QuantumPhysica

Given that I'm a diagnosed psychiatric patient, it's probably a bit late to realize this. (But then, schizophrenia and emotional trauma are absolutely not the same thing, so cut me some slack.)

As a child I was bullied rather fiercely. However, as soon as I started taking care of my appearance and stopped acting like a socially inept moron, it ended. By the time I was 16, the bullying stage was behind me, as was most of the social awkward. Knowing that there are people who experience the worst bullying around this age, I didn't have the worst lot by far.
I never felt suicidal because of bullying. I never cut or hurt myself because of it. I didn't develop my -largely genetic- personality disorder because of it. All in all, I kinda thought it was just a nasty phase in my life that had come and gone and left nothing but some shitty memories. 

Lately however, I've started thinking about a recurring thing. 
I don't cry easily. But some subjects, some conversations (if they're pushed and continued long enough) reduce me to tears. And it's always those memories that resurface then. Seven year old me in a circle of kids having her pigtails pulled and her home-made sweater spat on. Eight year old me on the last bench, the only one without a class neighbor because no one wanted to sit next to her. Ten year old me deeply humiliated by a "tell her the popular kid is in love with her" plot. Twelve year old me being called a "hairy ape" and "a flat board bitch" and not getting the sex-related jokes because she was dumb and sheltered. I could continue. 

1. How long have you been on DeviantArt?

   4 years

2. What does your username mean?

   "Quantumphysica" was originally inspired by my love of quantum physics and science in general. Now it is my internet alias, and I consider it as much "my name" as the one on my ID. It means "me" to me now. 

3. Describe yourself in three words.

   Very Difficult Character

4. Are you left or right handed?

   Right

5. What was your first deviation?

   Probably something shitty. I originally made a dA account because my then best friend had one, not because I made any substantial art. 

6. What is your favourite type of art to create?

   Artisan crafts. I have come to love sewing, embroidering, beading, and all those things. I'm more of a crafter than an artist per se, I think. 

7. If you could instantly master a different art style, what would it be?

   Traditional art, drawing. I would love, Love, LOVE to be able to draw beautiful Silmarillion fanart, but I can't even draw stick figures, sadly enough. 

8. What was your first favorite?

   I'm not sure, but I think it was "Linda's New Wardrobe" by NanzzyRulezz, a fanart for an original fic I published on Gaia Online several years ago.



9. What type of art do you tend to favourite the most?

   It has evolved. I used to favorite mostly photography and photo-manipulation; these days I mostly favorite traditional and digital drawings, (Silmarillion fandom mainly). 

10. Who is your all-time favourite deviant artist?

    Really difficult to say! I don't have an "all time favorite" really, but a list of people I hugely admire. goldseven, Ophelia-Overdose, daLomacchi, KL-WireDream, EKukanova, Re-Maker, sassynails, AelinLaerFineArt,… The list goes on and on! 

11. If you could meet anyone on DeviantArt in person, who would it be?

    ThornyDelusions

12. How has a fellow deviant impacted your life?

    Previously mentioned ThornyDelusions was an incredible friend and support through a very tough time in my life. He probably saved my life a couple times, simply by being there for me when no one else was.

13. What are your preferred tools to create art?

    Sewing machine, fabric, thread, needle, beads… 

14. What is the most inspirational place for you to create art?

    The privacy of my own room

15. What is your favourite DeviantArt memory?

    All the support and encouragement I received when I started posting journals about my life on the closed psych ward. 

1) Ugly, deformed breasts.

I'm having surgery in September (removal of a rather large -5cm diameter- fibroadenoma in my right breast), and I am really, really worried that my breast will come out looking ugly and deformed. Shallow, right? I don't care about the surgery, the anesthetic, the pain, the healing process… I just want my boobs to look good. They're quite small (B cup) so a deformation would really stand out, and because I'm childless and still fertile, the surgeon said she wouldn't do reconstruction right away as that might make breastfeeding impossible on that side. 
…
I have had complexes about my tiny boobs for years. And now I have finally accepted them and learned to love their perky smallness, they're going to get cut up and I'll be once again faced with crippling insecurity. 
…
But more than me not liking them, I'm terrified that my boyfriend will find my boobs a turnoff after the surgery. I really like him liking them. There are enough options where he doesn't have to see them (like every back-to-him sex position, or I can just wear a nice bra like they do in the movies, no prob), but still. It's another point against me on the girlfriend checklist. 

2) My boyfriend falling in love with someone else

Doesn't that sound horribly insecure? Honestly, it's not that I don't trust my man, and it isn't that I think he doesn't love me. The problem is that I'm not sure if he were to suddenly "fall in love" (aka feel strong physical/chemical attraction to another woman), he would choose our +3 years of steady, loving, sexually satisfying companionship over the thrill of something new and exciting. And while I'm not opposed to sharing him, he wouldn't be open to that. He's an all-or-nothing sort of guy. 
I know that I would choose him over a "fling", no matter how strong the attraction. I wouldn't lightly throw away what we have. I just wish I knew for sure he felt the same about that.

3) Not getting my diploma (Also, never getting anywhere in life)

I need to get my diploma, because if everything falls apart, I need to be able to sustain myself. I'd work any odd job to pay for rent and food, but I want to have perspective on something better or I won't last long with my (fragile) sanity intact. I'm terrified I won't make it. 
I had so many big dreams, of seeing places and meeting people, of having an interesting job and a place of my own, of making a living doing what I love, of being admired… Right now, it seems as if all that is further away than the furthest destination on my "I wish I could travel there" list. I almost don't dare to think about it because the utter disappointment I feel in myself is so toxic and paralyzing. 

So… I got my exam results. And guess what? They Were The Best Fucking Grades I Got Since Getting Out Of The Psych Ward. Hell yes! I only failed one course, and it was only 9/20 so not even a deep flunk. I had one 10, one 11, two 12's, a 13, and a 15. Anything above 11 counts as "relatively decent" here, so those grades weren't half bad. 

And still… I'm not content.
I kinda hate myself for it because I thought I would be exhilarated about results like these, and I'm kinda… not. When I failed 7 courses, all under 8/20, I thought just passing everything would make me the happiest person in the world… But it didn't. At all. 

All over my Facebook page there are people who seem to have their shit together. And yes, I know it's all "curated life" and no one puts their misery on there, but still. Old friends and classmates are graduating now, getting their first jobs, getting a PhD, traveling the world, going to raves and hanging out at festivals… and I'm still just… here. Stuck. With vaguely decent grades. Doing nothing remotely interesting with my life. 

Today I had a meeting with my study coordinator, and she told me straight out that I don't have to worry about using my Tolerance Credits* because that only matters for people who want to get a PhD or apply for a foreign scholarship, and it's highly unlikely someone like me -AKA a schizophrenia patient with a crap attendance record and shitty, shitty grades on average- would do any of those. 
*In the Belgian university system you can "tolerate" a limited number of failed courses if the grade is no less than 8/20 so you don't have to retake them, using what is called Tolerance Credits. Using it is a little frowned upon as it affects your eventual diploma grade. 
I grinned and told her "yeah, indeed, highly unlikely isn't it?" and we had a laugh about it. 
… 
When I got outside I cried my fucking eyes out. 

I know, rationally, that I should be happy. I know that many people who live with mental illness don't have the chance to finish formal education, and that my situation isn't bad at all. I should count my blessings and thank the universe on my bare knees for all what's given me. And trust me, often I do. But when the coordinator so plainly stated that I don't have to hope for anything more than just barely passing and graduating… it was as if something inside me died that I didn't know was still alive. I believed I had buried all my dreams of praise and admiration and actually getting somewhere in life when I got diagnosed, but it turns out I didn't. Something deep inside deludedly hoped that even though I went from "highly promising science student" to "schizophrenic near-dropout", I could still achieve things and be awesome. 

And reality fucking hurts. 

I'm almost 21. My young years are as good as over! And I still want so much. I want to travel. I want to experience things, meet people and see places, party until the morning light, hitchhike and coach-surf and whatnot. I want to feel like I'm alive and not just existing. But the reality is that none of that is likely to ever happen, and that hurts so much.

I kinda hope this is the last broken dream. The last time I'll cry about the train wreck that is my life and the joke that all my high aspirations have become. I fear it won't be though. There's always hope at the bottom of Pandora's Box, sadly enough. 

We all need something. An illusion of certainty. A thing to fill the void, to soothe the pains of life, to hold on to when everything seems to fall apart. I came to that conclusion back in fourth grade, when I conjectured that praying to a deity was in essence no different than obsessive compulsive behavior, as both stemmed from the innate inability of humans to deal with the innate uncertainty of being.
I was rather conceited in those days. I hung on to science, to math and physics, to calculations, formulas and theorems, no less than a religious person hangs on to their faith or an OCD sufferer to his rituals. And in that illusion of certainty, I thought myself invulnerable. 

When I lost my attachment to science, I lost everything. Everything that gave my life meaning, direction and stability was gone, and along with it everything that defined me as a person. I fell apart. And in the face of that existential emptiness, that uncontrollable uncertainty… things became possible that no properly developed conscience would ever consider. 

It's a scary thing, to realize that you don't have a properly developed conscience. That perhaps such a thing doesn't even exist. That you are fully capable of inhumanity. 

The emptiness science had left in my mind gave room to desires and urges I had never had before. I was constantly on the edge of either killing myself or killing someone else. The urge, the need to destroy was enormous. My whole worldview was warped. Eventually I mostly destroyed what relationship I still had with my parents and then-friends (who all tried their best to keep me alive and on the straight and narrow), but that didn't matter to me at the time. I was just waiting for the right chance to slowly savor someone's death at my hands. 

This is how I became a fan of Tolkien's work, specifically the Silmarillion. I'm still not sure how it happened, but… somehow it touched me, in the place that I then thought would be empty forever. Maybe it was the story itself; of valiant characters warped and twisted by their own determination, of love and loss and irreparable tragedy, of losing everything you believe in and everything you stand for and still going on, of eventual self-destruction. Maybe it rung true to me. I don't know. All I know is that I clung to it like a drowning person to a chunk of driftwood. 

It's not even that farfetched a thing to turn to, really. The role of fantasy literature in combating alienation and anomie has been a topic of actual, serious sociological research. (Not kidding. Just type in "Tolkien" and "anomie" in Google Scholar and you'll find a plethora of real scientific articles about this.) People turn to fantasy to escape the disenchantment of society and life in general. I am no different. I know that now.
In a way, my love of the Silmarillion fills up the void. Not completely though, and that's good. That keeps me from making the same mistake I made with math and physics, the mistake that cost me both my sanity and the love of nearly everyone who ever cared for me. It's not the world. It's not my life. Yet... it makes both bearable. 

Sometimes I am reminded that not even the few people who indulge my fierce love of this slightly unusual topic truly share my obsession. That's always a -generally rude- wakeup call. But I'll accede that it's a necessary one. It deeply unsettles me, to know that I'm really just weird, that my passion is aimed at something pointless, that it's not entirely ok to be so devoted to a random book and that all of it isn't real. But it's necessary. (After all, we don't want me to end up as that one guy who attacked a car with his sword claiming he was a Noldorin high elf fighting Morgoth xD)
I can enjoy my life again. I can find beauty in things again. I have the strength to curb my destructive urges. I have stopped cutting myself, and I finally don't want to die anymore. I am actually happy every once in a while. The old me would have scoffed at such small, meaningless achievements, and sometimes I find I still do. I used to think big, aim for fame and the stars. Now I just want to not be miserable all the time. 

My pride isn't truly conquered. Unfortunately, perhaps. But -to say it with a Silmarillion analogy- I'm aiming to be more like Maglor and less like Maedhros when it comes to facing ultimate doom and failure. More endurance, less self-destruction. How is that for a resolution?