They let me go from my IT consulting job and I felt the rug get pulled from under me. That specific kind of silence that follows losing something you built your stability around.
Then something shifted. I thought: this is it. This is when I build BLK MTTR APRL to six figures.
Ha. Reality hit.
The economy hit. Life hit. I took a temp job to keep the lights on. I turned my apartment into a creative studio — screen press, DTF, content, merch. All of it right here, without needing anyone's permission.
What I didn't plan for was doing all of this without medication for two years. In 2023, I had a seizure on the way to work. I've been managing bipolar depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and imposter syndrome without pharmaceutical support since then. No safety net. No chemical baseline. Just the work, the community, and whatever internal system I built to keep going.
Some days I am all the way in. Other days staying upright is the win.
But six years taught me this: I haven't stopped. Not once.
The brand was supposed to help the community. Turns out it's been helping me too.
— J-Kev (@90thearchitect) · The Bronx, NY · Est. 2020