Well, I really don’t know what happened to me the last couple of days. I become so obsessed with creating patterns of my Redecor designs that I started feeling I may be on the edge of psychosis. Thank god, I at least have the understanding that part of it is probably due to how my brain process visual information (I believe I don’t understand it straight away but instead I try to remember it and work it out later, after comparing it with other, similar images and this is apparently done the same way like if my brain was a computer – mind you, I don’t know how neurotypical people process visual information).

So basically, the last couple of days I managed to create some abstract patterns out of a couple of my designs, and the more complex it was, the happier it made me. Unfortunately, most of the designs don’t seem to work that way – if there is a tiny area of grey or dirty brown somewhere, it gets multiplied and enlarged during processing and it makes everything look ugly and if I put too much effort to remove it, I end up damaging area around it. Black is usually fine and creates nice outline but any other really dark colour is a no no. There are still ways to do a nice image out of many designs, maybe just without turning it into an abstract pattern but suddenly I wasn’t satisfied. I really don’t know why, possibly because my love for patterns never found an acceptance in the external world and suddenly I wanted to ‘show’ to everyone who I really am?

I remember when I just started primary school, so I was 5 and a half, we were told to draw an autumn outdoor scene and suddenly I decided to add an unidentified object in the middle of my drawing: it was shaped like an egg, but it wasn’t meant to be an egg. It wasn’t meant to be anything really. I divided it into several squares and fill each of them with a different colour. If you could only see other kids laughing when they saw it! I never did anything similar again.

I know now that I probably didn’t want to draw autumn scene, I wanted to draw a pattern – and I was made fun of because of it. Throughout the years my love of patterns couldn’t manifest in any way – I was feeling guilty for spending money on cushions while what I really wanted was the patterns on them. A bit less than a year ago, while still in lockdown and without access to entertainment I discovered Redecor and was so thrilled with the fact that I can play with patterns without having the need to purchase physical objects that I quickly started spending real money on the game (virtual cushion is obviously much cheaper). I was not doing anything unwise, I was working full time and could easily afford it, yet, when I told a couple of people, they seemed to have real problem with it. One lady on a Facebook group told me the money I spent could easily feed family of 3 for this many weeks. Well… I was wondering why other people have so much problem with how I spend money – if I spend it on staying in expensive hotel for one night, no one would question it.

It felt like I’m constantly being told something is wrong with me because I love patterns. Even if I loved music, that would be much better understood, but loving patterns was all wrong.

And suddenly I started using an app that allowed me to create patterns. Is there anything strange with the fact that I become obsessed?

I had a wake up call today: there was this challenge on Redecor with beautiful cherry blossom and I wanted to get rid of it from the image because the wig looked weird after processing. But after I did, there was nothing interesting in there. Finally I had to admit that I probably took my love of patterns a few steps too far.

Apart from that I’d probably be fine if I could sleep during the last couple of nights. I spent two last days working in a supermarket. It was ok, busy but I was managing. I didn’t even find it too noisy. But I already managed to establish I wouldn’t be able to work in a supermarket long term, but this is a subject for another post.