TL/DR: I’m going on a one-month hiatus to deal with some personal problems.

I don’t really feel comfortable spending too much time talking about myself and what I consider to be “personal issues.” Especially not with a bunch of people who are (thought I appreciate all of you) largely strangers. However, my therapist has been telling me I should try being more open. And I do mean that literally, not the meme “my therapist/lawyer/doctor tells me …”

Obviously, I missed this week’s chapter release. Prior to this, about a month ago I deleted Demon Queen with no real heads up or warning, then when someone asked about it I gave a roundabout non-answer. There have been a few allusions to what’s going on in the past, but at the end of the day I always somehow managed to pull through and make my deadline. Except for that one time last year, but that’s largely unrelated to this.

The truth is, I have been struggling with depression right now. I have been for a while, but things really came to a head a couple of weeks back, when I delayed the chapter release by a day because “something happened that was making me really angry and that was affecting the tone of the chapter.”

I don’t have a lot of close friends, probably, two or three people tops that I would really consider in that category, and all of them are online only on account of geography. Two weeks ago, we were all hanging out in a discord call with some of our mutuals, and one of them proudly announced that he was “on some dope shit.” Now, I don’t have a problem with drugs, as long as you aren’t hurting anyone. The thing is, he was driving at the time and the drug in question was a psychedelic.

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I… also have a history with that. In middle school and again in high school, I lost a friend to someone being an asshole and DUI. Well, middle school was a DWI, but it's the same. Needless to say, I lost it in the voice call, and things devolved from there. Now, I am no longer on speaking terms with that incredibly small friend group. Parting ways with them was the only real outcome in my mind, but it did exacerbate the underlying issues I’ve had in the back of my mind for some time now.

Over the next weeks and up until today, I’ve been slowly unraveling and losing motivation… Everything just feels numb and colorless at the moment. If not for the therapist telling me I should write this out… I honestly probably wouldn’t bother. Now, I don’t want you all to get the wrong idea; I’m NOT suicidally depressed. I’m still able to rationalize why that’s not an answer. Case in point, getting the therapist was a decision I made all on my own.

I’m just… not feeling anything. If I didn’t know that eating was a necessity, I’d probably stop. As it is, the only times I’ve managed to force myself out of the house in the past week were to go to my two appointments. With all that said, I’m going to take at least a month off from writing and start trying to find motivation elsewhere. My brother is flying in, and we’re going to take a roadtrip around our state, maybe do a coast2coast we don’t know.

Anyway, sorry for disappearing without leaving a note, and doubly sorry for dropping all of this on your heads at once. Here’s to all you beautiful people.