Edit: posted to the wrong World at first. Oops.
Warning: it's a downer. Don't read if you don't want to feel sad. I mean it. Or read the first and last paragraphs. Those are neutral.
Hey guys. I haven't posted in ages, but you might've seen me pop up randomly and comment on your posts (rarely) or submissions (almost never, sadly); I even added a disclaimer to my intro a while back and mentioned I'd be going on an unnanounced hiatus from time to time. Well, I'll be going on another one soon enough - my special kind of hiatus, though, where I comment on others' posts but don't actually post myself and where I still post artwork, tutorials, resources and such.
The reason for this is that I've had a kind of shitty week, to put it lightly. One of my closest friends, who's been away on a 6-month scholarship in Holland last year, was recently diagnosed with depression. She's been a very cheerful person up to returning from Holland, and she says she felt much better there, more independent, and that she feels "trapped" here - mostly because of her parents (she lived alone during the scholarship period). Another close friend has to deal with three recent deaths in her family and her father's hospitalized for something he should've been operated for for a few years; she has no one to rely on but us, the group from uni, since every member is grieving in their own way and more or less dumping everything on her. And another friend has been hospitalized and operated on; he's doing well now, thankfully, and is still as cheerful and misogynistic as ever XD
And lastly, during one course, the teacher showed us a psychological test: we each drew a tree on a sheet of paper and she interpreted every one of them (anonymously). Turns out no one in my group is mentally sane (and we're talking serious traumas here - nice way of getting together XD) aaaand...that I'm the worst off in the entire generation. Urgh. Thinking you're "OK" for years and then finding out your psyche's basically been trolling you all along is not cool, man, not cool at all. I honestly love that woman - she's sweet, funny and has a Master's Degree in the study of death - but I swear I haven't felt that miserable in a long time, and it's like she's set me back 8 years. That's not all, though: I sometimes feel very bad when I hear my best friend talking about her depression because, to me, her worries aren't "enough" to warrant being depressed over (your parents casually asking you where you're going if you're leaving the house doesn't mean they're controlling, IMO). And I hate doing this, I hate looking down on people and thinking "hmph, my depression's deeper/more justified than your depression!". I'm getting better at not doing this by actually talking to my friend about her problems, though; I hope to at least be able to help her and be there for her - after all, I've been in this situation for about 8 years now, so I'm bound to have some experience, ne? ;)
So, bottom line is that I kind of feel like I'm gradually distancing myself from TheO, even without doing something to trigger/rush it. Don't know why, but blogging doesn't feel as enticing to me as it did a few years back. Maybe I'll post again in a short while, maybe I won't - either way, I just wanted to let whoever wants to read about my life know what's going on and why I've been MIA for so long. Thanks for reading and appreciating my works, guys, and hope to talk to you more through your posts/works :) 'Til next time, take care and stay safe, Sandy's a bitch*!
* understatement of the century
P.S. On the flipside, I'm excited for the release of the Seasons expansion pack for The Sims 3. Will probably post images and such on my near-forgotten Sims World :D
P.P.S. And I won't ditch the Secret Santa competitions either :P
