Fire Walk with Me

Today I'd like to talk about my relationship with art I've made for those I've had a falling out with. And, what's funny, is if I wrote this a week earlier the tone would be 100% different. I want to give everyone that cares about me peace of mind. And, I am better I'm not seeing gold flakes in my vision randomly... but I thought I was doing better than normal. Maybe.. proud I had conquered some part of myself. Reclaimed a perceived failing of mine that's been haunting me for over ten years. Each Doodle and Daydream is a summation of how I've been doing, or what I've been thinking about. I've moved past the last one, and it's time for an update! I don't feel the same way as I did before, but I wouldn't remove it - I was that person in the past.

The same goes for the art that I post here. Everything I make I did so because it felt like the most important thing to me. Everything on this site is me, or at least was. At some point, someone was so important to me that I made art for them. But friends don't always stay friends. And it's to a point I curiously wonder when a piece will become traumatic. 'Art is never finished, but rather abandoned' - that's true for the context of the piece too. I could update every piece, but 1) I would go insane and 2) each piece would become messy, red, and scribbled out in pain. But I don't feel comfortable leaving each piece up as they were, a crystallization of who I was. I mean of course I made them and I own them, but the people associated I want to forget. My own failings kept preserved for myself.

Let's stop with the waxing, and talk about a few times I've felt hurt. These are just my opinions. One of my first profile pictures I drew was for my friend. His birthday was coming up, and his PFP was made in MS Paint in like 2 minutes. I can actually just remake it from memory, even though it's been over five years:

He was someone who liked to make stuff himself, and that included music! I combined his motif of red ribbons, and his favourite pokemon Eevee, and made this based on his black catto:

Despite it being old, I'm still proud of it. I didn't know cat anatomy but I just went for it. Looking at it now, I see my younger and vulnerable self. Just out of highschool whose friends have moved on immediately. Awkward, nervous, and prone to saying the wrong thing - Alone.

By some miracle, I found a group who somewhat accepted me. They were long-standing friends of eachother, but one of the friends liked me a lot so they introduced me. Over the course of a year, I grew to love them and thought I'd spend my life growing with all of them. Along that path, there were some growing pains. When I asked a select few to stop making fun of stuff beyond my control like my audio processing issues, or my neurodivergencies, they chose to stop talking to me entirely. When I asked the caretaker of the group how to resolve this, I was told I was being 'toxic' for being unhappy with those group dynamics. He called it a childish tantrum, and how I'm ungrateful. I'm reminded of an uncomfortable two weeks of being left on read by that person when asking what to do. He finally sent me a long wall of text about how I've been passive aggressive towards him, and I had no clue what he's talking about. He held these perceived slights, full of vitriol and anger and being frustrated with why I'd even ask for change. He, and the others, including the friend I drew the PFP talked behind my back and decided I was a terrible person. Searching for any reason why I was evil. He changed his PFP back to the MS paint version. So I left. Cried. Hyperventilated before, during, and after work.

I'm still raw and sore about it. One of my greatest friends, who is still part of that group and was the sole person not to hate me after, had sat down with them to figure out what their deals were. And they have... really no explanation. Just a 'vibe'. Most didn't want to change their long-standing group dynamics, and they apparently treat new people much more respectfully. But that isn't an excuse, and much less of an apology. I can't go back, and I hate that. Me and him were talking and he mentioned one of the people who hated me hasn't been doing great health wise and I cried. Why would I care about someone who mostly likely hasn't thought of me since I left? What would you do with this art piece? Should I delete it?

Burning bridges comes naturally to me, but not burning away photographs. These memories are precious to me; I consulted my old journals to Daydream as accurately as I could. One way to process has been to take this pain and transform it by making art out of it. When I was shivering to death in Winter last year (2024-2025), I began worldbuilding NPCs based on people who had hurt me. Flaws became claws, and their forms twisted and warped and demonic and villanous. Long shadows streaked, and I put so much thought into each piece down to the name - you, nor they, won't understand but >i< do and that's all that matters to me. The process of writing down each trait that hurt me on sticky notes and transferring to pin boards to find visual metaphors for helped to categorize the harm. I don't consider it a trophy of my self actualization like a bear hunter displays furs, though. I don't feel anything looking back at them, other than pride in the actual craft. Not the same pain I feel looking at the cat one.

Yet, as spring approached and I wanted to make one last piece, I couldn't. I felt hurt by him most, and yet I couldn't make him evil. His personae smiles innocently in my mind:

Everytime I tried to figure out his design, he was happy and peaceful. Why? I don't forgive him; maybe I don't think he was in control? But that's infantalization. He knew my boundaries, and mocked me publicly for it. I felt uncomfortable many times, and I let him know.

Maybe it was how I resolved the conflict? One of my gripes with him was feeling lied to. Blame that should've gone to him got placed on me or others. I'm actually grateful for him, I learned the phrase "We both made some mistakes" is code for "I don't want to apologize, and I'm blaming you". I was able to hold onto the friends I feared him turning against me. One or two defended him in a heightened emotional state, they didn't really care to ask why I was upset and just assumed the worse in me. When people do that, I find it easy to just move on. And, I don't blame them - he is their source of social fulfillment. He is charismatic, the centre piece of groups, wants to involve others. I am sporadic, in my own world usually drawing, and I might not show up for half a year. It's happened a few times that I expect this to happen everytime.

At one point I did feel the need to litigate this. A scrapped Doodle and Daydream is an explanation of all the events, but why would I do that? To prove to my friends I was right? I didn't ask my friends to agree with me that he's a bad person I just let them know ahead of time he would try to start making up things about me. It's easier to just burn the bridge, and keep moving forward, even when you're right. You can do a 'Long Live the King', but why? I don't want to be King.

So, why was my relationship to this topic better last week?

My gut instinct from the last episode had wanted me to burn all bridges with someone who hurt me. It was the right thing to do, and it's helped me heal, but I didn't WANT to do it. I blocked because I knew in my heart this is a person I don't want my future self to forgive. My hands took over and deleted everything - I felt powerless to stop them. If I didn't, I think I would've actually died. I had to do it... but running away hasn't given me the legs to move on. I kept beating myself up and wondering how I could've done things better - I've regretted blocking people but not like this. Two months of this, and similarly to before, my hands took over. I picked up my phone and gave them a call. I was regretting it immediately as I was doing it, and I didn't want to break the goodbye I had crafted for myself to win that finality. I've been learning that's not how moving on works, you can't just be creative enough and it's over. My body's been in so much fucking pain, and it's been acting for me. I hope I never reach this breaking point again, it feels humiliating to admit it.

The conversation was brief, but also long. I felt there wasn't enough time to say everything, but they were sorry. There was no excuse for what happened, and I didn't deserve any of the pain I've alluded to. Most importantly, though, they had no idea how I could feel normal. Something about getting that finality that they don't have the magic words to make me whole gave me the wings to keep figuring it out. And that's what I've been doing the past few months! I've met a lot of great people, been doing a lot of new things, excelling at work and my hobbies, trying to go new places and eat new things and go to new events both IRL and online. My heart feels safe with my friends. I wished I could've been this person sooner, but really, there was no way to force this growth. Everyone tells me I'm doing great, I'm just happy to not have regrets now.

They offered to talk later that evening, but I didn't want to undo the walls I put up. Well, they are unblocked, but not for any practical reason I just learned... I don't need to keep running. I wanted that to be the final message, to everyone, that I can stop running away. I can keep their art on my site with peace of mind.

But uhm, that's not the end of the story.

The past half year I've been hanging out with a well established friend group again. This time I'm much more welcomed; my jokes have become their running ones, and I'm invited to everything. I actually drew two pieces for friends in the group! And planned on more. I felt incredibly warm, and thought they were my best pieces yet. I thought this was finally the pattern breaker for me... but on Thursday I was sent an @ message in General chat that starts with "You know what, fuck you bitch" from one member ... thankfully no one's on their side, and at best saying he's been lashing out at everyone because of stress.

But the illusion of this being a completely safe space dissipated. Art I had LITERALLY just made stopped feeling like celebrations of our connection and became something more mundane. Started feeling like something from the past. That's not to say the ones I made the art for did anything terribly wrong, but even one person in the group holding those perceived slights means others might be too. I don't want to worry if what I say will be taken the wrong way. And held against me without me knowing - how am I supposed to be vulnerable with that hanging over me?

This isn't to say people can't have problems with me, but discussing it with everyone but me makes me feel like an outcast. Like a problem to be solved. A villain to be slain in their high castle. Being calm and collected isn't the goal, and too often the charismatic person who can avoid their own emotions somehow has the moral highground. And I don't think you need to avoid problems just to keep the peace - I've dealt with that before and it villifies you by assuming the worst reaction from you. By doing so, they're scared of you, and you can't make progress healing without being the bad guy. It keeps you in limbo where the pain is unrealized but felt. I didn't want to burn down everything, but someone had to.

I haven't asked a lot of the group. They're all quite different from me, but all I've wanted is to avoid talking about one topic that makes my body irk and squirm. It felt easy to avoid this one. Yet, I've been egged on about it in a way that makes me feel unheard. That having boundaries is a joke in of itself. The smiling Carcasoan mocked my boundaries in much the same way. I can't help how I feel, and I don't know why you have to have justification for it. I'd take care if someone, anyone, asked me to. I had verbal confirmation from others in the group to not discuss it in front of me, and yet it was done so quickly afterwards.

This escalated from a bad incident when, while discussing the general-chat freakout, someone in VC called me 'childish' and a little 'toxic' for 'plugging in my ears' about the topic of my boundary, and I lost control. It brought me back to five years ago - it made me realize this is a pattern that isn't going to stop. It's a curse on me, and I feel entirely powerless to stop it. I just, genuinely don't know what to do. When I talk to someone I'm always imagining when they'll hate me. It's not something I'm anxious about, I just... don't believe in forever anymore. I want to rest. I want to be safe. I want a home. I don't want to keep feeling like I'm not enough or I'm too different or I'm broken. I've been trying to have my website be my home, but everytime I'm hurt I'm reminded the art isn't the wound and it isn't the healing. It's just some pixels.

fire walk with me
it's sad, but it's who I am. Thanks for reading.