Life Update: New Winds & NEW SITE

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THIS BLOG IS NOW PART OF THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE FOR ART PROJECT DEATH ON A PAPER. VISIT www.artprojectdeathonapaper.com TODAY!

 It’s been a while since I’ve made one of these Life Update posts, and I thought what better timing to bring them back than the start of a new era. This article is simultaneously the first being published on the now-finalized homepage of the art project, and the very last post you will be able to view on the original Blogger blog. After this point, we are saying final goodbyes to the starting point, and smelling the fresh air of the new winds, as we Finns like to say from time to time. 

I started writing the Trauma Doesn’t Make You Stronger blog in October 2022. I had gotten out of the hospital two months earlier at the time, and I was trying to cope with the fact that I was diagnosed with a personality disorder I had no idea I had developed due to my childhood trauma. Not only was I facing the reality of living with severe mental illness, but I had no contact to any treatment facility and was forced to live with my dad in the tiny town I had so desperately wanted out of in 2019. My health was deteriorating rapidly, and staying in the city I had moved to start my uni studies was only making it worse, so I had no other option but to leave. I was at a crossroads I was sure I couldn’t choose the right direction, because both of them seemed just as dangerous. Completely taken aback by my declining health and the inevitable suspension of my university studies, I turned back to something I had some kind of background in, something that had helped me a lot in my childhood and early teenage years.

Blogging.

I hesitated a bit at first, because let’s face it, nobody does blogging anymore. Or if you do, you usually have something else to accompany it. This is the 2020’s, not fucking 2011. But I felt compelled to go for it, because things were different now, even if some of the problems I was facing then as a 22-year-old were similar or somehow related to those I was writing about as an 11-year-old. And of course, the language was new. So why not?

I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. I started the blog before I even had all the main characters designed – or I even knew that there was going to be a bunch of characters in the first place. The articles I decided to call “the prologue” were inspired by my thoughts and feelings from the time I spent at the ward. The illustrations present were ones I had made in that hospital bed, with no idea what they were for. A lot of them were self-portraits of sorts, but later on I moved on to other visuals – thankfully. I had no vision, I had no direction. One of the prologue articles was actually titled “Finding My Way Without A Map”, and it was a jumble of metaphorical talk of maps and orienteering, how I had always been given the map when we had orienteering in PE, and how badly I had always sucked at reading maps. 

Now, in retrospect, I find this realization oddly affirming. Continuing on with the metaphor of maps and orienteering – it is true that I never knew what the fuck was happening when maps were involved, but for some reason, I almost always either wanted to have the map, or it was given to me. I guess the need to guide way has always been an innate trait for me in some way. But every time I have been given a map, a clear set of conditions and directions, everything has always failed – in orienteering and life alike. 

Everyone who has ever traveled with me in person knows that I’m always the one pulling out the map on my phone when we are in a bigger city, but somewhere along the line, I lose the plot and get overwhelmed and eventually shut down, needing the other person’s help. I desperately want to get us to the destination as if it was completely dependent on me and my very lackluster abilities to read maps, when it never was. But if I just ditch the map, if I just…do it my own way, we usually get to where we were heading.

Giving up the status quo of directions, the normal way of going about things, has always gotten me somewhere – way more than maps have ever done. So as much as I feel like in October 2022, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing or where I even wanted to take things, I now think…that might have been the very thing that saved me. Because now, in December 2024, I know what I am going for, aiming for. I have found my way without a map – and this time, I feel like it is for good.

The prologue is not an official part of DEATH ON A PAPER, which is why you won’t find the article I was referring to on the official site. I wanted to keep things as clean and organized from here on now that I have, well, a direction. But if you want to travel back in time and visit the moment when I was more lost than I had ever been, you can do that by clicking this link. It will take you to the prologue tag on the original Blogger blog. 

So thank you. Thank you for following my journey this far, for helping me find my way. Because now I feel pretty confident in saying that maybe I was never even supposed to follow any kinds of maps. I mean, I can get round the big city of Stockholm without even glancing at Google Maps. It’s true! I hope you’ll allow me to lead you along the way.

With gratitude,

ichigonya