A Little Depressing Story

Many years ago, I felt suicidal; I didn’t have any passions. I thought my goal in life was to find work and get employed by someone. All this time, they were the wrong thoughts. I started having a mental illness in 2013 up until the end of 2018 and finally, in 2019, I’m more recovered than I expected. That mental illness led me to see visions and images. I assume some were fake and some were real. The ones I knew were real were visions of God and hearing him speak. His voice is almost like the sound of the wind whispering through the waters. When God appeared, he was mostly bright lights.

My creativity stems from having seen bright lights and lights being similar to light rays, which explains why I keep trying to paint light rays perfectly because most of the time during my illness, light rays would come through the window shining at me. I knew it was God. When I look up to the sky, I see clouds and the light rays would immediately shine down like it was acknowledging me.

My mental illness caused me to want to stay in bed all the time and I gave up on life. When I felt suicidal, I didn’t care about self-care. 

The depressing days are now over and I took upon a new passion or an old passion that I didn’t care to develop until now. It’s art!

Many times I feel discouraged not knowing how to paint a lot of subjects. Light rays, shading color, and blending are my main focus.

My first buyer received my painting yesterday and she seemed to like it. She motivates me to work hard and focus on my new passion. My dream is to work towards being a full-time self-employed artist.

How I Got Into Painting

1) I saw images during my mental illness. I thought it would be fun if I turned it into art. (Most people wouldn’t want to hear a depressing story like mines, so I rarely spoke of it anymore. I only mention it if someone asks me. I put my past away, but I got to say, I love what I saw! I talk about it, not because I dwell in the past. I just love how God heals a sick person.)

2) I saw Tornado Thien on YouTube. She spoke about being a beginner, but she loves painting and has been doing it since 2012. She sold over sixty paintings on Etsy! She also shows the steps in some of her past sales!

3) My first artwork got sold, which motivates me to continue. I painted the first one for fun, trying to turn my vision into an image on the canvas. My first buyer saw my work on this blog. When my first painting got sold, it was the happiest day of my life; someone liked my work.

Making art is more than you think! It takes time, thinking, planning, choosing the right colors and brushes, turning ideas into images, etc. Sometimes those ideas don’t come out the way you expected it to because it also depends on your skill level. 

I’m a beginner artist who strives to make painting a full-time job, but sometimes I get stuck making something look the way I wanted to look on canvas! For example, painting light rays. It looks easier than it seems, but it’s harder than you think! It requires a square brush and I don’t have all of my tools ready. To get those perfect light rays requires moving the watered-down paint a certain way; you have to move your hand quickly when you paint this subject.

1. You, Will, Want To Make Changes Into The Finished Piece.

When you feel confident that you’re done, the next day, you might feel the need to add more to it or make changes. It’s important to give yourself a deadline to tell yourself that it’s finished. It’s not good to stress over some small details especially if you can’t achieve it right away. You can always move on, finish the artwork and practice making it better on the next piece.

2. Sometimes Ideas Might Not Come.

For me, I don’t have much trouble getting an idea for my new painting; I already have a collection of images in my head that I want to paint. Oftentimes, many images are hard to transfer to canvas.

For someone else, their inspiration comes from their surroundings or the place they live. An artist would choose to paint water often because she lives in a setting that has beaches or oceans. Her setting would inspire her to paint a girl floating in the water or a girl swimming in the ocean.

3. Artists Don’t Create Many Pieces At Once.

Making art takes a lot of time, patience, creativity and attention to detail. In reality, you won’t make more than one painting per week. Or sometimes you make two paintings per week. It really all depends if the ideas have come to you. It also depends if you feel the motivation.

As a first time artist, there are some things that are difficult to paint. When I can’t paint the way I expect myself to, I stop working on painting that particular thing. It’s best to watch tutorials instead.

For artists, how does painting make you feel? How do you overcome an obstacle?

In 2018, My family thought I was crazy because I was destroying stuff. What led me to do that is I had a mental illness, psychosis; I was strapped to the moving hospital bed and was loaded into the ambulance. My eyes were closed the whole time. All I saw were beaming bright lights like the lights from heaven were shining on me. As the ambulance drove, I saw nothing but whiteness. It was a real vision.

“For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.” – Matthew 25:14

Having psychosis in the past felt terrible; I was living in constant fear and paranoia; I saw many scary and beautiful images at different times. If it wasn’t for this mental illness, I wouldn’t have the ideas to paint my two paintings.

My relatives would tell me to forget about it and to not focus on it. I don’t dwell on the past, but I remember memorable memories of Jesus manifesting himself to me. This is something most people don’t understand. When God manifests himself to us, we need to remember who he is and his greatness; we should never forget that he cares about his sheep.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” – John 10:27

Lastly, I want to thank the first buyer of my first ever acrylic painting. It means so much to me. I appreciate the support and that first payment was spend on buying more art materials. It was a huge encouragement; difficult to explain in words how grateful I feel. I’m so thankful she found me.

The first time I got started on my first painting, I felt scared and uncertain. I have never painted using acrylics on canvas. The only time I ever got to work on real art was when I was young in elementary school, high school and college. 

In 2017, God showed me a lot of beautiful visions. I saw Jehovah when my eyes were closed. He was in white and gold; the light surrounding him was shining on me. The visions I saw were so pretty, it was an unforgettable, wonderful, and meaningful sight. That truly led me to want to create art, but at that time, I never did.

My mental illness used to be severe. I would hear voices giving me instructions and telling/guiding me what to do. My mother would call the ambulance to pick me up and get me admitted into the hospital; I was hearing voices and I didn’t sleep. They were some hallucinations. Relatives tell me to ignore all of those visions; they didn’t understand that those visions inspire me to make works of art.

I don’t believe they were all hallucinations. I believe it was God manifesting himself to me and showing me a glimpse of his kingdom/heaven. 

Many of the world’s most famous artists suffered from mental illness and hallucinations, so it wasn’t an entirely bad thing to have it. Now that the days of hallucinations are over, I have strange dreams instead.

“Vincent van Gogh likely struggled with a range of mental illness, including depression, bipolar disorder, and hallucinations.” –  Ali Berman

I don’t view hallucinations as necessarily a negative thing. If it wasn’t for the mental illness, I wouldn’t be creating prophetic artwork. Many years of hallucinations led me to have ideas for my future paintings. I can name having at least six images I’ll be creating in the future.

“Edvard Munch credited his mental illness for inspiring many of his creative works, including his most famous painting, ‘The Scream.'” –  Ali Berman

“My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder … my sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art.” – Edvard Munch

“Illness, insanity and death were the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life.” – Edvard Munch

What are your thoughts about hallucinations being an inspiration?

Be inspired. Learn. Take action. My biggest inspiration and motivation came from watching Tila Tequila aka Tornado Thien on YouTube. She goes live multiple times a day talking about God, world events, and painting. She’s a YouTuber who inspired me so much, which led me to take action for the first time. That action was to create artwork.

How do we take action?

Watch YouTube videos of someone famous who is already successful. Learn about what they do and model after them. Recognize your talents and passions. Search “How To” videos for ideas and methods on anything and everything you want to do. Follow YouTubers who teaches about your focused subject. Apply the methods to your own life.

Practice and work on your passion daily. Look at examples and tutorials. Pay attention to small details. Try to memorize skillful techniques. These are my personal methods that actually works, that changes my mindset.

What are your methods for taking action?

“Jehovah’s Calling” acrylic painting, 30x30cm, July 5, 2019.

One day I was sleeping in the daytime, my eyes were closed completely. I was very sick. I saw a vision of heaven, there was Jehovah sitting on his throne with others sitting next to him. He was calling out to me. He taught me that his righteous standards are high and I should always look above and know that his standards are high. This was in 2017.

Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. – Matthew 5:48

Do you like art? What do you enjoy creating?

I thought about giving up on blogging. My reasons were that I didn’t know if anyone was going to read it, but I have decided to resume anyway.

I thought, “How is my content valuable?” 

I thought about giving up on painting when my artwork didn’t come outright. I thought I made a mistake with the choice of colors, then I feel discouraged. But I thought of a way to solve the problem. Wait for the first acrylic layer to dry, then apply another layer. That was all I had to do.

“Take risks. If you succeed, you will be happy. If you fail, you will be wiser.” – Russell Brunson

I also thought about giving up on writing a book. Books are valuable knowledge and information you’re sharing with other people. I still think. “How can I write a piece of resourceful information?” I haven’t start and I was going to quit, but I decided to put in my list of things I want to accomplish. It might not happen today, tomorrow, next week, next month, but it’s a project and I’m going to name it “a hobby.”

“All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” – Russell Brunson

Losing followers on Twitter discouraged me yesterday, but today I’m gaining some. My solution is to not give up and keep doing what you love.

“Take care of your dreams and they’ll end up taking care of you one day.” – Lewis Howes

Are you doing what you love for a living?

My inspirations come from artists, authors, YouTubers and entrepreneurs. There are some days I hardly feel inspired. Creating content can be difficult when you’re faced with running out of ideas or you don’t think your content brings in traffic. But we should never stop to create.

“Consistency is harder when no one is clapping for you. You have to clap for yourself during those times. You should always be your biggest fan.” – Dean Graziosi

My latest inspiration comes from watching a YouTuber who speaks about her Christian faith and she also paints many paintings. She calls them prophetic and she never took painting classes, but she knows how to paint very well. She managed to get more than ten of her paintings sold on Etsy.com. This is an example of an inspiration.

What motivates you to keep doing what you’re doing? Let me know in the comments.

The best time of the day to write, for me, is mostly at night. Ideas come to my mind when night approaches. The nighttime is the best time to work on anything; it’s quiet and the weather is different from the morning; the wind is soft and cool. There are no external distractions. There is no noise from the car engines. No kids and adults shouting outside. I live in a neighborhood that sometimes gets noisy during the daytime when kids get off from school.

There are many benefits of working at nighttime. Well, I’m not actually really working. I mostly try to write every single day, but during the daytime is the hardest time to think, focus and jot down ideas. I’m also very sleepy during the daytime. I’m mostly a night owl. 

The best time for creative ideas is when you have nothing left to do because you’ve already done them in the morning and in the daytime. My daytime tasks consist of cleaning, watering plants and organizing. My nighttime is spent on the computer, not having to worry about daily routine tasks.

I don’t like to turn on my computer too early and wait for inspiration; it usually doesn’t happen. Inspiration comes to my mind when least expected. Ideas don’t happen in the morning.

Do you like to write at night? Feel free to leave some feedback.

VampireFreaks.com is a gothic-industrial subculture social networking website similar to Myspace and Facebook. But it seems to target punks, goths, and freaks. The site is created and founded by Jet in 1999. Programming / Design was done by Jet, also.

Signing up on the site allows you to create a profile, upload pictures, add friends, message people, write journal entries, comment on profiles, join groups called “cults”, add musicians, rate profiles, like images and participate in forums. Using the site is free and it also has a paid premium option that you can upgrade to for additional features. The site has been around for 20 years, but it was announced recently that it will be shut down on Feb 1, 2020.

VampireFreaks also has its own clothing store that will still be up after the site gets deleted. They also run a convention, Dark Side Of The Con. In the site’s about section, it was written, “With over 16 years of experience throwing events such as Cybertron and Triton Festival, they have booked high-profile bands from across the globe and are a top player in the underground scene.”

Here is the actual update from the website:

RIP VF Social Network [Featured Site Content]

I’ve been running VampireFreaks for 20 years now and it’s been a great experience.
So many ups and downs, and the website has brought so many people together. It’s been a lot of work, but hearing stories about people finding their spouses / loved ones on VF has always made it worthwhile.
VampireFreaks has always been a labor of love. Recently, running the VF social network just hasn’t been enjoyable for me anymore. 
I’ve always taken pride in being part of a community of weirdos and freaks that can relate to each other and be supportive of each other. To be honest, it’s just lost its magic to me. The internet isn’t the same place it was 15-20 years ago and I’m not the same person I was either. I’d like to have our website be remembered as being a great inclusive community. I just don’t want to live my life online anymore, I like having my privacy.
So I’ve decided to take down the VampireFreaks social network starting on February 1st 2020. This gives everyone over 6 months notice. If you have a premium member subscription, I recommend cancelling before this date, but we will be cancelling any subscriptions once the site is taken down. Effective immediately we are not allowing any new account creation.
VampireFreaks will still exist as the VampireFreaks Online Store and as an event promotions company and you can still follow us on social media. The VF online clothing store continues to flourish and you can always find us for your wardrobe needs. Our flagship event Dark Side of the Con has been doing amazingly well and growing by leaps and bounds every year. We have Steampunk Con this weekend which is a big 3-day steampunk convention in NJ. Our NYC club nights have been doing very well. I’m also a freelance website programmer and I’m always trying out new projects and I just have too many things going on. VF will continue to bring people together, but in real life at events such as Dark Side of the Con. I know this limits us to only people in certain areas, but it’s more fulfilling for us and we hope to expand to more areas. I’ve spent so much of my time online and I’ve realized that nothing compares to just spending quality time with your friends and loved ones, interacting with the real world.

To everyone who has supported VF over the past 20 years – Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ve received countless messages over the years from members showing appreciation for the site. 
To the VF Admins and staff – Thanks for doing an amazing job, I couldn’t have done this without you.
I know a part of me will die with the closure of our social network. It will be a depressing time for me and it’s hard for me to even write this out. 20 years is a lifetime in internet years. We had a great run and I’ll always be proud of what VF was. I just don’t want to do the same thing for the rest of my life and I want to focus on what works for me. 
Much love.
-jet

Q & A written in the founder’s bio.

“Why did I create VF? It was something I just did for fun while I was in college, and I just kept working on it. It’s become a community of dark-minded individuals, a place where we can be ourselves without worrying about judgement, and also a place we can feel at home. VF has been around for a billion years just like me. One day the humans will catch on to my immortality but for now I will lurk among the normies.”

“Do you have to be a gothick to be on VF? nope but you do have to be a weirdo.”

What was the purpose of this site?

Meet like-minded people who share the same interest in fashion, music, movies and the gothic subculture. But in the present day, it has become a place for trolls. The site is no longer accepting new account creations.

VampireFreaks wasn’t the same as it used to be. I remember joining for the first time when I was 14 years old, which was a decade ago. The users were a different group of people. I would say they were more into the old school goth music. Now, the site became a completely different place. I get asked for my personal email and instant messaging username from people who don’t have a profile picture.

Why did I write this entry?

To bid farewell to the only unique Gothic social media that ever existed. After the deletion, there will be no more Gothic social media.

What are your opinions about a social media site targeting to a certain group of people?