviews regarding my communication in social media. Here is what I deal with:
I am afraid of letting people down.
Always. At every point of time.
In every imaginable situation.
This fear pumps through my blood like a venom, making me do things I don't want to, making me question everything I believe, do and craft and also makes me doubt if I am really worthy of love or payment. It makes me vanish into thin air, not check my DMs or eMails, it makes me ghost people. It even makes me hate myself for the littlest mistakes I make or also doubt that people really like me as who I am - as a friend and/or as an artist.
It doesn't matter how hard I worked.
How good I was at whatever.
How nice I was, or how often people told me that they appreciated me and my efforts.
Imagine being convinced to be unworthy of love and trust, just because someone didn't hug you. The urget need to be sure people HONESTLY LIKE what you do (which is feeling best when you see your customers in person at a doll fair, for example).
Imagine feeling the need to give away your art for free, because you feel unworthy of being paid.
Imagine always being stuck in a never-ending cycle of "man, you could've done better!!" and redo every single piece until you entirely freak out in anxiety.
I lived in denial of this fear, and always thought I was just... overworked or overwhelmed, and so I tried to limit the commissions I accepted, but it didn't work out the way I wanted.
If my anxiety kicked in, it ended up always the same: I feel happy and appreciated by someone who reaches out to commission me, I accept the commission in happiness, work on it right after accepting it, finish the whole order and... that's it. Nothing more. I disappear and do nothing but hate myself for not delivering the items (even though they're DONE already!!) , for not communicating with my customers, for letting them wait, for making them angry because of the long wait, for making them hate me for the ghosting and, in the end, also make them hate the things they commissioned - BOOM hate post is being born for everybody to see.
It's a devil's spiral - my fear is kind of feeding itself, until it gets affirmation that I indeed am a failure literally readable by everyone. This is draining... I can't count the times I wished I would just die already, or count the times I made up plans to live somewhere isolated, so I could be sure to let people live in peace without me. Letting alone that my ADHD and still mourning about family losses isn't making things any easier.
In fact, I am not a failure.
I just care too much...
The thing I actually want to say: I am currently learning to work WITH my fears; acknowledging them instead of ignoring them by working around those fears. It's getting better day by day, and realising the huge impact these fears have in my life is disturbing, but also very eye-opening.
I want to say THANK YOU for trusting me and for loving what I do.
I want to say THANK YOU for cherishing my work by paying me.
I want to say SORRY for kind of questioning your love towards me and my art, by having those fears...
All of this..., it means so much to me.
Ugh... this blog entry is so hard to write, I can barely see through my watery eyes.
But I feel like it needs to be done, so everyone - including me - can read this.
This is the hobby I love, the community I appreciate, the art I enjoy seeing from fellow artists.
And I hope you can still trust me with your order - I will keep on working on overcoming those fears, as it indeed gets better every day, writing a diary and analysing the situations
when my heart starts to race. It feels so good to get back control over my mind - I almost lost it, literally.
Yours,
Sarah