#decided not to draw until ive seen a doctor bc of my hand but i want to draw him so bad...

[devotedlystrangewizard]

never wanting to draw until you cant is the worst i hate it

[eeveelutionsforequality]

@mod vape, do you have any tips for dealing with hypersexuality or addiction? bc uh. getting off hurts. idk if it’s specifically because ive been doing it so goddamn much or because of the fucking legion of medical problems i have, but it’s DEFINITELY making my abdominal pain worse and i dont know how to stop gjdfjhk.

Well, firstly, go to the doctor about that pain - there are injuries, illnesses, sexual dysfunctions, and all sorts of things from that could be causing a pain like that (it could be a pulled muscle, a cyst, maybe you aggravated a pre-existing health issue, etc), and it's best to rule out anything too dangerous as soon as you can, and to treat anything treatable. Even if it is tied to or caused by overdoing sex/masturbation, just mitigating that habit isn't guaranteed to fix it.

I was getting some pretty bad pain from even small dildos/vibrators, and I decided to go to the doctor in case it was something dangerous - thankfully, it turned out to just be a sexual dysfunction (basically spasms and tightening of the muscles in the vagina, in my case caused by trauma). I was supposed to get therapy for it, but I never went because I was having another therapy at the time and my carer was like "But what if they cancel each other out!?" and I was like "That's not how it works..." Sometimes it acts up but I think I've got it mostly under control. I've also had to go to the doctor for sprained/strained wrists more times than I would like to admit... I used to be like "Oh I played my guitar for too long" or "Oh I think I leant on my walking stick for too long" and now I'm just like "Wanker's cramp".

Trust me and my plethora of injuries when I say that doctors are professionals, they went to medical school, they see genitalia on a daily basis, they've seen eyes and ears and giant sores full of puss... it's really rare to get a doctor that will look down upon or judge you for that. Sure you'll get the odd "You should masturbate less", "Here's a big speech about the risks of STDs and pregnancy", "Have you told your therapist about this", but it's more of an "I'm contractually obliged to impart medical advice" than an "I think you're gross" 99% of the time.

Secondly, I do have tips, but I'm still hella bad at dealing with my own issues - I still smoke more than I want to, drink til I puke, sleep with strangers, lose days to laying in bed alone, have an aching pain in my wrists, etc. Obviously I don't have all of the answers, so I can't promise that they'll be the best tips in the world - it's worth doing some more research of your own, and it might be worth talking to your doctor/therapist if you can't manage it on your own.

You haven't given much detail about how specifically it affects you or what the addiction is to (sexual stuff in general, masturbation, casual sex, porn, etc), so I'm going to try to cover as much as I can (like dealing with sexual thoughts about people in your life, limiting the number of times you masturbate, etc) and I hope that at least some of what I say is useful to you.

Okay, so the first tip I have is: try not to slip into the mentality that cold turkey is the only way to go if it's not what you want - thinking "I can't have this. I'm not allowed this." can increase cravings. Thinking "I'm allowed this later... if I stay motivated not to do it now and if I only do it in moderation, and it's gonna be great." can make waiting out those cravings a lot easier, provided you have the self-control to not slip back into a bad habit after once.

Ways to avoid slipping back into bad habits include: having time (or number of the thing) limits for when and how long you are allowed, having something to do afterwards that takes your mind off it (for example "once I've done it once, I have to get up, take out the rubbish, email my boss, read that global warming article, and get ready for bed"), other rewards/punishments (put a book you really want in your Amazon basket then click "save for later", if at the end of the fortnight you've accomplished your goal then buy the book, if you fail the fortnight resets and you have to wait two more weeks - set smaller goals with smaller rewards, and larger goals with larger rewards), keeping and going over a diary so that you can see what worked and what didn't, if there's a pattern to failures, progress even if you're not meeting goals (at which point try to make the upcoming goals a little easier since you're expecting too much of yourself), and so on.

Secondly, and it's the most generic tip ever but it's SUPER important for addictions because they can damage your pre-frontal cortex... healthy diet, exercise, meditation, mental exercises, getting some sun, and other daily tasks are super important.

You need to get into the habit of something like reading or pottery or drawing for at least half an hour to an hour every day - turn off your internet, games, distractions, and maintain concentration on what you're doing. This helps repair the effects that addictions can have on your pre-frontal cortex and dopamine receptors by activating the parts of your brain that work towards maintained motivation and focus for smaller or distant rewards, which in turn will help your brain work normally again, which in turn will increase motivation and willpower.

Cooking more difficult meals will have similar benefits and a healthy diet improves your overall health. Exercise does the same even more effectively than either, and it has the added bonus of energizing you, increasing your focus on other tasks that you do afterwards, various health benefits, lifting your mood, and helping you be tired by the end of the day so that you'll be able to sleep easier - insomnia is a really dangerous trigger for any addiction, but especially a masturbation or sex addiction, because you're in an environment that is associated with that behaviour and the behaviour makes it easier to sleep afterwards, so you've every reason to start doing it if you find yourself unable to sleep.

Which brings me on to another reason why keeping a diary is especially important - you need to isolate your triggers. Establish what happened immediately before the behaviour, what you were thinking, and what potentially led to the behaviour. Then you can work towards either avoiding those triggers, lessening them, being mindful of them, or training yourself to exhibit a different behaviour in response to them - for example, if having a shower triggers you to masturbate, try singing in the shower instead, training your brain to react to showers with the urge to sing instead of the urge to masturbate.

You might also want to try sleeping meds, so that you can take them, read until they start to kick in, and then immediately go to bed and try to sleep - that way there's less of a gap between going to bed and falling asleep where something could happen.

Routine can also be really helpful for some people - you're supposed to fall asleep between about 10pm and 1am for optimal sleep, and you're supposed to wake up between 6 and 8 hours later. Get out of bed as soon as you wake up to avoid lethargy, and either exercise or go for a short walk, or do something that starts your brain and body working for the day. After that, prepare breakfast, don't watch TV or distract yourself while you eat. Continue the day with a routine that works for you, and you could set a time at which you will masturbate (or maybe a date you're allowed to go to the club and pull... how you work in routine if you have a long-term sexual partner is something you would need to talk to them about) that doesn't interfere with your routine.

Avoid bars, pubs, clubs, tinder, grindr, and anything else that can be a trigger for that or makes quick hook-ups easy - I know that I can go to the pub near me (because there'll be nobody there for that, it's an "old people come here to watch football" pub), and that I can go to a pub or bar with friends if I'm having a good day, but making sure that my flat wasn't within walking distance of a club and deleting dating apps was really helpful to me (it meant that even if the temptation was there the effort required to act on it was too much and took too long, so I'd catch myself).

I also log off any tumblr that I'm following people on that post NSFW, porn, sexual stuff or anime stuff if necessary - just like how I log off any tumblrs where I follow political blogs if I'm getting overwhelmed by that. But it is still good to have a tumblr for NSFW stuff, to have somewhere that you can express certain things, reblog things, feel less alone, enjoy things that you enjoy - don't demonize the side of you that likes sex, don't lock it in a cell in the back of your head, just tell it that it can't control you.

I'm also working on not putting myself in as many situations that can make me feel like I'm being too flirty or as many situations that cause too many uncomfortable or sexual thoughts at a time when they're stressing me - like, I don't come online as much when I'm drunk now, I don't have as many sleepovers, and I don't tend to maintain physical contact for as long (like, I don't hold hands as often as I used to), for example.

That said, you can't live out your life hiding from people who your brain might think something sexual about - isolating yourself is unhealthy. Humans are social creatures and social interaction is good for us, talking to people about our problems is good for us, distractions and fun are good for us. I find structured social plans make things easier - so, I like plans like "lets cook together then eat the awesome meal", "lets go see a movie", "lets go to the town center and taste hot chocolate from as many cafés as we can before I puke", "lets go to the fair" and things like that (that said, agoraphobia is awful and ruins like 90% of my social interaction). Keep people in your life who you're comfortable with and who make you happy.

Remember that what you're thinking or mental images that pop into your head aren't evil, it doesn't mean that you have a crush on them, that you actually want to do sexual things with them, that you can't be their friend, or anything like that... they're just thoughts. You didn't choose them. Just let them pass.

Your surroundings and triggers are incredibly important things to stay on top of though, be that to mitigate stress in social situations, or to prevent you from engaging in more sex/masturbation than you want to or than is safe for you to.

Don't spend your day in the same place that you masturbate - even if you don't live alone you can avoid being in bed when you're in your room, you could get a sofa, beanbag, comfy chair, gigantic cushion, or other comfortable place to sit in your bedroom so that you don't have to be in your bed, and put that in a part of your room with different posters/decoration to those around your bed.

Lots of things can become associated with certain behaviours in your brain, from sitting in a certain place to feeling a certain emotion. Try to avoid being too exposed to those things at times when you don't intend to be doing something sexual, and replace them with other things that make you happy, keep you distracted, and aid in training concentration and willpower (maths games, board games, card games, puzzles, reading, cooking, exercise, drawing, writing, etc).

Even things like separating any porn or sexual pictures in your phone into a hidden folder instead of having it pop up when you go to look for pictures, or keeping magazines or the pornhub bookmark out of sight, can really help with lessening the regularity with which things pop into your head.

Finally, and I've hinted at it throughout this, mindfulness and meditation are things that many addicts find incredibly helpful. It's really worth doing some googling, watching some YouTube videos, and learning those techniques (and it's good to be doing research in general into ways to help addictions or hypersexuality disorders, because there are quite a few schools of thought and there are probably a lot of things that I've missed).

Meditation, like reading and exercise, helps train your mind into maintaining focus, not reacting to distractions and urges, relaxing, letting thoughts pass by, and being less hectic and loud - it also has health benefits, can help you sleep, can help you take time from your busy schedule to yourself (an urge that may have been previously feeding the addictions instead, as they can be linked to a need for control), and can help you work through thoughts or anxieties.

Mindfulness helps in various ways too - for example, smokers found that being mindful (observing, essentially) helped them quit because it led to them paying more attention to how bad the cigarette tasted, and it also allowed them to non-judgmentally observe the cravings that they felt, observe why they were feeling those cravings, and allow them to pass by. It's about letting your thoughts exist, letting things exist, acknowledging them, but not letting them control you.

You can study mindfulness for yourself - research it online, read one of the many books about it, watch YouTube videos, etc - or you can go to the doctor and ask for a therapy that teaches mindfulness (I found learning about it in my own time more helpful, and have had more success with that, but I think that was mostly related to not having a great therapist - plus, online gives me more opportunities to look into the how and why, to see how other people do it, to look deeper into it, to take as long as I need, while therapy was just an elderly lady snapping at me for using my phone and telling me to imagine that my thoughts are clouds and distracting me constantly).

So yeah...

Step 1: Go to the doctors for that pain, it's probably something minor but it's better safe than sorry.

Step 2: Do more research, Mod Vape doesn't know everything.

Step 3: Keep a diary and try to isolate what things are triggering you, what you're feeling beforehand, and be mindful of what you're thinking, what you're feeling, and what you're gaining/losing from the experience.

Step 4: Try to keep yourself away from things that trigger you, but also remember that you don't have to entirely abstain from valuable things - you can train new reactions as responses to those things, you can work on self-control, and so on.

Step 5: Work on your routine, diet, exercise, habits, and hobbies, so that you can improve your willpower, motivation, and health.

Step 6: Research and practice meditation and mindfulness.

Step 7: Set and work towards small goals, rewarding yourself for successes and keeping track of your progress.

Step 8: If you can't control the addiction or behaviour, if the thoughts are becoming difficult to live with, if these problems continue to cause you distress, there is no shame in seeking professional help. You don't have to do this alone.

Remember that chemical imbalances and other neurological issues can cause such things - if you can't manage it alone, that could be a warning sign that something serious or physiological is going on. Not being able to quit doesn't necessarily mean that somebody's "not trying hard enough", and instead of beating yourself up talk to somebody who can do blood tests, scans, or whatever else is necessary to make sure that you're okay and that you overcome your struggles.

~ Vape

[clownmoontoon]

So wait you went to SCAD right? Did you ever graduate? Why did you drop animation? What was your major?

omgg lots of questions in one ask!! i’ll answer them in parts if you dont mind haha uwu/((also apologies if i come across bitter this was a tumultuous time u_u))((also under a cut bc it got long haha))

🌟 1st part:

yup yup i went to scad for two years (i think..it may have been 1 and some months idk its been a long time), and nope! i am a total art school drop out haha

i didnt even fully realize i was a drop out til this year bc for a while i always had the intention of going back as soon as my money situation was a bit more reliable. not to brag, but i did have quite a sizeable scholarship to attend, however the money was dispersed throughout my intended duration there so there was still a bit i had to come up w on my own. i could do it for a while, but wasnt able to keep it up so i was forced to take an extended leave until i could. the scad people were actually really gracious about it and did what they could to help me! but man private art school is E X P E N S I V Emy mom once described the price like i was going to become a doctor or a lawyer and there’s a running joke about scad being the “harvard of art”. idk about all that but the price tag sure fits haha

but when i realized i had improved a thousand times more out of art school than i ever did in it, i had no real drive to return at all. ((i’ll save my thousands of dollars for anime merch tyvm))

🌟 2nd part:

omg well to understand why i dropped animation you must understand that as a teenager i was a cocky little shit. bc i had never met anyone who could draw better than me, i assumed no one else could (spoiler alert quite a lot of people could and can draw better than me HAHA). even tho i had met w the teachers and staff i still felt pretty good about my skill, and even when i started attending scad i was one of the best in my class so i figured i was hot shit.

its worth mentioning my online presence at that time was little to nothing so i had no exposure to other artists until i had started actively using my da and tumblr about a month into my scad life. i had never even thought about the advantages of digital art vs traditional art, OR EVEN SEEN A DRAWING TABLET much less used one. WHICH WAS IRONICALLY SOMETHING THAT WAS NEVER BROUGHT UP WHEN PICKING MAJORS DESPITE ALL MY PORTFOLIO BEING DONE IN PENCIL.

poor young moon was under the impression that scad would teach her how to do animation u_u but (as i know now, and have mentioned in other posts) you enter art school with knowledge from the work youve already done, then you hone it into a finer style. you dont go to art school to learn animation, you go to art school to get better at animation.  if you wanna go to art school for animation you should already have animation samples in your portfolio hahai didnt know this, and no one felt the need to tell me this at the time which still kinda pisses me off tbh

well no thats not what pisses me off, forgive me for going on a bit of a tangent to explain but when i had talked to my advisor about classes and majors it was decided that staying home and taking what classes i could online and then transferring to campus to finish the rest was the most cost effective solution, convincing me that when i arrived on campus is when they would give me hands on lessons about animation.

it wasnt until much later that i realized w the knowledge i had at the time there was absolutely no way i could handle animation, and im quite certain they were banking on me realizing this and switching majors. which i did.

i went in majoring in animation and minoring in sequential art. i ended up swapping the two in the end, but never actually made it to any real animation classes.

and you may think “but moon when you did research on the school and what was needed for the portfolio didnt you see that you needed animation samples??”

and tbh i did, but when i brought this up as a concern they assured me my art was well enough to bypass that bit for the animation course, and bc i was so full of myself i figured they were right.

tbqh it wasnt until i left scad that realized i had so much more to learn in just about everthing i had the raw talent but my actual skill was bottom of the barrel to be a great artist you need both so after i left scad there was a time when i needed money for my mom so i took on a shit ton of comms (as some of you might remember) and bc i was FORCED to draw everyday for over a year i automatically improved leaps and bounds from where i started, and from where i was in art school.

comparing the art i do now to the shit i made then is like looking at two completely different people’s work haha

i have no real conclusion for this other than that i stick to what ive said before; art school wont make you a great artist, only hard work will do that ♡