I Will Try

I kind of broke down on stream Tuesday night.  It kind of sucked because I don't like portraying myself as vulnerable, but you can't really get any more vulnerable on Twitch than that.  I took today (Wednesday) as an opportunity to disconnect myself from everything except what was in front of me so I could really think about things and think about where I am, how I am, and most importantly who I am.

I'm NOT depressed.  I want to just say that right off the bat.  So many people reached out to me, and that meant so much to see that (I'm still looking at responses now; like I said, I was disconnected all day), but a couple people may have gotten the wrong idea.  I just had a lot of pent up feelings and it all came out.  I know my attitude still needs a lot of work, but I know it needs to be fixed, and I swear I'm actively trying to fix it.  Let me explain my thought process, though.  Maybe that will clear up why I can sometimes be so quick to the draw.

I'm not talking to any of you in person while I stream.  Because of that, I can only assume what somebody's intent is in a message.  I can only take what I see at face value if I don't know you well enough, and as much as I love and appreciate the lot of you, I don't *KNOW* most of you, so I don't know your quirks, your habit of speech, et cetera.  My memory in general is absolute garbage; I suffer short- and long-term memory loss because, growing up, I had at least 4 concussions.  That number sometimes changes whenever I tell somebody because I actually genuinely don't remember if I've had more or less.  With that in mind, it's actually quite hard to keep up with somebody when I've never actually met them before because I may not remember their quirks or behavior.  Without any clear indication of a joke (like an obvious emote, a Kappa, an OpieOP, so on), the face value of a lot of messages come off as very negative or belittling, and that leads to me getting defensive.  When I get defensive, my mood shifts and it becomes harder to handle other things at times.

I thought about why I get so defensive, something I've never really thought on long and hard until today.  I'm scared of failure.  Like, moreso than I ever realized.  I've always been given high expectations growing up; I skipped a grade (it could've been three, but my parents didn't want me to suffer socially), graduated high school at 16 while doing part-time college, then moved out and started living on my own very shortly after (I had to get emancipated so I could take care of my own stuff as an adult and not have to have a legal guardian).  My family was SO proud of me for accomplishing so much at such a young age, but they unintentionally put worlds of pressure on me because of it.  I was supposed to be Steven Eisner, first person in the family to graduate college (at 20 or 21, no less), get a head start on life, so on.  Instead, my grades suffered for the first time in my life (college was the first time I ever graded lower than an A), then it slowly became less and less affordable, so I did what I thought was the smart decision and dropped out so I wouldn't be years in debt.  My family never SAID they were disappointed, but I could just tell by the tone of their voice whenever the subject came up, or how often they've pushed for me to go back even though I know deep inside school isn't for me.

Even though that chapter of my life is essentially closed, I still feel like there's high expectations attached to me.  I work very hard and try to study up and prepare for whatever the day's agenda is, whether it's a speedrun, a music performance, shopping, whatever.  It's actually quite odd how prepared I want to be, yet how spontaneous I get; so many days I have last minute, on-the-fly plans.  Despite that, I want to be well-versed in whatever I'm involved in, almost like studying for a test in school.  So if I'm already feeling defensive, I'll get even more defensive because *I don't want to fail*.  This is a huge character flaw, and I know that it exists, but it's very difficult to tackle and change when I've had to be defensive and on edge for a decade now.

On the topic of being scared of failure more than I ever realized, I guess that's what comes with the territory.  As a streamer, I'm expected to give it 110% every day as often as I can.  I've always been transparent about the concept of income (but never the actual number for legal reasons), and income is very much conjoined with stream performance, length and enjoyability.  As a job, it's very stressful, but very rewarding when it pays off.  It's almost like being a salesman, except you can tell a customer to fuck off and not get fired.  But you shouldn't do that, that's mean, and that's something I've done in the past and need to not do.  But if I start to get defensive and can't reign it in, my fears of failure start to amplify once the stream ends.  How much did my outburst affect future streams?  Am I ever going to get a second chance with somebody who may or may not have been genuine and not a troll trying to get under my skin?  I very rarely stress about things, but I stress about this a lot, yet I feel like I've made zero progress in improving.  Some of you said I have, and maybe that's true, but I'm not satisfied with it yet.

I've also been overwhelmed with things in my personal life lately.  I wish to respect privacy so I won't go into detail here, but I'm not happy with how several things have been going.  I'm just... burnt out in regards to some things and it shows.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this.  I'm not trying to justify any of my behavior, I'm not trying to make up excuses.  This is just what's been on my mind.  I can't promise that I won't slip up and get too defensive again.  I can't promise that I'll change permanently.  But I CAN promise one thing...

I can promise that I will try.