Ladiesss

ladiesss

ladiesss

Catching Up: Mental Health

If I could sum up the state of my mental health in a single word, it would be "improving."

When I got home from college and started my journey of self reflection to figure out what went wrong, I only knew one thing for certain: that I had some kind of anxiety disorder. I also thought that I might have autism, but I wasn't certain. A year and a half of counseling later, I learned that I may have four mental health conditions... sort of. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to continue counseling since I started working full-time, so I'm unable to clear the air on a few questions I have, but as of right now, this is the state of my mental health as I understand it.

Anxiety disorder is a given, of course. I got panic attacks, I was constantly on edge, and I had an overwhelming amount of negative self-talk. After discussing it with my counselor for a while, I talked to my doctor about taking medication, and found one that actually worked! It lowered my anxiety levels so much that I was able to start applying for jobs, which is how I finally started working full-time (more on this later). I took it for about three months total before I noticed it was affecting my mood too much, and stopped taking it (don't try this at home) – but the benefits have outlasted the medication, and I'm happy to say that my anxiety is now at a manageable level.

There is also an element of depression in the mix. To be honest, I've known this for a while and didn't want to admit it, but I can't escape from it any longer. Some of the traditional signs of depression are not present, but even now as I have a stable income and no homework, I still struggle to do any more than sit in bed in my spare time. Plus, depression is often comorbid with anxiety disorder, and both affect the same parts of the brain; it would be remiss of me to continue denying it. But because I show signs of both, and they're both so closely related, does that mean I have two disorders... or just one?

I also have autism, of course. I was always different in some way, which my mom noticed early on – that's why she decided to homeschool me for ten years. My special interest is video games, and it's how I made friends, where I looked for new hobbies, and even why I started learning computer science. I'm also hypersensitive to light and sound, to the point where I need sunglasses to go outside and noise-cancelling headphones to vacuum. It just makes sense.

But the one that surprised me the most was learning that I have ADHD! Specifically, ADHD-Inattentive, the artist formerly known as ADD. Looking back, this is obvious; I was always a spacey kid, and I could barely focus even on things I enjoy without drifting off into my own thoughts. There are posts here on my blog from years ago that I could retroactively say, "Yeah, that's typical ADHD," and I had no idea at the time. Plus, just like with depression and anxiety, ADHD and autism are often comorbid as well. In fact, I've learned so much about them both in the last year, that I can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. Again, this makes me wonder whether I have them both, or just one of them – but at least I've narrowed it down.

As I said towards the beginning, I haven't been able to resume counseling or even see a doctor for a while. However, I just started taking vitamin D in the meantime, and so far, I'm showing signs of improvement! I don't know whether it will make enough of a difference, but we'll see how it goes in the long run. I've read a few things about how vitamin D deficiency can worsen depression, energy levels, hypersensitivity, and even executive dysfunction – I'm only taking a small dose, but I hope it will make a dent at least.

So to sum up: I have something in between anxiety and depression, which is on a path of steady improvement ever since getting out of college and finding a stable income. And I also lie somewhere between autism and ADHD, which will always be a part of me, but I'm learning to work with in healthy ways. It's a lot to keep track of, but it's finally a comprehensive list.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not On Nintendo Switch!

Catching Up: Retrush

Before working, before college, before even this blog, my earliest days on the Internet were spent toying with a little fangame called Mari0, a mashup of Super Mario Bros. and Portal. It was my first time with a Mario level editor, and I made tons of mappacks – everything from traditional Mario levels to Portal-style puzzles, and even a mappack where Mario can't jump. My latest project, Retrush, is a speedrunning mappack where you have a limited amount of time to get from checkpoint to checkpoint, and I'm really proud of how it's coming along!

However, I started work on it in 2014... and five years later, the mappack is still not finished. What gives?

First, a little context. Retrush started out as a tileset demo of sorts, to see what kinds of levels I could make with just the tiles from the original SMB, but with tons of different color palettes for each tile (also all from SMB). I had no shortage of ideas – a fiery cavern, a train chase, an abandoned aquarium – and the "hook" of having limited time for each section of the level was a lot of fun! So I decided to make twelve levels, which I thought was plenty of levels to play without being too overboard to work on. College slowed my output on this considerably, but even still, I had ten of the twelve levels finished within a year or so.

As I was starting to wrap things up (I even sent out a beta to several people), I had an idea: what if there were extra challenges for each level after you finish? Say, scouting the level for red coins or having to beat the whole level in one run (no deaths). It was supposed to be a quick way to add extra content for people who wanted more to do.

But like all things I make, it spiraled out of control, and became Red Coin Remixes. Each level still has the same layout, but all the enemies and obstacles are rearranged, and the challenge is increased. Even the color palettes are changed, so now the fiery cavern becomes an icy one, the aquarium becomes a chemical plant, and so on. Rather than a quick way to re-use content, it effectively means there are twice as many levels to make!

And then, in the process of making the remix levels, I got an itch to make some more levels from scratch. It's hard to pass up on the idea of a desert level with a shimmering, hazy sky whose remix is a seabed with shimmering refracted light. I decided to make four more to round out the level count, which is actually eight more levels including the remixes...

And that's the story of how I went from 12 levels to 32 levels.

That said, it has been five years. You'd think I would be close to done with them by now. And I am! At the time of this writing, twenty levels are completed (or mostly completed), six levels are in progress, and the other six haven't been started for various reasons. I've made a bunch of animated tiles and backgrounds, tons of custom enemies including an Unagi with custom graphics (my first pixel art!), and systems for keeping track of Red Coins collected and resetting them on death (which do not exist directly in Mari0).

Obviously, progress has been slow because of mental health issues and working full-time. But even with that, I'm fairly certain I could finish all the levels and polish everything up with two or three months of focused effort. The reason I haven't finished Retrush isn’t really about the number of levels, or the graphics, or the polish, or even being an adult.

The reason... is music!

At first, I had no idea what music I wanted to add to the mappack. I tried using music from Kirby Canvas Curse, but I couldn't find good tracks for some of the levels. Once I added the Red Coin Remixes, all pretense of finding a fitting soundtrack was out the window. I need a song for every level in the game, with tracks that fit both the original level and the remix – and frankly, that's not happening. So I took the only logical course of action and decided to compose my own soundtrack.

I've kept quiet about this for a while, partly because I wanted it to be a surprise, but mostly because I didn't know whether I would actually follow through with it. I've always wanted to make music, but this is my first time doing so, and it's for a [checks notes] 30+ track OST. That's a lot even for a seasoned composer! Eventually I realized that, in my mind, Retrush would be incomplete without an original soundtrack. So, whether or not I actually can do this, I have committed myself to trying.

I was hoping to have something to show before I actually announced this, but frankly, this is the biggest stonewall in Retrush's development by far. Due to working full-time and struggling to learn Famitracker and music theory, I only have a handful of tracks in various states of completion, all from two years ago. I've felt like there's some aspect of composition that I haven't picked up on, and once I "get it" I'll finally hit the ground running... but that's simply not how real life works, and in the meantime the rest of the mappack is languishing.

You might be wondering, "why are you doing this to yourself?" The answer is that, before I started working full-time, it seemed within my reach. Now, I don't have the energy to push myself that hard – to make something so big while learning how to do it along the way. I've done this before with other things, which is why I continue to aim that high so frequently... but I don't know if I can at this point in my life, as much as I want to.

Regardless, Retrush is still one of my most important projects on deck, and I still intend to finish it at some point... with or without music.

Catching Up: The Blog

It's hard to believe that I've been running this blog for over seven years. That's the majority of my time on the internet! But besides the passage of time, it doesn't seem like that long because I kinda stopped keeping up with it about halfway through for various reasons – some of which include college, depression, Twitter, guilt, and trying to start a new blog from scratch (which also got tabled...). Regardless, I have the time, energy, and drive to write again, and this is the perfect space to do so!

Still, picking a blog back up after years of being in and out of the habit is a strange position to be in. Where do I even start? Do I comb through years of Twitter threads and forgotten projects to get my audience up to speed, or just pick back up with journaling like nothing happened? Dig through the past, or focus on the future?

How about I just... talk about the present!

Here's the plan: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through the rest of the year, I'll talk about how an important aspect of my life is going – whether it's a life update, a project I'm working on, or a bit of self-reflection. Some of this will be stuff I've talked about on Twitter already, but I'll be adding new context to them where I can... and even reveal some secrets I've been hiding. So there's something new for everyone, regardless of where or how long you've been reading!

Self-promotion aside, I'm also using this as a way of closing out the decade. As you'll see very soon, the 2010s have been a tumultuous few chapters of my life. So, I'm more than happy to wrap it up in a neat little bow, put it all behind me, and look towards a brighter future. (...Hopefully.)

Of course, life doesn't change just because the calendar does. But in the past year alone, I've been able to address some of the biggest challenges looming over me, even some that have lasted since the beginning of the decade. There's still a long way to go, but I'm proud of the progress I've made... and even a little confident that the rest will come in due time.

So it's time to slow down for a bit, look at how things are going, take stock of what needs to be done, and head into 2020 with hope for the future.