goblin mode

Hiya! This is me - Nickas Serpentarius - in chaos goblin mode. 

I have really enjoyed the first prompt for Drawlloween this year. I have only seriously attempted self-portraiture twice before this, having always found it to be an exceedingly challenging endeavour. I am sure that this is due to relatively equal parts perfectionism, neurosis and low self-esteem. Allowing the portrait to meander slightly into the monstrous and fantastical really helps, and honestly, now it is done, I think it has been a rather healing exercise.

So much of the self is not defined by what we look like, but what we more truly ARE at our core. I have often jokingly referred to myself as a chaos goblin, a fitting moniker in my opinion. I have memories from when I was younger of being honestly befuddled at how my freshly wrapped school books would look {within two weeks} the same my classmates did at the end of the year. The same thing would happen to a lot of my things, and even, as my awareness widened, my life in general. 

I was perplexed.

I started to assume that perhaps I exuded some sort of chaos field. This was, of course, said in jest, but {like most things in life} held a much deeper significance.

Fast forward some 28 years and I found myself being diagnosed with ADHD at age 38. Cue about a year's worth of shadow work and re-framing. Hard, but essentially for the best. Long story short, I had the epiphany that whilst finding this out did not fix any of the things that were and have always been “wrong” with me, it meant I no longer had to beat myself up mentally over the things I am crap at. 

A lot of it makes sense to me now. Learning about low executive functioning and dopamine function in the brain has helped me understand my own mind more, and essentially ‘game the system’

So in my long winded, rambling way, that brings us back to the image in question. Yes, I called it me in chaos goblin mode. Then why? , you ask, is there not a chaotic energy flowing out at me from the piece? Well my friend, I think it must be because this goblin has come to terms with her place in the pattern, and is learning to go with it…