Hello,

first of all, I am using pseudonym here

I am 20 years old, I am from Europe

as I wrote in the title, I feel like my life went from 100 to 0 very quickly, but it wasn't always like that, in fact it was the exact opposite

I'm an artist, in elementary school I started making short films, at first, others laughed at me, but after a while, I started to get good at it and my short film got to a film festival that took place all over the country and was shown in a cinemas, I was only 14 at that time, I felt like I was on the top of the world

thanks to that I also got among interesting people who had a similar interest, they were much older than I was, I got a lot of new contacts, I even started to make money from it at that time, which was great for me, I also participated in various interesting projects and worked for interesting companies like Ubisoft, thanks to the contacts I got there, it was great

I always went my own path and even though I had really good results at school, I didn't focus so much on it, I always preferred practice in the real world, at that time I was finishing elementary school, and the teachers tolerated my absence, due to my activities

then I went to study film in high school and at that time, I started to focus more on design than film, especially fashion design, one smaller brand was looking for a designer, I showed them my work and even though I was only 15, they took me in and I became a designer, I was doing very well and a year later we got in touch with a man who hosts a fashion week in our country, I showed them my concept for our own fashion show and because I earned their trust, they let me do it and after a few months of work, we had a runway show at Fashion Week and I was the art director, I was only 16 years old

everything was great, at that time I listened to a lot of music and I wanted to participate in it, so it occurred to me that I could try to combine my art with music, so I wanted to start working with various interesting musicians, I started to work with smaller musicians, I was in charge of all the visual aspects of their work, over time, gradually more and more musicians became interested in me, so I was working with them and I also made a good money, after about a year, big names started noticing me and I started working with them, I worked with really big musicians and producers, I worked with producers who had multi-platinum recordings, I was 17 years old

it got to the point, where I didn't manage to go to school, because I was focusing on work, I didn't want to prefer school at the expense of my artistic career, I originally tried to communicate it with the teachers and the principal, if they could tolerate my absence, and I would write all the tests once a month, they wouldn't let me, so I left high school because of it, and I told myself, that I can potentially finish it in the future

I only lived with a mother, who comes from a family, where there is a lot of emphasis on academic education, but surprisingly I had their support in my decision

then I continued to work with big musicians and producers, but I also wanted to have my own project and be partly independent, so I started making my own clothes, the first collection sold out just in two hours

then there was a big opportunity that catapulted me to even higher level and it was that one of the most listened musicians wanted me to take care of the whole visual aspect of his album, so I did

it opened a lot of doors for me, after my 18th birthday, I was going to start working on another large project with another big musician, but after a few months of constant work, it became a nightmare, partly it was due to my perfectionism, I wanted to create something big, something people won't see anywhere else, at the same time my client had very high expectations, which I was going to fulfill, but the distributor gave very short deadline for such work and I probably underestimated it, I worked all day and night, I didn't see my girlfriend for several months because of that work

when I worked, I started to have minor disputes with the musician, we stopped understanding each others vision, plus I worked in pretty bad conditions, so the desire to become more independent in the future grew even more in me

because I was working on this project, I had to turn down an offer to go to work for one of the biggest brands in my country as a designer under a creative director who was previously a designer at Louis Vuitton, although I really liked the offer, I already had a project that I was working on, it would be unprofessional from me to cancel the project out of nowhere in the middle of the process

in the end, it seemed that I would make it all on time, but on the day of submission, I had a lot of technical problems with it, so unfortunately I didn't make it in time, it caused quite a lot of disputes between me and the musician, it was very frustrating after months of constant work

after this, I was very exhausted, both mentally and physically, I stopped working for a month completely, I felt like I needed a break, I think, it is safe to say it was a burnout, even after a month I had absolutely no desire to create, I wanted to clear my mind, so I started going to regular office job, nothing interesting, only average office work, but it served the purpose, it wasn't about the money really, I just needed to clear my head

after four months of stereotype in that job, the desire to create and to pursue my artistic career came back, so I left that job

but I didn't want to go back and do the same things I did before, I didn't want to work with musicians anymore, I wanted to be more independent, try new things or maybe even start working on my own project

shortly after my 19th birthday, I had an opportunity to go to New York and work for a fairly large fashion magazine, I would be involved in the art direction of that magazine, I found it really interesting, so I wanted to accept it and leave, however due to quarantine and very strict covid regulations in my country at that time, I couldn't leave for at least a few months, so I couldn't take the offer

it bothered me a little, but I didn't want to make such a big deal out of it, because it was something I couldn't influence, so I wanted to use that time to educate myself more in the art field, because I am and always been very hungry for the informations and knowledge, it seemed like the perfect time to do so

so I started studying at home, I gradually started learning about different fields that were not even related to what I had been doing until then, I was learning a lot about design, fashion, movies, architecture, I even started learning programming and working with artificial intelligence, as I wanted to see if artificial intelligence could create design and so on

I had a my own unfinished clothing project, but I didn't continue in it at that time, because I found the learning far more important and more fun

after a several months of studying, I began to think it is a finally time to start working on some project of mine, so I started thinking about what should I start creating and what path should I choose, but as I was educating myself, I feel like it started to paralyze me, I'm very glad that the knowledge I got from the studying gave me a very broad-spectrum, but it got to the point where I don't really know what to do exactly and which way to choose, what is the right path, I know that this phenomenon is called the paradox of choice, but it completely paralyzed me, I don't know what to do and which way should I go, what is right for me, I began to feel lost

I was still thinking how to approach it, I want to use my experience, knowledge and skills to do something big in the future and have an impact, but I don't know where to start, I don't know which field to go to first, what is the right art form for me, at that time I started to have a pretty stereotypical life, it even started to occur to me that I could maybe finish school and go to university somewhere, but I don't know if it's a good decision, if I shouldn't focus purely on my career, I don't know

at this time, my girlfriend applied to a very prestigious university in Europe to study architecture, so I helped her get there, I processed her portfolio and helped with the talent exams, they accepted her, they only accepted 3 people and she was one of them, thanks to this, I was able to focus on something else, at least for a while

but after that, everything came back and it was the same as before with the difference that I started to experience anxieties and panic attacks together with big health anxiety, I searched for professional help, I was prescribed some benzodiazepines, but I didn't take them regularly, only in few cases, I rather looked for a good therapist and that was a very good decision, in the end, he helped me a lot

coincidentally it was winter and I was experiencing a very dark times, I felt like such a loser and I was feeling that there is just a pure downhill in front of me, nothing good awaits for me anymore, that I have the best times behind me, I asked myself all the time, when did it all go wrong?, in terms of a career it was bad, because I didn't know what to do, but mentally it was a catastrophy, I was only surviving from day to day, just a black and white world

I wasn't struggling about money, it was just about my personal problems

at that time, I started to have very poisonous thoughts, I tended to be toxic to my surroundings, but I tried to keep it under control and keep it in my head, or talk to my therapist about it, I even started to feel jealous of my girlfriend, that she was accepted to that university and she has an interesting journey ahead of her and I was just surviving with my thoughts and not only to my girlfriend but also to the people around me I had very similar tendencies, it was all very desperate

I knew all along that this thinking was terrible, so I felt like a even bigger loser

do you know the phrase ''inaction is a slow dying''? I think this applies twice to me

I knew that the key to getting out of it was to start doing something, so do you remember that unfinished clothing project that I abandon because I focused on studying? yes, I decided to finish it

so I started working, after a while I was feeling much better, my poisonous thinking gradually diminished, a lot, even my anxiety has decreased

it went pretty well, I finished it, I even stopped going to the therapist, I felt I was in a much better mental place than I was

and now here I am, shortly after my 20th birthday, sometimes I feel like the negative thoughts are trying to come back, but I would say I'm in a little bit better mental position than before, I don't experience the anxiety, however, I still deal with a lot of things inside me, I still don't know which path to choose to make sense in the long run, what art form to choose to express my visions and how to approach my artistic career in the future, I often look around me, people my age are going to college or start going to regular work, I sometimes compare to them (I know it is bad, especially after the fact, that I never did this, I was always going my own path, but sometimes I can't help it), I still sometimes wonder if I should finish school or not, I'm not sure about it, because I'm trying to identify if the motivation to finish school is really mine, or if I would want to go there just because others go there, I know that the struggle is normal, but this fact doesn't help me much in solving these issues

congratulations to those who have read it, I wanted it to be a long story for you to know the context of my story (it was kind of a therapy for me to be honest), I wrote it on Reddit because I would like to know any independent 3rd party view, you can write me some advice or your thoughts, I will be very happy

&amp;#x200B;

Thank you for your time