Anonymous asked: Hi mod! I'm an art student myself and recently I've had my confidence and faith in my work completely shattered. I was just wondering if you've ever experienced something similar and if you have how you came back from it, because right now I don't even want to look at my stuff let alone actually make anything.
I have. It is hard, it hurts, and it takes a long time to recover. You don’t think it should but it does, and it always does, and you may think that’s because the big shattered hurt feeling is so big and fills you up entirely, but rather it’s like the big wonderful thing that did fill you up is gone and that is so much worse because it suddenly occurs to you that you are small and fragile, but the truth of it is that the thing which has been taken from you is so big and wonderful that without it you feel vulnerable- and I say is, not was, because it is still there, and that is what you must remember. You will slowly find it again, in little pieces all over the floor or in the middle of a conversation, and it will be unexpected and gradual and unstable as you put it back together. Sometimes little bits will break off it again and it will feel like the whole jigsaw-puzzle will fall apart again- and it might, but you can start again, and indeed if you have the patience to live on then you will find that it does start again despite everything, because the big wonderful thing that has been so broken and flown away wants to fill up the space inside you, because nowhere and nothing else is exactly the shape and size and wonderful that you are- it loves you. So, be patient with yourself, not angry; you are frightened and hurt and that is how it will be for as long as it has to be, because it matters; if it did not matter it would not hurt so much, but you are able to recover. We are always able to recover if we are given the time and love we need, and there are people and pieces of art and music that will help with the love, but it will take time, and for that time you must be very brave and tolerant and not too cross with yourself, or you risk scaring away the big wonderful thing that wants so badly to come back to you. I wish you good luck, and maybe this will be the first thing that will push a little piece of that broken, big and wonderful thing that you are into coming back to you, because it will; you must believe that it will.