Having a Bad Day?: Get 'yer Hugs here!!

[Kaymyth she/her]

6 hours ago, CalypsoDreaming said:

I've been on exchange in Japan for 2 months, and I'm going home in 3 days?! I just love everybody here and I don't want to leave all the friends I've made here  plus I'm already nervous about going back home and seeing everybody there again. Plus I'll be going from snow (good, I like snow and the cold) to 30 degree days (BAD! VERY BAD! ABORT MISSION). 

My thought process on reading this:

"Wait, going from snow to 30 degrees...but 30 degrees IS snow oh wait she means Celsius."

[Jondesu he/him]

7 hours ago, CalypsoDreaming said:

I've been on exchange in Japan for 2 months, and I'm going home in 3 days?! I just love everybody here and I don't want to leave all the friends I've made here  plus I'm already nervous about going back home and seeing everybody there again. Plus I'll be going from snow (good, I like snow and the cold) to 30 degree days (BAD! VERY BAD! ABORT MISSION). 

I did two months in Japan a number of years back (actually, it was…12 years ago? wow…), and I remember that feeling of leaving.  I was heading back to Florida, so a big weather change too, though it wasn't quite as hot right away.  Good luck with the transition!  Where's home, btw?

Also, @Kaymyth, I did the same thing with the double-take on the temperature. 

I'm only kind of recovering from the most painful week of my life following that Botox treatment, and it did absolutely squat for my headaches (except make them far worse for a week). We're kinda running out of options, and I have no idea what I'll do if someone tells me there's nothing more we can do.

[Briar King]

@Kaymyth I believe you are in Jupiters path? Are you getting some icy build ups? Hope your power is ok.

[Sunbird she/her]

The living situation at my grandparents' house has become intolerable, but I don't know where else I can go because I doubt I can afford to pay rent to live somewhere else.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

11 minutes ago, Sunbird said:

The living situation at my grandparents' house has become intolerable, but I don't know where else I can go because I doubt I can afford to pay rent to live somewhere else.

I'm sorry.  How bad is it, if you want to go into detail (and if not, that's fine) and how much longer do you have to stay there?

[Sunbird she/her]

Just now, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I'm sorry.  How bad is it, if you want to go into detail (and if not, that's fine) and how much longer do you have to stay there?

My grandma is very frail and sick and her mind is going, and she's making me and Grandpa miserable. Further detail under the spoiler:

Spoiler

Leaving her unsupervised for any length of time is dangerous for several reasons: 1) she might try to cook or bake and is liable to burn the house down because she uses the highest power/heat for everything.

2) Her sense of balance is abysmal, so she'll start to fall and then grab anything within reach to try to stabilize herself, usually taking it down with her and doing absolutely zero good. This includes things like unsecured shelves in the fridge with glass jars on them, or an upright cabinet, or her full portapotty that she uses since she can't hobble fast enough to get to the actual bathroom. (She has dumped the contents of the portapotty all over the living room carpet twice in the last three days.) I physically cannot get her back on her feet by myself after she's fallen

3) She's type-2 diabetic, so at any time, her blood sugar could drop dangerously low or jump dangerously high. She's physically incapable of giving herself an insulin shot (even if she had the presence of mind not to contaminate the medical supplies while doing so) for high-sugar situations, and in low-sugar situations she probably couldn't even walk to the fridge or cupboard to get food. (See #2 about her abysmal sense of balance.)

Other reasons I am desperate to move out:

4) Because her mind is not all there, Grandma will often ask me or Grandpa to do something and then harangue us sixty seconds later when we haven't finished doing it. Or she'll gripe at us even when we have finished the task. He is the very definition of a henpecked husband.

5) She is incapable of reading a clock and will frequently screech at me or Grandpa, "You're late!" an hour or more before we're scheduled to do something--whether that's making dinner, feeding the cats, or anything else.

I've tried repeatedly to convince Grandpa to either hire a nurse to stay with Grandma in the house during the day or move her to an assisted living home so that either way she can have actual qualified help around the clock, but thus far he has not done anything to improve the situation.

I had been planning to stay with my grandparents until I'd graduated from college (i.e., until summer of this year), but I cannot emotionally handle being verbally abused or having to perform a nurse's most revolting duties when I never signed up for that and I'm taking 15 credit hours of mostly advanced, difficult classes this semester!

I need a hug.

 

 

[Briar King]

I know all about that. When my mother got cancer she fell hard and fast with in 6 months. However I didn't have to deal with the ranting and raving your talking about when it went to her head. She just became a confused child pretty much. One of the hardest things I ever had to hear was her crying out for her dad who died when was 16, 12 yrs before I was ever born. It's tough though for sure.

[Kaymyth she/her]

4 hours ago, Briar King said:

@Kaymyth I believe you are in Jupiters path? Are you getting some icy build ups? Hope your power is ok.

Nah, the ice storm, such as it was, moved through over the weekend.  We got a little bit of icing, mostly Saturday night/Sunday morning, but everything was above freezing by noon on Sunday and it hasn't dipped below since.

[Erunion he/him]

@Sunbird - huge hug

I don't know your living/financial situation, but moving out might be good. It depends on your post-grad job prospects - whether taking on more student debt to support renting is reasonable or super scary/impractical. 

 

 

On my own, I am also in need of a hug. 

More a gentle hug, or a careful massage. I hurt my neck back in December, likely through studying. (Although it's entirely possible that I'd hurt it a long time ago and just re-aggravated it then). It was shockingly stiff/painful, but faded throughout December and has been almost unnoticeable for the last week or so. 

Until this morning. A friend of mine and I are starting out an easy to start twice a weak workout thing at a local gym. Everything was going great up until the very last weight-lifting exercise I was doing during it, I was pushing my exhausted shoulders to their limits and must have contorted in a weird way because I badly hurt my neck doing it. 

And then, being the stubborn genius that I am, I did my run on the treadmill after instead of just packing it in. 

Now, 9 hours later, I'm lying in bed with my neck the worst it's been since I first aggravated it back in December. 

 

[Sunbird she/her]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. @Erunion I've actually managed to avoid taking out any student loans so far thanks to cheaper-than-average tuition combined with a half-tuition scholarship, help from my parents, and not having to pay rent to live with my grandparents the past few years. For right now, I can't really be a full-time student and earn enough at my part-time job to be able to afford ~$180/month in car payments, $300-400/month in rent (depending on what I can find in the area), and stuff that's not as easy to predict like gas, food, car repairs/maintenance, and whatever nasty surprises life might throw at me. Once this semester is over, I'll only be taking one last class, though, and ought to have significantly more time to work. There's an internship I've got my eye on that sounds right up my alley, but I don't know yet how much it pays, if at all. So...yeah. I kinda don't know what to do with my life.

I'm sorry to hear about your re-aggravated neck too. Judging from how painful it sounds, I'd recommend visiting a chiropractor. Pain that severe is usually a sign of something seriously wrong, and your neck is kinda important, seeing how your spinal cord runs through it. In the meantime, maybe try icing it?

[Kestrel she/her]

I hate myself. I truly hate myself so much and I know I need to practice "self love" or whatever to get rid of it but I can't because there's literally nothing to love.

I'm ugly as all get out. Only 5'3 and will probably never grow anymore. My face is too round. I'm only "cute" and never actually "beautiful." I want to be taken seriously in life but that will never happen when I'm elbow height with everyone else. No one wants me, I'm just something to intimidate and kick around.

I have no actual talents. I'm mediocre at everything. My grades are mediocre my art is mediocre my animation is mediocre... I can't focus on anything and learn really slow to the point where I just teach myself because listening to other people never helps because I can't wrap my head around what they're saying quite right. When I don't understand something I just shut down and don't do it because I know I will never be able to.

I just. There's nothing here. I hate it and I hate it and. There's nothing I can do.

[Pinnacle-Ferring he/him]

57 minutes ago, Kestrel said:

I hate myself. I truly hate myself so much and I know I need to practice "self love" or whatever to get rid of it but I can't because there's literally nothing to love.

I'm ugly as all get out. Only 5'3 and will probably never grow anymore. My face is too round. I'm only "cute" and never actually "beautiful." I want to be taken seriously in life but that will never happen when I'm elbow height with everyone else. No one wants me, I'm just something to intimidate and kick around.

I have no actual talents. I'm mediocre at everything. My grades are mediocre my art is mediocre my animation is mediocre... I can't focus on anything and learn really slow to the point where I just teach myself because listening to other people never helps because I can't wrap my head around what they're saying quite right. When I don't understand something I just shut down and don't do it because I know I will never be able to.

I just. There's nothing here. I hate it and I hate it and. There's nothing I can do.

Listen, perfection is overrated. And what is it anyway? Standards set by society. A bunch of strangers who don't even know you. If you reject their image of what you should be, you can start to accept yourself.

You don't have to be good at things to have a good life. A good life is a happy one, and your only as happy as you allow yourself to be.

Also, if still feel you should have some sort of talent, just remember that no lack of innate ability can stand up to regular practicing.

Hope this made you feel better.

*hugs*

[Delightful]

1 hour ago, Kestrel said:

I hate myself. I truly hate myself so much and I know I need to practice "self love" or whatever to get rid of it but I can't because there's literally nothing to love.

I'm ugly as all get out. Only 5'3 and will probably never grow anymore. My face is too round. I'm only "cute" and never actually "beautiful." I want to be taken seriously in life but that will never happen when I'm elbow height with everyone else. No one wants me, I'm just something to intimidate and kick around.

I have no actual talents. I'm mediocre at everything. My grades are mediocre my art is mediocre my animation is mediocre... I can't focus on anything and learn really slow to the point where I just teach myself because listening to other people never helps because I can't wrap my head around what they're saying quite right. When I don't understand something I just shut down and don't do it because I know I will never be able to.

I just. There's nothing here. I hate it and I hate it and. There's nothing I can do.

Firstly, I've seen pictures of you and you are not the tiniest bit ugly and don't let anyone, even yourself, tell you otherwise. You're beautiful, ok? You. Are. Beautiful. 

Please read this: Trust me it's short and worth it.

As is this .

In terms of height:

Napoleon was only 2 inches taller than you and he dominated the world. 
Marilyn Monroe was 1 inch taller than you and she's a famous beauty.
Anna Kendrick is 5 foot, she's beautiful, she's a successful actress.
Ghandi was 5"4.
Joan of Arc was 5"2.

Height don't mean jack rust. You can be tiny and terrifying. You can be the most beautiful person on the planet. 
I have relatives who are significantly shorter than you, and they are the bomb. I have short friends who are smart and sexy and fabulous. Short does not equal ugly.

What do you mean your face is too round? Too round for what? 
You know who has a round face who is absolutely stunning? Kelly Clarkson. Queen Latifah. Emma Stone. Jennifer Lawrence. I can go on. Beauties, every one of them. 

Ok so people aren't going to be intimidated by your height. Fine. There is so much more to presence and being taken seriously than that. Be smart. Be fierce. Be loud. Be so damnation awesome that no one can help but take you seriously. Don't just expect respect, demand it. Learn self-defence if someone is physically bullying you. Yell at anyone who talks trash about you. And for people who do respect you, be kind and empathetic and generous. They're your real friends.

Talents. Of course you're talented. Post some art here and rake in the up votes if you need proof. I've seen your art, its freaking amazing. I can't draw anything half as well as you draw wolves. I've posted art on here, you can have a look. 
Grades don't mean anything. They're an arbitrary measure of arbitrary learning measured by standardised tests that don't actually measure anything.  People have different ways that they learn. If listening to other people talk isn't for you then fine. I just quit a class because it involved on teacher talking on the same subject for hours and hours. I couldn't stand it. That doesn't make me dumb or untalented, it just means that class wasn't  good fit for me. And High School sucks because you don't get to make those choices, but at least don't judge your self-worth on that please?

It sounds like you're dealing with perfectionism, it must be amazing or there's no point doing it. I have the same problem which I'm slowly getting better at dealing with. So I saw a study a week or so ago, where they took a pottery class. They told half of them that after two weeks they would be graded based on the quality of what they made, and told the other half they would be graded based on the quantity alone. After two weeks, the quality people had been obsessing over how exactly to get it right and their work was ok. The quantity people who just produced and produced and produced had learned from the million small mistakes they'd made and their results were beautiful. It takes practise to just make something and say "ok this is bad but have a look" and declare it finished and then start something else mediocre. But the point is, its practice and you learn from it and eventually you'll turn around and realise that you've made something breathtaking. You have to be total crap at everything before you can get good. Natural talent is waaaaay overrated, skill is where it's at.

You're not a finished product to be labelled good or effective or ugly or talented. People are works in progress. As long as you're practising and improving, that's all that matters, and anyone who tells you otherwise can go take a long walk off a short plank, them and anyone who tells you you aren't worth anything, or that you're insignificant, or ugly. Because those are all lies lies lies lies lies. 

Here's a piece of Jewish wisdom for you: They say you should, figuratively speaking, walk around with a piece of paper in either pocket, each with a  true statement on it. [that's how you know men wrote this cause women aint got no pockets :P]. The one paper says "The whole world was created just for me", and the other says "I am nothing but dust and ashes." Essentially, everyone needs a healthy mix of confidence and humility. You need to work on 'the world was created just for me.' A single person can turn the world on its head and change everyone's lives. Steve Jobs did that and he dropped out of university.

Heck if an unqualified despicable human being with none of the necessary qualifications can become president of the US, there is not a single thing you can't do and not a single person who shouldn't take you seriously. 

You know Hamilton? The ridiculously good ridiculously successful musical thats making people cry about the founding fathers? He got up at the White House and performed the first song like 5 years ago. Everybody in the room laughed at him. They guy got laughed out of the White House. And now people are selling their kidneys to see the play. Being mediocre now just means that you haven't turned into a butterfly yet, but you will, I promise.

 

 

Edited January 17, 2017 by Deliiiiiightful

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

1 hour ago, Kestrel said:

I hate myself. I truly hate myself so much and I know I need to practice "self love" or whatever to get rid of it but I can't because there's literally nothing to love.

I'm ugly as all get out. Only 5'3 and will probably never grow anymore. My face is too round. I'm only "cute" and never actually "beautiful." I want to be taken seriously in life but that will never happen when I'm elbow height with everyone else. No one wants me, I'm just something to intimidate and kick around.

I have no actual talents. I'm mediocre at everything. My grades are mediocre my art is mediocre my animation is mediocre... I can't focus on anything and learn really slow to the point where I just teach myself because listening to other people never helps because I can't wrap my head around what they're saying quite right. When I don't understand something I just shut down and don't do it because I know I will never be able to.

I just. There's nothing here. I hate it and I hate it and. There's nothing I can do.

It sounds to me like your Social Survival Mammoth has gone rabid. Instead of being overprotective about keeping you from breaking taboos, it's convinced you that you are the problem. 

Try imagining that, instead of your own mind telling you these things, it's an idiot twelve-year-old on Xbox Live, shouting these things at you with Cheeto dust all over his face. Instead of believing him, you can just pat him on the head and say "That's nice, now isn't it past your bedtime?" 

[Delightful]

50 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

It sounds to me like your Social Survival Mammoth has gone rabid. Instead of being overprotective about keeping you from breaking taboos, it's convinced you that you are the problem. 

Try imagining that, instead of your own mind telling you these things, it's an idiot twelve-year-old on Xbox Live, shouting these things at you with Cheeto dust all over his face. Instead of believing him, you can just pat him on the head and say "That's nice, now isn't it past your bedtime?" 

That was eye-opening. 

 

Edit: @TwiLyghtSansSparkles I've fallen down the rabbit hole send help!

Edited January 17, 2017 by Deliiiiiightful

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

36 minutes ago, Deliiiiiightful said:

That was eye-opening. 

 

Edit: @TwiLyghtSansSparkles I've fallen down the rabbit hole send help!

I would if I could, but I'm falling just like you are.  

[Delightful]

Just now, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I would if I could, but I'm falling just like you are.  

Maybe we should fall together and at least we'll have company.

[Claincy he/him]

Nobody is perfect or has it all sorted out. If someone appears that way there's always more that you don't know. Society strongly encourages us to present our strengths and hide our weaknesses so you tend to know little about other people's struggles aside from those of close friends and family. A consequence of this is that it's very easy to compare your own struggles and weaknesses to what you know about others and feel like you come up short and to feel like they are doing far better than you are when in reality they are struggling just the same, only with different problems.

I'll use myself as an example here because I know myself well and I wouldn't be willing to break anyone else's trust by saying this much about their struggles without their consent anyway.

So I'm one of those people who did really well throughout school, getting excellent grades pretty much throughout. During high school I was a music captain, I sung and played the trumpet and I was lead trumpet in 2 bands and sung in 2 of the choirs. In addition I completed my Queen Scout award (roughly equivalent to Eagle Scout in America I believe). I was quite capable at presenting and public speaking and had spent time kayaking, skiing, rafting, travelling etc with Scouts. I gained a solid amount of leadership experience and successfully lead a (initially highly dysfunctional) team in the model solar car challenge for multiple years, coming 3rd in the State and competing in the national competition in one of those years. I was in the accelerated program my high school ran and I was in the upper region of students for that and took on more top level units and took some of them earlier than most. I topped my Software Development class and graduated with an excellent final score. Following that I got into the Computer Science degree that I wanted and quickly found that I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would and also found it far easier than most others. During my degree I topped more than one unit and got a weight score of 100 for one of the harder first year units. Just before my final semester I got a casual position at the University working on a project and since then I have had several more as I gained a reputation for being skilled and good to work with. I am now a year and a half out of University and using my casual work at Monash to support myself as I pursue a career as an independent games developer.

(Ick, just writing that in that manner makes me feel like I'm just trying to show off :(, but it's necessary for the point I'm trying to make, so please bear with me.)

If all you knew about me was that I would sound like I lead this perfect life and was just breezing my way through and that I was just this amazing person in general. None of that is accurate. Here comes the ugly part. From a very young age I became a very shy, socially awkward individual who struggled hard with social encounters and making new friends. I once hid under a table at a party because I couldn't handle it if that gives you an idea. I was bullied multiple times throughout my younger life, early high school was particularly bad in this regard and these instances left a serious impact on me. It took me years and the friendship and support of many important people to get to a point to where I could really open up to people or engage well socially. Even with my friends in high school I spent so many lunchtimes just sitting there not saying much. Truth be told I still have strong social anxiety and the idea of a party or large social event terrifies. That leads to me making excuses and skipping things that I oughtn't to. For some time from late high school into early university I was developing serious ego problems as well as a strong need for approval and respect. I still need to keep a careful eye on myself to make sure I don't slip back that way.

Adding to that in later high school I started to get lazier, schoolwork was losing my interest and I was starting to care less. This only got worse when I started my university degree and found that most of what I was learning came very easily and required very little study or effort on my part. So at that point in time I was on a path of becoming progressively more arrogant and lazy. Then halfway through my first year of Uni I got sick, it lasted most of the semester but I pushed through it and continued on without too much change. Then halfway through the next year it hit me again and it hasn't left since, though the severity has varied over time (this was over 3 and a half years ago now). I made the (wise) decision to drop one of my units and reduce my load for the remainder of my time at Uni and I became inconsistent or dropped from most of my commitments. The main positive from all this and from other experiences was that it torn down my ego and need to be among the best in a fairly dramatic manner. In consequence leading to me becoming a better person and in the end improving my faith. On the flipside it drastically decreased my productivity by giving me an easy out of being "too sick" to do whatever. I continued my Uni studies and continued to do well in them but the rest of my life was a mess and I was fighting off depression as well. While I generally did a good job of capitalising on job opportunities I got there is no question that I got very lucky on multiple occasions and have a number of people to thank for recommending me for positions.

So this brings me more or less to who I am now. I try really hard to always treat everyone as well as I can and I do well at my jobs. But I still have to struggle to motivate myself to work every day and I still face the constant pain of my illness every waking moment, still grapple with social anxiety and intermittent mild depression and I still have to keep a careful watch on my ego.

So that was a whole lot about me that you probably didn't particularly want to know, I'm not proud of all of it and that far from covers everything but I tried to be as honest as possible. The point I hope I made with all this is that people can appear on the outside like they're doing well and it can make you feel like you're doing badly in comparison. But you're just not seeing how they are struggling too. The worst part of all this is that it makes it harder for people to reach out and help eachother and for people to ask for help when they need it.

Every single person in the world is immeasurably important. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, their triumphs and their struggles. Life is messy, convoluted and beautiful.

I..hope that was of some help.

(On a related note, I could maybe do with a hug.)

[Kaymyth she/her]

5 hours ago, Kestrel said:

I hate myself. I truly hate myself so much and I know I need to practice "self love" or whatever to get rid of it but I can't because there's literally nothing to love.

I'm ugly as all get out. Only 5'3 and will probably never grow anymore. My face is too round. I'm only "cute" and never actually "beautiful." I want to be taken seriously in life but that will never happen when I'm elbow height with everyone else. No one wants me, I'm just something to intimidate and kick around.

I have no actual talents. I'm mediocre at everything. My grades are mediocre my art is mediocre my animation is mediocre... I can't focus on anything and learn really slow to the point where I just teach myself because listening to other people never helps because I can't wrap my head around what they're saying quite right. When I don't understand something I just shut down and don't do it because I know I will never be able to.

I just. There's nothing here. I hate it and I hate it and. There's nothing I can do.

I also have seen pictures of you.  You are pretty.

Here's the simple truth - we all tend to look at our own images and see only the flaws.  We're not used to seeing ourselves and we're our own worst critics.  I look at my reflection in the mirror and grimace at the pudge, the plain lines of my face, the scar on the bridge of my nose.  The face that I'm looking out of every day is a strange thing to me, because I cannot see it most of the time.

James looks at me and sees the woman he loves.  I can be sitting there in PJs, no makeup, and feeling in desperate need of a shower, and he will look me in the eye and tell me that I'm beautiful.  And he means it (the weirdo).  Because he sees me every day and is used to that face being part of a person, not a random image that blinks back at him in the mirror now and then.

As for the height - pfff, you're only 3 inches shorter than I am.  That's negligible.  Be like Murphy from The Dresden Files - tiny but fierce.

And also I have seen your art.  You DO have talent.  But like any talent, it takes practice to bring to turn talent into skill.  Keep drawing.  Keep animating.  Keep doing everything, because the more you do it the better you will get at it.  I mean, what's one of the things I'm know for around these parts?  Costuming.  But I have created costumes that came out as absolute train wrecks.  I have sewn miserable failures.  I just don't show them to people, because I'm not masochistic.  I do, however, learn from those failures and use them to improve my skills.

You're still really young; quite frankly, people who are really, really good at things at your age are extreme outliers.  You have plenty of time to develop your talents into marvelous things.  You are already awesome, you just have to prove it to yourself.

[Delightful]

You see everyone else's highlight reel and your own bloopers, so of course the view is lopsided.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

I'm having a fairly awful day and my introvert energy levels are approaching the negatives and I've still got an hour and a half left help.

[Delightful]

15 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I'm having a fairly awful day and my introvert energy levels are approaching the negatives and I've still got an hour and a half left help.

*Hugs*

Firstly have you had enough to eat and drink? Are you sure? That makes a world of difference. 

Secondly, if you can't take a break, it's kinda gross but if you can go into a bathroom and just take off your Happy Social Person mask, listen to a song or two, read an article, recharge a tiny bit that helps, and if someone asks where you were you could mumble 'the bathroom' and they'll just think you had indigestion or something. 

Third, stare at pug pictures and pretend its like research for  how to classify books about dogs under the dewey decimal system? 

Also if I could transfer you introvert cookies I would. My roommate has been staying with a friend for at least a week and a half and I've quit class so the cookies have been piling up....

Edited January 17, 2017 by Deliiiiiightful

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

2 hours ago, Deliiiiiightful said:

*Hugs*

Firstly have you had enough to eat and drink? Are you sure? That makes a world of difference. 

Secondly, if you can't take a break, it's kinda gross but if you can go into a bathroom and just take off your Happy Social Person mask, listen to a song or two, read an article, recharge a tiny bit that helps, and if someone asks where you were you could mumble 'the bathroom' and they'll just think you had indigestion or something. 

Third, stare at pug pictures and pretend its like research for  how to classify books about dogs under the dewey decimal system? 

Also if I could transfer you introvert cookies I would. My roommate has been staying with a friend for at least a week and a half and I've quit class so the cookies have been piling up....

Thanks.

Food isn't really a factor here; it's more the fact that I've had to deal with more unreasonable patrons than usual, and that they ALL seemed to gravitate toward me. I had one couple ask me for help finding a page on a government site, and when that turned out to be completely impossible to navigate without a map and a working knowledge of Legalese and I told them to call the phone number they'd been given to get help from someone who knows what they're doing, they went and told my manager.  Fortunately, he's a really understanding guy. 

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, I found that the Wattpad user who responded to my review calling her word choice offensive with such cattiness that I reported her (for fear of how she'll treat future reviewers who don't fawn over her work) posted an update to all of her several thousand followers misrepresenting what I said and painting me as this horrible whiner. She didn't mention me by name, but she and one of her followers also indulged in a nice "mock me behind my back" session on the comments thread for her story. So I reported that too, but I'm still so mad and I'm really hoping Wattpad actually does something about this. Because so far, every time I've encountered a bully online, the site mods have brushed me off and the bullies got off not only scot free, but probably empowered from the experience. 

Edited January 18, 2017 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[Kestrel she/her]

I don't know. But none of that "art talent" even matters. I'm not going into art because I'll never get the job. Ever. Unless I want to work at some silly little advertising studio in the middle of no where. I have no reason to continue, period.

And honestly I'd kill for three more inches. Then I'd at least be average. And less likely to be pushed about and forgotten.

[Sunbird she/her]

1 hour ago, Kestrel said:

I don't know. But none of that "art talent" even matters. I'm not going into art because I'll never get the job. Ever. Unless I want to work at some silly little advertising studio in the middle of no where. I have no reason to continue, period.

And honestly I'd kill for three more inches. Then I'd at least be average. And less likely to be pushed about and forgotten.

Even if you never get an art job, making art is worthwhile for the sole reason that it's art. It doesn't need to be "useful" or serve a "purpose"; its purpose is to please people who experience it. You get to build your skills--and believe me, continued practice contributes far more to art quality than "natural talent"--and flex your creativity and make something that's all YOU. Even if you yourself don't appreciate your art, WE do. Even if you don't value yourself, WE value you. Never forget that you are loved, Kestrel.