Your journey is really inspiring.
How my story Nina started, it started with a dream I had when I was in 9th grade. A girl with blonde hair smiled at me, I woke up that morning wondering who that person was, the weird thing was that was the first time I dreamed about a 2D girl. So I drew her and though she wasn't as attractive, even in my dream, something about her caught my interest throughout all of my 4 years in high school. Before 12th grade I knew I wanted to make a comic since so many people were suddenly interested in webcomics but I never really liked any of the stories I wrote,
After I dropped out of high school I shuffled through my old drawings and saw this blonde haired character in my folders, then I remembered the dream I had and so I redrew her and immediately I fell in love with her new design. So simple yet so interesting, I knew immediately that she was the perfect character to make a story about thus I named her Nina. At the time I had recently broke up with an ex that I dated 5 years prior. 2019 was the lowest point in my life, I almost wanted to you know, commit not alive. If anything Nina gave me a reason to live, she's everything I am and everything I am not at the same time. Although my character was named the issue I had for a long time, was the motivation to making the story happen.
I grew up being really close to my mother, she trusted me. Every now and again I would remember my mother telling me how painful it was to lose her mother. The emotions that comes out of my mother's mouth makes me feel like I was going to experience the same thing with her. I never got to see my grandmother's funeral and sometimes I feel like it's better that way, I didn't want to imagine myself in her shoes. My grandmother has type 2 diabetes and my mother is already experiencing what she's going through, I know that one day I'll experience it too. My grandmother died a slow and painful death and even though I have never seen her before I did have a dream about it. It felt real and it still haunts me till this day.
Being an adult I started having issue being myself, or at least I feel like I wasn't myself anymore when I'm with my mother. Plus, she told me to leave her house if I didn't get a job, she was right but ADHD never give me a break so I decided either I'll be homeless or commit suicide. Though there were times I wanted to jump off a bridge I was able to find someone who wanted to help me, I'm now living with them. It's not something I'm happy about but I try not to guilt trip myself whenever I think about my mother.
So yeah, that event was the turning point in my life so I started writing Nina using the story as my way of kind of venting about myself. I still haven't gotten a therapist/psychiatrist to diagnosis my ADHD but I hope it doesn't interfere with my comic since it is a 20 years long project I'm making.
And no, my story is not focused on mental disorders, it's just a story.
As of right now, I just want to enjoy writing my stories and not think about numbers since I want to just get this project done before I crumble like every other human being before me. In a way, suicide isn't on my to-do list anymore, too busy to think about that.
At times it feels like that person in my dream was a metaphor for my future. The epitome of "crafting your own future." I crafted more than just a future, I crafted me my present.
Also, I sincerely apologize if this feels like trauma dumping. Hardships comes with hard pills to swallow.