Though I don't draw, I do write... And funnily enough, JTA (the story i'm currently posting) started off as a way for me to just relieve my own personal angst.
I actually started writing over 7 years ago a prototype version of my story, and as most writers do end up, I started oozing my own personal issues into the script... Things that affected me, personal insecurities, fetishes , emotional copouts... Everything.
This caused me to never really be satisfied with my story... Because i was never satisfied with myself... And I was needleslly harsh with my characters because i wanted to punish the own side of me i placed in them.
As the years passed i learned how to dissociate myself from the characters,
The newer versions of my boys have some of those very same problems, but i learned how to take the 'ugly' inside me and express it well enough to make it into something more powerful and meaningful that they can feel without it being just flat out torture, as well as to stop putting all of me inside them in order to allow them to be themselves.
I still use a lot of my own experiences as basis. A lot of the darkest moments and thoughts my characters express are thoughts i have also had at some point inside myself... But in allowing them to deal with those thoughts i also found how to deal with them myself, and that has made me a better and kinder person overall.
I made the newest version of my main character a lot like me because i wanted people who go through the same depressive episodes i do to have someone to look up to, a hero that goes through the same things they do... And nowadays I can look at them as separate entities from me, allow them to have their voice, opnions and feel more real.
So yeah, be kind to yourselves folks, don't beat youself down to much about the dark things inside you.
They are part of who you are and though they sure suck, you can harness them to make your art resonate better. ^^