Hi There Friends

Hi there, if you are reading this I appreciate it... even if you don't read the whole thing, thanks for taking a moment to see what the heck this is about. This is gonna be long and all over the place. I'm in a bit of a flare up right now so brain fog is real.

Let's get the hard things out of the way first:

My mental health hasn't been the greatest in the last year or so... I've done a lot of things out of depression that are very out of character for who I am as an individual.
Twitch hasn't helped... for a lot of different reasons.
It's easy to get over zealous when things are going well on twitch. It's easy to try and ride that wave longer than it's there. It's easy to lose sight of what's important. I'm guilty of all of these things.
For a long time I had it in my mind that twitch partnership was just around the corner and that it was a sustainable thing to do full-time. Reality hit me like a ton of bricks. People who have been streaming longer than I have, who have a much more engaged community than I have, who are a "bigger deal" than I am and frankly who just deserve it more than I, have been turned down time after time despite hitting the numbers... I dunno where I got it in my head that the numbers I was hitting, though close to the "requirement" for application were strong enough, but I did and I did a lot of questionable things along the way.
My biggest mistake was over-committing and stretching myself far too thin... I wanted to please everyone, especially those who didn't show up on a daily basis... I wanted to please everyone but me. Obviously I got burned out, I got sick and I did a full 180 on my content and I did it in a way that was kind of dickish... There was probably a better way for me to do it than to just basically stop streaming everything but Apex and tell people to fuck off if they didn't like it, but I was that deep in a rut that that seemed like my only option.

I told my doctor about my struggles with depression and anxiety... and rather than throw medication at me she referred me to a therapist. I really need someone to talk to that isn't going to just make things rainbows and butterflies for me. Not only that I need someone with an outside perspective. I have some deep seeded insecurities and I really need to focus on the root cause of those so that I can grow as a person.

What's the future hold:

Realistically, I'd love to return to streaming mostly retro stuff. I have a ton of speedrun projects I want to work on and I have a list of Genesis games I want to get through casually as well. Like everything else, nothing really holds my attention long, so I think a healthy mix of games will be the best thing for me to keep from burning out. Additionally I have other things in life going on that I have to schedule my stream around, so I think sticking to a schedule for content will work best for me... I haven't decided exactly what I want to do but I do know that I want to limit FPS content to a single day each week, I know a lot of people are unable to watch twitchy things because of motion sickness and the like (or they just have zero interest in it). Apex hasn't really gotten the attention at a competitive level for me to really see any benefit to playing it full-time so, I will probably play it less and less in the future. I want to get back to the basics, what drew people to my stream in the first place... a good mixture of "normie" content with a bit of obscurity mixed in. I also want to focus on supporting the community and doing things to promote a positive environment for all. I know I've said it a million times but, if you haven't been by in a while.. you quit subscribing.. you unfollowed.. whatever. You are always welcome and I ensure you I, nor anyone else will make your return uncomfortable. For too long I focused too much on the viability of streaming as a full time source of income... as of right now that's not a thing. Could it happen at some point in the future? Maybe... but I have a much more realistic view on things now. I want streaming to be fun not only for my audience but for me. Gone will be sub-incentives, donation goals, etc... if you feel like supporting the channel, that's awesome there will still be bit alerts and taco hats and other bullshit, but a few messages in chat and your presence is more than enough and I am sorry if I ever made anyone feel otherwise... there will be ONEEEEEEEEEEE exception to this though. I do plan on doing charity streams again, at least every 3 months... and I will have some fun incentives/rewards for those.

To those who have been by my side since day 1 - you rock... I appreciate you more than I can ever express or show you.
To those who have moved on to supporting other things... thanks for the memories and please know there are no hard feelings.

I should be 100% moved in to my new place by the second week of November, I will make an announcement about the stream schedule then.

Thanks for reading all this, if you made it this far swing by the channel next time you see me live with the code word: "butts" for a gifted sub (or a gifted sub to the individual of your choice) as a token of my appreciation... everyone needs a bird dab emote on twitch.