Drawn from life, in Procreate.

When I was a kid, since I could remember, I've always had a huge imagination. My art could have always needed work, my colors were kinda stock, regular old crayola colors, but how I truly felt about my art was so much bigger than what it actually looked like because there was so much love in it.

I had a huge imagination. I would imagine my favorite characters playing, fighting, talking, being friends, I could imagine full stories, sets, objects, worlds. My room was filled with sketchbooks, I'd use my composition notebooks as sketchbooks, everywhere I went, I would ask for printing paper if I didn't bring my sketchbook, I would bring toys to sing along to songs with and their character traits felt so real, so defined. I knew what song to give what character and I knew how to progress their stories.

All the way up to my junior year of high school, I could listen to music and imagine movies/music videos in my head. At this point I wasn't AS confident in my art as before, my characters didn't have as much lore as they did before, the characters themselves weren't really story driven, just silly characters i could mess with, but I was trying a lot of new stuff. I was also taking Vyvanse, an ADHD med to help me focus, and it made me so good at drawing, it made me jealous whenever I would come down from it.

And I think I started to get OCD symptoms, not the kind of OCD like "I need my room to be the perfect temperature" or "I need to Keep my body as sterile as I can" it was the kind of OCD that made you stay away from people because it would convince you that you would hurt them. this got worse during COVID quarantines.

I'd have to stay away from my friends, my nephews, my family because I kept having so many horrible thoughts that made me think "do I really want this? I'm thinking about this stuff way too often, so I must want to hurt these people."

I was so ashamed and it spiraled me into a horrible depression that led me to getting into situations that only furthered my belief that I was a bad person. That, on top of that, finally admitting to myself that the person I was in high school was unhealthy and misguided, and I wanted to prioritize my family instead of being the most interesting person at school. I was also friends with a couple other artists but they were so much cooler than me and made art that had backstories and settings and detail and my art was just a hollow husk, all presentation, no substance.

I've been feeling much better ever since I realized that my OCD is just lying to me, I'm a decent guy, I have friends that love m, family that loves me, I take advantage of my position sometimes, I'm in a band with a bunch of guys I like, HOWEVER, I can't seem to imagine as powerfully as before.

Music, drawing, theatre, I just can't seem to get as invested as before. My imagination were the wheels and my love for certain media was my engine. I used to watch animated movies and think "I want to make something like that!" Now I watch stuff and I think "I wonder how long it took for them to make that" and then I walk away as if I saw nothing. Kid me would eat up Into the Spiderverse all day, but present me just sees it and says "Yeah, that's pretty sick, I like all the detail." NO EMOTIONAL DRIVE TO DRAW THE CHARACTERS, NO LORE, NO MUSIC TO ASSIGN THE CHARACTERS, NOTHING!

I even made my own OC's. I really want to do something with them but I just can't seem to find anything for them. Their designs are fire but I feel like they too are just like pots with no plants in them: hollow, no substance.

Every single day I have searched for ways to boost my imagination, and to be honest, I think it's holding me back from a lot of opportunities in life. I really just want my old passion back, or SOME kind of passion. I check so many reddit posts and they all say to the OP "You're just depressed, you need more sunlight" I didn't have a whole lot of sunlight when I was a kid, I stayed inside a lot, and plus, middle school was the worst time of my life and I turned to a really violent direction in my life and despite that, I was still cranking out drawings day after day after day.

So what's happened? Cause I'm starting to feel better, I'm developing my wings, I have more free time to think and imagine and enjoy myself, but why can't I just get excited from silly little cartoons anymore? hell even live action shit just doesn't really do it for me either. Nothing can get me inspired enough to work on a continuous spree and to stay on top for a while.

My main goal right now, as a pathetic 21 year old man child is to write ONE page of a comic. That's it. BUT I CAN'T THINK OF NOTHING.

tl;dr:

I used to be really good at imagining stuff as a kid but after 3 years of my brain trying to tell me I want to hurt people in disturbing ways, I have had a hard time imagining stuff. To be fair, my imagination has never been all that top notch, but I would get very excited about cartoons and music. Music always helped me but as of recent, music's spell just doesn't work on me anymore. I'm no longer depressed, if anything, I'm just depressed that I can't get excited bout stuff I think is pretty cool anymore. I see so many people get excited and make OCs and tell stories and I just get jealous because I don't have that anymore

https://preview.redd.it/5xb23yvvc12e1.png?width=646&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a9373389bfd6361c68c070c14b935f1a7b1414e

Hello all, I am struggling to know what I should and shouldn’t be putting out into the world. I am honestly going through a rough period of life and I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable by sharing works of art like this. If anything, my hopes would be to help anyone going through similar emotions feel seen and heard. I have stopped going outside of my house and haven’t spoken to many people for a few weeks. I know people are already worried about me, and I don’t know if me sharing my artwork is going to help anyone out.

colored pencils on black paper

Second time posting my art here

It is dungeon loot, by the way.