You can see yourself on my demeanor if you compare the pre-Covid teachers pics and after Covid.

The first 3 years

and now this is me in 2022

It was slowly killing me to do this after what Covid had done to the students. I have some real horror stories regarding some of the students in my class. One girl in particular who joined in 2022 I think was the perfect example of anti-social. She hid in her dark corner during class, away from every other student. Stuck her nose in her ipad tablet where she animated and barely spoke. When she did I had to really get my ear to her as she was so quiet. It was a real shame that she was having this attitude, as she could have taught how she animates to other students. But it was sadly very hard for her to interact with anyone in class, and I was lucky to be able to break through her barrier with the power of my Pokemon knowledge. You see, I was a big pokemon fan back in my teen years, so I was very good at understanding what the franchise is about. And since this girl only played Pokemon from what I remember, she was able to share some of her interest with me. She had that Switch Pokemon game, Sword or Shield at the time, which she sometimes played in class, and of course Pokemon Go was another thing she had. A lot of her animations consisted of animating the various Pokemon creatures she liked. And even if they were rough frames, they were really impressive for her age. She was around 14 I think.

So this girl was becoming more and more depressed throughout the years, and eventually she was put on some heavy medication which made her numb. This was horrible to witness as she looked like a puppet, she did not want to do anything in class anymore, she just sat and waited until the class was over (she did not even play on her switch or phone anymore during this time). And these months I remember as sort of therapy period, since I kept trying to help her by talking and trying to motivate her to draw again (while taking away time from other students… I know this was not fair, but this girl was so hopeless I had to do something). Her parents did not seem to care or understand what is going on with her, as from what she told me, she is neglected. I think this was the case of too much unlimited internet access from young age, which made her withdrawn so much. Too many parents fall in this trap, and this is the reason I am so vocal about this social media/internet killing the youth topic. People have no idea what power the unlimited info stream can do to a developing mind.

I asked other kids to talk to her, and some of them did, but because this girl was so stuck in her ways, she came off as rude and mean, not saying hello or goodbye to those kids, while they greeted her usually. I am glad at least one girl in that class was sharing her own struggles , as she was also on meds and was in psyche ward multiple times. I also knew her parents were giving her way too much internet access, so she is always overstimulated and then of course depressed as theres nothing left in her system to make her stable.

So the story ended with her transferring to another animation group, as we thought she might like other kids more, but it became worse there…she started cutting herself with pens. And one time she ran away during class, and hid somewhere while others trying to find her. She was eventually found crying somewhere, but I have no idea whatever happened afterwards. I do think of her sometimes, if she ever got help and how she is doing after all these years. Of course, she is not the only one with similar background, as over the years I have read loads of stories from teenage artists and how mentally unstable they are. I have to state that sensitive people like artists are especially vulnerable to Social Media, and I will go into details in one of my other posts.