Personal Post

 I haven't produced as much work as I would have liked to, 'm admittedly disappointed in myself, and I want to provide a little bit of context as to what has happened to me since March when the Coronavirus started to become a bigger issue in the world and lockdown was enforced in the UK.

To start with, my grandad passed away during the exact time which brought up some terrible and traumatic things from the past for me which resulted in me reaching out to undertake counselling from university over Zoom calls. My best friend from childhood took her life not soon after and left behind her little son, and I had to take self-isolating extremely seriously as someone with severe asthma and a compromised immune system. I've worked very hard these past few years to be self-sufficient and independent with my Guide Dog and suddenly this was taken away from me. I no longer had my freedom, stuck inside the same 4 walls of my student accommodation, and could not work my dog; something which was extremely challenging at first as she was used to being so active. A lot of residents / students went home at this time to be with their families and I had nowhere to go back to. My mum is at home who had a severe stroke 2 years ago and I would become her full-time carer if I went home - no work would get done at all. I struggled to get food and medication now I wasn't going out to get it myself, with delivery slot priorities going to the elderly and not including the disabled. My eating disorder reared its ugly head and I was off my antidepressants until Shelly in Student Welfare reached out and helped me to put things in place. Motivation was extremely low and I was feeling the effects of extreme isolation from being on my own with no family or friends in Leeds. My mental health quickly deteriorated and my antidepressant dosage was increased.

During my second extension in early June, with the deadline of August 10th, I was suffering with very severe migraines that felt like ht lava being poured into my brain and eyes. On June 11th, this resulted in further loss of my sight in my left eye (all peripheral vision gone and a lot of light perception gone). Visiting A&E and an Eye Specialist didn't provide a reason as to why this had happened to me, leaving me confused, upset, and grieving for what I'd lost. It's been extremely hard to adjust to what I have left and I'm deeply unhappy that it still hasn't come back and probably never will. My grandma passed away last week on August 1st,, the wife of the grandad I lost only a few months ago, which leaves me in a state of grievance again and feeling so awful for my dad who has lost both of his parents in the space of just 3 months.

Everything has weighed so heavy on me. I'm bearing everything on my own and still trying to do my degree with less sight now than I ever have had in my life and really terrible mental health. I just want my mum back and it's not going to happen. I have no one. I have seriously considered suicide twice this past month to get away from the constant pain and loneliness I feel as I really don't see this getting better for me. 

I just wanted to share this because I know I look like a useless student but I'm truly trying my best with the very little I have.

Personal: Sharing My Sight-Loss Story With Ghost en Espanol

 I was approached by Johy Campos of the fan page Ghost en espanol, who centre around news and discussion topics relating to my favourite band, Ghost, and translating those related articles into Spanish to post on their social media platforms of Facebook, YouTube and Instagram - reaching a Latin American audience upwards of 30,000 followers.

I was invited to share my experiences with the band which tie extremely closely to my sight loss story, from September 2018 to now, when my retinas detached and I had many complications and challenges to face in blindness. I was nervous to even address the request at first as I had never truly faced and reflected on what had happened to me, choosing to keep it bottled up and pushed to the back of my mind - hanging around me like a dark, heavy fog that I tried to ignore as much as possible very varying success.

I eventually came to starting to write the beginnings of my experience during the quarantine when things were very bad for me and I needed a distraction. The more I began to write, the closer I got to the day of my first retina detaching and living through that truly awful and stressful experience, alone, that I wouldn't wish on anybody. It was hard going back into my past, I had to take long pauses from writing and would have panic attacks, but when I calmed down enough to continue it began to be very therapeutic - like a self-directed counselling session. Eventually I had recounted the entire tale in 6,000 words and sent it to Johy so she could create a video for the channel and translate my story into Spanish.

I could never have guessed what would happen next.

Despite my original anxiousness and feeling hesitant to approach this task, it has now been composed into a beautiful video that has been viewed 48,366 times so far, has 3.7k likes and 263 comments. I amassed over 3,000 followers on my instagram reaching an entirely new audience of people who have been nothing short of supportive.

I decided to take my experience to Metal Hammer, making contact with online editor Dave Everely and magazine editor Merl Alderslade, who occasionally run reader stories. This is incredibly exciting for me to talk to people connected to a magazine I love so dearly and to build those contacts in the music industry that I would like to be situated in like illustrators like Sam Dunn.

Gathering a new audience and making new professional contacts, coming to terms with and accepting the tragic things that happened to me and using them for good has made me feel so much better. I now have big names in the industry like producer Tom Dalgety and music photographer Paul Harries following me!

...So what's next? Would I like to illustrate my blindness journey and what I can see now? Illustrate a range of materials for sight loss charities? A helpful guide? An inspiring tale? it's something to consider for level 6.