under construction - we'll be right back
under construction - we'll be right back
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DollBakery is going on hiatus! Issues and explanation

personal update site update

Hello everyone, I owe a big explanation + apology to all of you.

 

Since not everyone who follows DollBakery speaks English as a first language, I first wrote a simple explanation for the current situation below.

 

Then below that, I wrote a longer rambly thought dump, where I try and sort out my personal feelings. (definitely not required reading to understand the situation, just for people who have the patience to read, and want, the full details.)

 

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SHORT ANSWER:

 

Because of personal health problems, DollBakery hasn't been running very well this year. I'm mostly healed now, but I decided the best thing to do is temporarily close DollBakery, until later this year.

 

I apologize for not notifying everyone about this sooner but I will be trying to fix any issues caused by my recent disappearance!

 

So if you have any unresolved issues, please contact me:

michelle@dollbakery.com

 

(This email was not working before, but it should work now.)

 

Thank you!

 

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LONG ANSWER:

 

So, I messed up. There's been problems keeping eyes available and activity up at DollBakery, and I think you can probably tell.

 

I decided to do the smart thing, the thing I should have done months ago: DollBakery is temporarily going on hiatus until later in 2018.

 

Honestly this should have happened last year, when I first started having problems, but I wasn't that smart.

 

What the heck happened?

So last year, my goal was to vend at a lot of BJD conventions in 2017 - 2018. I crammed work basically without rest, I exposed myself to waaaay more toxic resin overspray than anyone ever should, and got sick a lot. (at one point last year I got a flu that got into my lungs and I actually broke several of my ribs coughing!)

 

Suddenly when I got back from what would be the final con, all the health problems and life problems I'd been ignoring hit me like an anvil.

 

And I was deeply, inescapably backlogged with DollBakery. Everything was in chaos: the email inbox was overflowing, updates were needed to the site, my physical workspace was completely out of control, literally everything was so in need of work that I barely knew where to start and it was causing me to freak out just thinking about it.

 

And I knew I had to catch up, but I didn't want to put the business on hold. So I just began working like a maniac.

 

I guess you could say I have difficulties moderating my energy. I've always struggled with this. So I would throw myself at a single project, something like getting the email inbox empty. I'd work nonstop on it, barely sleeping.

 

Everything I did became this burst of wild energy. I didn't get any "normal" steady work done anymore, it was just a series of panic attack events where I'd work frantically, barely sleep, and then exhaust myself back into a pit, and then do it all over again. I was exhausted, panicking, or both, all the time. It's been this way for a while now.

 

That's why DollBakery was so off-and-on for a while. Because everything was done in these intense bursts, where I put 100% into fixing one problem… but then some other problem would explode -- so I'd run off to fix that too, but then the first problem would return again, and the cycle would repeat!

 

So this extremely unhealthy circle continued for quite a while. And I was in denial about it the entire time. I always thought, "by the next cycle, I'll finally catch up."

 

I thought the answer was to push myself harder, but what I actually needed to do was step back.

 

Ironically, it took my health totally failing this year for that to happen.

 

I regret that it took such extreme circumstances to wake me up. And I felt that it's not very professional to talk about my health, because DollBakery is a business, and I don't think "sorry, I was sick!" is a good or acceptable excuse.

 

But at the end of the day: yes, this is a business... but it's also a business that's run by one single person. So when my health crashed, it unfortunately took DollBakery down with it.

 

I was planning on opening sales again at DollBakery this summer, and honestly kind of building up to that recently........ but today I realized this would be a huge mistake.

 

Because even though I'm recovering now, there's nothing currently preventing me from doing the "panic cycle" thing again, where I accept too much work (because I legitimately do think I can handle it), then nearly kill myself trying to get it all done, and make myself sick again.

 

I realized, if I don't stop and control this behavior now, it's never going to change. I have to tame the impulse to overload myself with huge amounts of work.

 

THAT is why I'm stepping back and hiatusing. I'm going to vastly restructure how DollBakery runs, and make sure every last lingering issue, down to the tiniest thing, is resolved.

 

When DollBakery comes back, it will be fresh, streamlined, and efficient again.

 

I'm working on a basic roadmap to return from hiatus. It will be in the next post.

 

Also, I need to reconnect with my doll collection itself, so I'll be selling a lot of dolls and refocusing my collection.

 

Thank you to everyone who has waited patiently, people who have loved DollBakery eyes for years, people who reached out to express concern. (some of you as early as last year when I first started to act strangely!) I'm sorry I continued to pretend like everything was okay, when everything wasn't.

 

This is getting fixed now.

 

The updates and progress will come slow, but they will come.

 

I'll add status reports here.

 

If there is anything you need settled that I've missed, please contact me:

michelle@dollbakery.com

 

Thank you!!

Michelle


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