Explanation for my Absence

Okay, I mean, it's fairly obvious what happened - I got COVID and it fucked me up. Case closed, right?

Well, I think you guys deserve a little more transparency than that.

The illness was brutal, don't get me wrong. It hit me fast and hard, leaving me incapacitated in just over a day of contracting it. I literally went from having a sore throat one day to barely being able to move the next because of how much every single part of my body hurt to hell and back. I'm vaccinated enough that I stood a decent chance against it, but I won't lie and say that it didn't scare me at least a little.

It actually left me fairly quickly, all things considered, but I had no idea which aftereffects I'd be left with. I've heard of people getting all sorts of things, and I'm unfortunate enough to have been left with the stupid mental fog that people have reported getting. It's no joke; I completely believe anyone who says that they're suffering because of this.

While I don't have one foot in the grave anymore, it doesn't mean that I'm back to normal just yet. For whatever reason I have pockets of lucidity where I feel like I'm on top of my game and that I can do anything, only to come crashing down again thirty minutes later. I've been medicating myself to try and counteract it, but I only get to about 75% of where I'm usually at, with the thing weighing me down being the stupid hazy cloud that fogs my brain. I don't think I've felt this bad from an illness since I got swine flu over a decade ago lmao.

The thing that bothers me the most is that's not the first problem I've had this past year. My biggest issue before this was that I'd been dealing with another sort of fog, though this was more full-body. Not only was thinking itself difficult in that state, but I was also constantly exhausted for no discernible reason. This just so happened to coincide with the start of my Patreon, to my endless frustration.

I couldn't understand why I felt so shitty all the time when I was fine literally in the month preceding. Saying that it was the stress of trying to succeed on a new platform felt a bit ridiculous to say since I've handled worse stress than this before. I shouldn't have had an issue dealing with Patreon stories on top of commissions, yet I did, and it killed me that I only literally figured out what the issue was in the very last week of September.

Unbeknownst to me, the ADHD prescription meds that I'd been trialing had been actively working against me for that entire three month stretch. I knew that it was a possibility, but I had no clue that it could get that bad. I felt really awful that it took me so long to figure out.

However, I could put that all behind me because stopping the usage of those meds made me feel instantly better, to the point where I got a ton of work done that I never would've in the previous months. It made me feel hopeful for October in that I could finally catch up on my workload and get everything done on time. I knew that I had a 1-2 punch of my niece's birthday into Thanksgiving that I had to deal with to start the month off, but I still managed to get more writing done than I thought I would during that time period. Everything was set up perfectly after all that was taken care of. This month was going to be my month.

And then I fucking got COVID after avoiding it for over 2.5 years. I'm eternally frustrated at the impeccably terrible timing of it all. I had to take so much more time off than I wanted to, and it's put me exponentially farther behind than I'm comfortable with. I had everything planned out, and it just threw the biggest fucking wrench in it all. I'm so pissed off.

And that brings me to now. I don't think I can accurately express how dejected I feel at the moment.

To anyone that feels like they haven't gotten their money's worth this month - I get it, and I mean I really understand it. I've been feeling guilty and embarrassed and all around ashamed at my lack of progress. I know that people will tell me that I shouldn't feel any of that over something I literally can't control, but at the end of the day I'm running a business, and I have bills that need paying. I'm just so defeated right now.

To the people that have read through this - I'm so very grateful for all the support you've given me over this frustrating time. I'm sorry that I couldn't have done more, but I plan to fulfill my obligations for the month with what little time I have left. The weekly/monthly stories, slowly but surely, will come out.

You guys mean a lot to me. I literally wouldn't be able to do any of this without you. I hope this is an adequate summary of what I've been going through over the last few weeks.

Also that Godzilla story was way more challenging than I initially thought it'd be, jfc.