Hello Friends!
Skitz here. I wanted to post here and shed some light on what I've been going through for the past year or so, in the hopes that it will both help contextualize some of my behavior, and also help you all get to know me a little better.
In December of 2022, I was diagnosed with a couple of psychological disorders. Particularly, I was diagnosed with ADHD, ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), and both Generalized and Social Anxiety. Now, I haven't been particularly shy about my ADHD on my channel, as it is somewhat of a running joke that I behave rather 'squirrelly'. But I wanted to talk about the other ones in this post, too, because I need to talk about my burnout, and these things are relevant.
Everyone knows what burnout feels like. If you are autistic, or live with someone who is, you'll already know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to beat you up with what Autistic burnout looks like or why it's affecting me so much (Though Autism.org and Western Tidewater have some great articles if you insist on educating yourself). I wanted to talk about it briefly because in the upcoming episode of Corpse Forest, Ep12 "Jobs for Joel", I talk briefly in the beginning of the episode about this in relation to a hiccup in content production.
I've spent a large portion of my life thinking that I was just really, reallllly bad at being a person. My brain just worked way too different than everyone else's. I spent my entire life trying to fit in a neurotypical world. Only recently after having these diagnoses have I been able to step back a realize I am not bad at being a person, I'm a different kind of person. It let me embrace my more creative avenues and stop worrying so much about fitting in.
It also gave me some context for a lot of the mental health roadblocks and difficulties I've encountered over the years with time management, education, social skills, relationships and life in general.
Really, that's all I'm doing now. I'm sharing that context. Its easy for me to look at myself and tell myself I'm being lazy and letting people down and not committed enough as I stare, paralyzed, at the empty editing screen. It's both better and worse when I know its because I literally wore my brain down to the wire pretending to be human.
I digress. I just wanted to say, hi! I'm Skitz! I wasn't kidding about the neuro-divergent thing! And I am absolutely still around. I've come up with some strategies that will help me avoid this situation in the future and hopefully keep my mood (and, by extension, my content production) more stable.
I will post more once I have more for you. For now, I just wanted to provide a little bit more information about myself and hopefully clear up any questions someone might eventually have.
Now, as always, I ask you:
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES!