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I destroyed one of my favourite dresses today. I was painting in it – my stupid fault – in the one corner of the bedroom I can work in. Our house is too small for anywhere else.
Thing with acrylic paint? It dries out. And when you’re depressed you don’t do much of anything. So my green paint dried so much I had to squeeze hard to get it out. All over my dress. I have an apron, so that was my fault. The small house, the careful savings of my benefits (for mental health issues)? Those are classist bullshit.
I just hate being so fucking stupid. Poor, stupid pathetic and thinking anyone wants to see what I make. All I make is pathetic rubbish.
Yesterday I found my first attempt at re-starting painting. I had printed out pictures of my “muses” to help reference from: Michael Carmen Pitt, Danusia Samal and Jamie Bochert. I hadn’t got to Rami Mslek yet. I looked at those accomplished and successful people and now I wonder what the fuck am I even doing?
I am a failure. That’s it. That’s all. I took a decent painting and ruined it because I thought I could make it better. I can’t even make my life better.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.
I don’t know.
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I am sorry to bring this topic up again, but my disability benefits were paid today (I get £304 a month due to ill mental health) and after bills and debts owing, I now have 50p in my bank to show for it.
I am selling the clothes from the wardrobe for several pounds a shot and doing online surveys for pennies, but truthfully it’s making zero dents in my situation. I have had a few generous people donate already and I thank them graciously for their kindness. It means the world to me. I wish I did not have to keep making posts like this.
But I still need help. It’s that simple.
If you can possibly spare anything at all, my Cashapp is £SaferThanHeaven84, my ko-fi is:
https://ko-fi.com/emmaslens and my paypal is emmaconner84@gmail.com.
Many thanks for reading and supporting all my work this last year (or last few months I should say).
I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year xxx
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I had my biweekly benefits interview today (apparently they tried to tell me to stay home and do it by phone. Oh well). These sessions are really more of a catch up and a subtle prodding at my mental state to make sure I’m not planning to take any baths with a toaster. Which several days ago was a not unattractive option for me. I was crying a lot.
(I know you are tired of hearing me talk about crying. Again, I’m sorry. I opened a mental Pamdora’s box and I can’t seem to find the lid).
Fortunately the mood passed. A good thing, I hope. The future can seem ominous, especially at year’s end. Suicide rates go up at Christmas for a reason
What I wanted to write about was a slight follow up from yesterday: little things. Little victories. I was seen by a work coach who doesn’t really know me, so we did the edited “this is what I want in life” chat. I don’t know what I want in life really, other than to create, so I usually stick to the one area of art I actually have some published work in: photography.
I had a photo used as part of an advertising campaign for the Sony RX100 MK2 model camera. It was a collaboration with hitrecord.org, a community I was a member of at the time (I still am, but take part in little of it anymore. My last check for my work from them was 27 cents. What can you say to that?)
Anyway, fifty of us were featured in their ad campaign. It was the most money I ever made from art: just over a thousand pounds. I bought a second hand Samsung laptop since my desktop was dying. It was the best computer I ever owned.
I gave the abridged story of this tiny triumph to my work coach. She did the politely impressed response. I shrugged, muttering I had done little since. I had a screenplay considered for broadcast here in the UK, and was featured in a few other hitrecord.org publications. It amounted to nothing in the end.
I know I sound ungrateful, and I don’t mean to seem so dismissive: I’m proud of my little achievements. That’s not the problem.
I’m ashamed thst I failed to turn them into anything but this utter mess, my failures. This life of emptiness and pennilessness. I failed. I am a failure, a loser, it’s that simple.
Little things can be good, but what we take (or don’t take) from them can be bad. Useless as I am in life, I took nothing but stupidity from mine.
So it goes.
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I wrote this elsewhere and received flattering and encouraging feedback, but so am reproducing here.
I ask my followers to please show respect to my views on this matter. We may disagree, but when a person has progressed to openly mocking and degrading the vulnerable, my mental gloves are off. I will apologise for nothing I have said.
My commentary:
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Nort Yorkshire, 2021
Bloody Roses 