When The Bad Things In Your Head Are True

Hello, if you’re new. I’ve gotten an influx1 of subscribers (and some paid, too, what! And thank you!) after my last two posts, which were about my miscarriage: post 1 and post 2. I’ve spent too much time looking through the post history of a griftern influencer that mines his personal misfortunes for content that it did feel strange for me to share what I was going through — even though I had been doing it regularly since I was fourteen — but it did feel nice to get feedback that it was a story worth sharing anyway.

Today, I wanted to talk about the time when I learned of a mean thing that someone who I thought of as a friend said. They were an acquaintance, at least. Someone who I thought of fondly, even warmly.

For the almost-eight years that I’ve been here, I have thought about how stunted the progression of my practice has been. It’s not grown as quickly or as enormously as I would have liked, and truthfully, coming out of the haze of a masters programme at a university that’s ranked higher for arts studies than most, I did expect some sort of jumpstart to my career. A little nudge, even.

Instead, I’ve found myself working random jobs not at all related to my skillset or my pretty established career in design and publishing back home. I’ve shared this on other platforms, but just to humour you, I’ve worked as the ff. during my time here in London:

• retail assistant (COS Regent Street)

• “book designer and production coordinator” for a photographer (I was a PA who could use InDesign for a fixed daily rate under London Living Wage)

• design intern, then design assistant for a creative agency

• production assistant for a candle company (as in I made the candles, and when we had a shop, I also did retail work and made coffees!)

• marketing, sales, and brand assistant for a jeweller (I was a shop girl that could use Photoshop, Shopify and make emails)

• ceramics assistant for a friend of mine (I minded the shop while wedging old clay)

• shop assistant at a provisions store

Most recently, I was a graphic designer (and then promoted to senior brand designer) for a swimwear brand. I quit in April. I’m currently about a month into a new job that’s art-related but also not at all creative.

All this to say that it’s really, really hard to keep on top of your art practice and growth in that area, when you are constantly trying to make rent. I have my residence rent and my studio rent. Admittedly, my parents have helped me through some of the more financially difficult times here. When I graduated in 2019, I had to apply for a non-student visa to be employable because at the time, you only get about four months post-graduation on your student visa to try and live and work here.

I was in the process of looking for work after I got the visa in late 2019, and then COVID happened. Absolutely no one was hiring.

Even then, it was really difficult to find a job that I felt suited for. A lot of the work I ended up doing, I had no experience in, or were really labour-intensive (making candles and handling deliveries are not quite as zen as some people may think), or were set up around an unpredictable rota that changed weekly, making it hard to set a schedule and routine around.

It was hard. And tiring.

I’m very lucky that I still have some presence in the art scene in the Philippines, because it’s been really hard to make headway in the scene here. Again, I’ve not quite exerted myself 100 percent in trying to make this happen. When your brain is literal mush after a workday, all you can do is make dinner when you get home, if that. On your days off, you can’t think about going to your studio or on a nice gallery hop because all you can think about is all of the laundry you haven’t done or the bathroom you have to clean or the sheets you have to change.

In doing all of this, you still have that voice in the back of your head that says you aren’t doing enough for your art. Because, in all honesty, you aren’t. It doesn’t mean you aren’t doing anything, but you aren’t doing anything for your practice. Your flat is clean, so your stress levels have lowered, but once again, you’ve failed to go to your studio. Ad nauseum forever and ever.

Anyway. That’s what’s been going through my head. So when someone who I thought of as a friend confirms these thoughts about myself by expressing them to someone else, then I just feel doubly bad. This is one of my favourite quotes from Girls, because this is exactly how that felt:

Like, I did think about it myself, but you said it because you thought it, too. In this scene, Hannah says no one can make her feel bad because of it. Kind of like, she’s beat someone to the punch because she’s already thought it about herself. However, that’s not the case for me. Because someone else verbalising my innermost, horrible thoughts about myself then makes my worst thoughts true. It’s kind of like every time I go home and an auntie (and at one point, our security guard) says that I got fat and gained weight. Yes, I know. I have eyes. I wear my clothes. This is the body I have to move in.

So, yes, I could be doing more, technically. Most days, I really don’t have the capacity to do anything else than try and survive. I’ve whined about self-care (in the sense of caring for yourself) before, and it still applies. Lately, it’s felt really acute and in focus. In addition to general day-to-day upkeep, up until recently, I’ve had to contend with the arduous task of looking for employment and my miscarriage. And have I mentioned my severe depression and anxiety? It’s a hamster wheel of doom, and all I have to battle these things are mindless mobile games, breathing exercises, and my meds. Truly, in the depths of my depression, not even my husband can do anything to help me, even though he tries very hard to and I love him for it.

I’m not completely sure what the point of this letter was. I think I wanted to confirm, somehow, an awareness of what I do perceive as a lack. I wanted to say “Yes, I know I suck.” I wanted to show that the “stagnation”2 has not happened in a vacuum. That outside of my practice, I’ve done other things, too. I got my degree (an expensive sheet of an ugly printout). I stayed at a job for almost two years. I made amazing friends. I got married. I got permanent residency here after over seven years. I tried my best to be able to live here, to afford the exorbitant cost of living, doing many jobs that I was happy enough to have though probably would rather not have been doing. In small pockets of time in between, I kept making art, I kept writing, and I kept showing up.

I’d rather be painting. Reading. Going to galleries and museums. Watching films, bands, (some) theatre. Eating good food, having good company. But it really is so expensive here (and, at this point, anywhere and everywhere), that I can’t just be doing fun stuff all the time.

Growing up, one realises that many, many different things constitute your life. Many of these things are responsibilities that you can’t pawn off on someone else. Kind of icky that I’m 37 soon and this is only just becoming evident, but I do think there’s a difference between knowing this as a thing you can acknowledge as true, and knowing it after each and every harrowing experience.

The thought that it never ends and likely gets harder and more serious as we age terrifies me more than Weapons (which I just saw, and was gross, somewhat goofy, and fun). Mostly because the former is an inevitability for me, but still. I think that the more we face these problems, the easier they are to handle.

The drop in your stomach is still there, but hopefully, you’re more equipped to handle it and find your way out of trouble when it comes.

TL;DR: Someone was mean to me, but it was true, and now I feel worse about it.