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XGP-Nataku

The Enigmatic One
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Hello there everyone, first massive apologies for going dark for the last three months. I wanted to take the time I had from that last entry to not only collect myself and my emotions from that entry, but I also wanted to get some stuff accomplished that I wanted to accomplish in the three-month gap.


Towards the end of May and going into June, I flew out for the first time in five years to meet up with my sister out in Denver, Colorado and it turned out that I had a better experience out in the Rockies compared to a solo adventure out in California, like I had previously planned. I got to explore the city and what it had to offer, I went on a pair of stadium tours out at Coors Field (Colorado Rockies, MLB) and Empower Field at Mile High (Denver Broncos, NFL). I also went out to Morrison, CO over at Red Rocks Park & Amphitheater and the views there were just spectacular, especially with the weather there being in the low 50s in the mornings and getting up to the low 70s throughout the day. Could not have asked for a better trip and looking forward to planning out another flight sometime soon.


I also managed to finalize plans to join up with my best friend that I’ve known since High School for our annual HHN trip out in Orlando. We’ve also been seriously discussing plans for a trip out to Tokyo, Japan in 2025. We’ve been going back and forth on certain quotes that we’ve got for various airlines from various departure points and for hotels in the greater Tokyo metro area. The comparison between our HHN trip we’re going on in October compared to Tokyo in 2025 is just staggering to say the least. With HHN we knew where we wanted to go, where we were going to stay for the weekend, and what places we were going to enjoy good food (somewhat, we’re still thinking of places to go to); but Tokyo is a whole ‘nother animal to deal with altogether. This would be our first international trip since Toronto back in 2018. We still got a long way to go, but the picture on that is getting much clearer. I decided that it was time for me to make a change with the vehicle I was driving back in late August. For the last 7 years, I was driving a 2016 Honda Civic EX and I managed to put in 73,000+ miles on the car before deciding that it was time for a change. Initially, we were going to wait till January of next year to do the car purchase, but we pulled the trigger back in late August and managed to get myself into a 2023 Nissan Sentra SR. I feel very happy about making this purchase and what stood out for me was the way that the car not only looked, but how I’ve felt driving it compared to the last time I drove a Nissan Sentra (that was a 2016 model). It’s a fresh start for me now and I have been looking at this model for some time now and I’m glad to have pulled the trigger on it.


With all, as far as my mental health goes, it is the one thing I am still putting a heavy focus on during both the downtime I went through here on the socials and in the real world. After I had made the decision to close the door on my dark past and move forward from the individual, I used to support their works, I took a lot of time having to reflect on the decision I made and how I am to continue to move forward after making this decision. In the past when I had spoken to some of my friends that I have been open to about this situation, I was a bit too explicit on how I thought the individual thought about me. There were some thoughts I had that were just plain wrong and that they misjudged their character and at the time when I first went on this journey, I thought that those thoughts I had were justified. After having several discussions with my friends, family, and even my therapist, whom I have also spoken to about this, it has become more evident that those thoughts I had in the past were the wrong thoughts to have about this individual.


After I made the decision to completely focus on myself and my mental health, along with distancing myself from the individual in question, I did feel an initial release from the burden I’ve been carrying over the last four years. The guilt I have put on myself for causing the actions that I did towards this individual have not gone away fully, but the load has indeed been lightened to where I can try and be a better person than who I was four years ago. There was one thing I had discovered while going through this process, aside from the fact that there might have been moments where I had some withdraw from talking about this individual. Four years ago, I thought that I was ready to be this individual’s friend and that the voice I had prior to the incident could make for a good friendship. After the incident and from the years I’ve been going through this journey of mental healing, I learned that I wasn’t ready to be this individual’s friend at all. I lacked the patience, consideration, and emotional stability to maintain a one-to-one friendship rather it just being one sided as it turned out to be. The thoughts of who I was four years ago still linger and the fear of that person coming out again after this time is also the reason why I decided to close the door on interacting with this individual again. I don’t want to hurt this individual any more than I already did, and I also don’t want to put myself in a situation where I also end up feeling hurt.


To help keep my mind at ease and to focus on something else other than that person I was four years ago, I had decided to put myself through a series of virtual fitness challenges through a company called The Conqueror. During the three month gap I went dark, I went ahead and completed my first two challenges on a bike back at my local gym. I made it through a 46-mile trek going up to Mt. Fuji and made it through 130 miles going through the Rockies. My current challenge I am on is my longest one to date, 343 miles from the imperial capital of Kyoto, Japan to the modern capital of Tokyo Japan along the Nakasendo Trail. These challenges will not only put a focus on getting my physical health on track to a better place, but I also want to use this to put all my focus on improving my mental health as well to clear my head of all the negative thoughts I had over the last four years. Got a bit of long one this time around for the challenge, but I’m more than up to the task at hand.


So yeah, we’re all caught up now and I got a lot on my plate for this month, bloodwork tomorrow (following up from physical) and I got to keep on maintaining the goals I have set out for myself. It’s been quite a long road I have been on for some time now, but I hope it will all be worth it in the end when I can finally be at peace with myself and seal away that person, I was four years ago. I mentioned in my previous journal that I would be open to a conversation with the individual if they were willing to do so. Right now, however, I know for fact that I am not ready due to where my mental health is at for the moment. I am going to continue to put focus on myself and be with the people I know the best and know that they’re gonna have my back. Until the next time, it’s nice to be nice and take care of yourselves folks.

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Hello there, this is perhaps going to be the most important entry I’m going to be writing to date. The reasoning for this is that I’m about to take a massive step towards getting myself back on track when it comes to my mental health. The decision for this was not an easy one by any means, having spent most of the time trying to best put this all into words. I’ve also had to fight off so many emotions when it comes to making the decision and I have surrendered to the fact that there will be more emotions to come when this is all said and done. At the end of the day, this choice that I’m about to make is purely of my own volition and for my own benefit to get healthier mentally.


It has been a couple of years since I started this journey to getting better after going through perhaps the roughest point in my life over 4 years ago. To this day, I still hate the person that I was at the time, and I’ve been taking it out on myself for far too long. I’ve had a great benefit of talking to friends, family, co-workers, and to a great therapist that I met along the way, and I am forever grateful for their counsel and their understanding of what I’ve been going through. I’ve also had a great benefit in learning from others based on similar situations they have been in and how they have managed to get through them. I have also learned to know of my shortcomings and what I have done wrong in these situations. I do apologize for taking so long to finally get to this point, but better late than never getting here at all. There could have been far worse decisions I could have made or behaviors I could have exhibited in this, but I am glad not to have made those decisions and/or behaviors. There is still a lot of work to be done in getting myself back on track, but it has finally come time for me to take that important step.


One quick note here, I have made it a point not to name any names on the entries I have written for the sake of anonymity and to not falsely accuse anyone of anything on here. This will be the only time I get to mention this individual’s name and it will be the last time I will as well.


DragonAnalei I wanted to let you know that you’re an amazing artist and I have genuinely have enjoyed seeing your works and would have liked to fully support them. However, after heavily thinking this over and from everything that I had to go through and learn on this journey I have been on, I am making the choice to close the door on the dark past we’ve had and I’m going to move forward with my own life and getting myself back on track. With where I am at now mentally, going through bouts of mild to moderate depression and anxiety, couple that with consistently stressing myself out, I am just not a place mentally that I can support your works. I looked at the person that I was so many years ago and I hated who I was and still hate it to this day. I may have sounded a bit too harsh on myself and that is an undisputed truth, for if it was not for that…I would not have gone out and found the help I needed to better understand what I’m going through and how to make myself better mentally. The only two things that I am going to ask of you are that you do not feel any sort of guilt nor blame yourself for the decision I have made and that I wish nothing but great success for you in both life and your artworks as well. Perhaps there may be a chance we could open the door again and we can talk, but for now…I think it is best that I close the door and focus on getting myself back on track. Take care of yourself and it’s nice to be nice, see ya on the flipside. I’ll be in Colorado in a couple of weeks and the trip is perhaps going to be one of the best ways I can help myself clear my mind and heal my heart even more, stay safe out there people.

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Hello there and first of all…how the hell did 3 months go by and I have not said a damn thing in all of that time? Guess it goes to show that I’m a bit off of my game on this and that there have been plenty of things on my mind as of late. Before we get into all of that stuff, managed to have a good birthday back on the 31st of January and I was able to head up to Orlando on Spring Break for a few days and stayed at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. Had a really good time and well worth the money that was put into that stay. As for future things planned, I have a trip planned out to Colorado on May 30th to June 3rd and It’ll be a whole new experience for me being out in the Rockies and I’m looking forward to it.


Now, onto the latest on how my mental health journey has been going along and what I have learned and observed over the last three months. For the most part as far as things go, I’ve been handling things as they come my way and doing the best with what I am capable of doing. Despite this, I feel as though at times I am just spinning in circles as to the situation I have been dealing with over the last couple of years. I would feel fine in one moment and the next I would feel just absolutely disgusted at myself and just reliving the time where I was not at my best and made terrible decisions. This cycle is something over the last couple of months I would be going through and it just stresses me the hell out. I feel as though I am locked into a prison cell with what I had done so long ago and it feels as though I am still serving out that sentence by just remembering about the past and not doing anything positive to change this outcome.


I have been talking to a couple of friends that I really trust about it and part of what needs to change is my mindset about this whole situation I am currently stuck in on. I know there are many ways that I could do that, and I have dabbled in those from time to time, I just have to do more of those things on a consistent basis. The things that I like to do, play video games, talk to people from time to time, work on arts (which I am slow on the draw), do provide me the escape from the constant struggle from the issues I’ve had with my mental health (aside from going to work of course). I also learned throughout this journey that I have is that I have taken this whole situation with the individual that occurred so many years ago so hard on myself that I cannot find the time to enjoy the things that I would have loved to do. As I stated earlier in the journal; I’m just in this loop of one minute feeling on top of the world, then I go and think about what I did in the past to the individual that I did wrong, and then I just find myself feeling defeated. It’s this mindset that I need to break away from if I am going to have long term success for my mental health.


The big problem with breaking this cycle is that I do happen to have quite a big heart and I do want to find the best there is with those that I encounter with. Now, while this may seem like this is a good trait to have in which you know how a person could be feeling in the moment, it’s this trait that has also got me into trouble more times than it has helped. I do often take into consideration the thought of perhaps having a big heart is the one trait that I have to lose if I want to get myself out of this hole; but at the end of the day, I guess it all comes down to just being in denial with myself and just not focusing on what’s in the here and now over just thinking about the past and feeling so down on myself. Perhaps I’m still too afraid to admit that I am struggling with this and all I want to do is just scream out and ask for some help.


These journals that I write up are perhaps the only safe way I can vent my feelings out that I am going through without others being around me that might end up getting hurt. I can sit down and just write these thoughts up and I find a release of tension and emotions that I have been bottling up for some time. I do know I have an outlet in one of the discord groups I am in that I can vent these emotions I have stored in me, but I have not taken advantage of using it because of how close to the chest I keep this situation I have been dealing with for some time now. I do want to apologize for not using that tool for what it is intended to be used for. I guess I’m just too worried that there may be nothing that can be done in that room to help my current situation.


In closing, I still have quite a journey ahead of me to get through this whole thing and to finally forgive myself for the things that I have done to this individual I have done wrong and for being so hard on myself for not being more proactive in breaking the wheel that I am on. I still have plenty more that I need to learn about others as much as I have to do about myself. With that in mind I have a message I would like to say, not just to the individual that I wronged, not just to those that I hold close as good friends, but this is perhaps the most important message I could give to myself.


I would ask of you to take each day one step at a time and know when it is time to stop and take in the sights that are around you. You may not know what you see or who you may run into. There might be times where things feel so uncertain. Perhaps there are just days where things are not going the way you thought they were going to go. Maybe there might be days where everything is going to plan and we’re all benefiting from it. Whatever the case it might be, the one thing I sincerely ask you to do is to never feel sorry about yourself and appreciate being with the people you are with. We may all be going on different roads, yet we feel interconnected by how we go about dealing with the day. If we could all deal with each day and every day with our heads held high and not feeling so down on ourselves, it would be the biggest benefit we could all share as people. I do wish nothing but the best out of you and I only ask that this faith can be returned with interest. Take good care of yourselves and it’s nice to be nice, see you all on the flipside.

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With 2022 done and in the books, I figure I would take some time to reflect on what went down during the year that it was. That year was one of the hardest years I’ve ever had to endure from the mounting pressure that I was in at my job at the time and beginning to fully understand the ongoing battle with my mental health.

As far as major details about my job and all of that, that’s something I’d rather keep to myself at this time, however I have made some improvements to that area during the year that would put me in a better position than where I was at the time. All the details that go into what I need to do in order to be successful in my job are a much easier road to navigate and come out better than where I was at before.

The hardest part about that year was finding out about the fact that I go through mild to moderate symptoms of depression. A huge chunk of that year was going through those days where things weren’t as enjoyable as they could be, I was constantly feeling down on myself, and that I found myself lapsing back to perhaps the catalyst of the events that may have first sparked this in the first place. It had an affect on my work, relationships with other, and how I viewed myself. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was to come forward and speak out with a therapist about some of the issues that I’ve had to deal with and speaking with a local doctor who made light of the diagnosis. It might have been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, but it was the most important thing I’ve ever had to in my life. I had to admit that I needed to go out and seek some help in order to find a way to navigate the rough waters and find ways to get my mind better and to get myself better. I’m fortunate to know a group of people that I can truly say that are friends for the better part of 10 years now and that I have a family that cares for me unconditionally. There are still days that I’m going through that do bring me down, but I’m wanting to continue to find ways to learn and grow as a person.

As far as dealing with the lapses that I go through whenever I do have those down days, it’s still one of the big struggles I’m going through to in order to better my mental health standing. I find myself looking back on the things I did during that time with a heavy amount of remorse and regret for the actions that I did during that time. I also find myself at times having this delusion of grandeur where the individual made the decision themselves to reach out to me and wanted to talk to me about what occurred. I still feel extremely nervous, borderline afraid, to even want to bring it up because I do not want to cast guilt upon that person when it wasn’t even their fault things turned out the way they did. Perhaps I’m a bit afraid that I might set myself up for a hopeful outcome only to get burned again and I don’t wish for that to happen. I must really work on trying to get these thoughts behind me and get focused in on the things that I would like to do and how I can do things the best I can. The biggest resolution that I have for 2023 is to continue working on improving my mental health to where I am at a great position and I feel like I have attained peace with myself and I’m no longer worried about the past coming back to haunt me forever.

2023 has just begun and this story has just got started…let’s get to work.

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Hello guys, It’s been quite a bit since the last entry and there are some things that have gone on, Hurricane Ian, notwithstanding. On a quick side note before I begin, to anyone that has been affected by Ian, I want you to know that we’re all in this together and we’re going to get past this together…we are Florida Strong to the end my friends.


For the first time in a long time, I went in for my annual physical and everything physically came out all good and no issues on that end. When I went in for it, after all the necessary things were done, they asked me some questions about my mental health, and I have told my doctors about how it has gone down a bit as of late and they confirmed to me that I have mild to moderate symptoms of depression. I can’t say that I was surprised to hear that outcome given how I’ve been dealing with both the stress at work and on how I was dealing with the guilt of the actions I caused that ended a relationship with an artist I used to follow. This also kinda explains why at times I end up finding myself in a lapse and I just seemingly break down so easily at the mere thought of this individual. In some ways I feel so ashamed that I didn’t get myself checked out sooner and that is just due to the nature of my work, and I must stay focused in on it and not worry about anything else on the outside. There have indeed strives to getting better, but as I have been getting some counsel from those that are close to me, it is just going to take a long time before I see major improvements to my mental health. The best piece of advice I got when I was having to seek counselling from one of my friends when I was having those moments where I lapse was this: "We want to seek out validation or desire to raise them up (as in the commissions for example), but sometimes we forget that they're also people too, complete with their own free will to do what they please. It's hard, even soul crushing sometimes when they had to cut you from their life, but there's not much you can do at that point since they made that choice.


And it can be so easy to lie in the guilt that you have a hand to it, and your broken heart would never completely heal. But eventually it would. Sure, sometimes and some days a mere mention of the subject would sting, but eventually the wound heals again, and the scar is there. You were just an overly excited person who may have crossed some lines where you didn't know existed, so the least you can do is learn from where you've made in any past mistakes." That being said, I am planning on taking some time off later this month (that is planned) to simply enjoy life and get away from work after I get things caught up there. Part of my plan is to continue to work on my mental health and seek support from my friends, family, and even my therapist (if the needs call for that). I do want to also try and get more of my own works up here again as I've been inactive artwork wise and I primarily use this account to just order commissions. Now I know how hard I've fallen mentally, I've got to work as hard as possible to get myself back on track and get to feeling better about myself again. with that all said, take good care of yourselves and be good people.

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