Zeni & Family need help

Hi everyone!

Some of you are aware that the past 12 months have been a significant struggle for me and my family. I don't want to bore you all with too many details, but this is probably going to be a long one. I'm sorry about that... To start, let's just say that 2024-2025 was when I finally felt like I had started recovering and making meaningful progress in my life with things I had been struggling with since I was a child. Unfortunately, just as I hit this stride, things with my day job took a turn for the absolute worst. I began dealing with an abusive and micromanager boss, which ultimately thrust me into another autistic burnout similar to one I suffered through in 2022. I networked and was able to get out of that situation at the time, but after taking a leave of absence late last year, I returned to work in February only to have them attempt to deny accommodations necessary for me to survive in this world as a disabled person struggling with Autism, ADHD, and being the primary breadwinner for my family that is also full of neurodivergent people.

Without oversharing, let me just express how brutally exhausting this has been, to navigate all of this stuff. I have been working through trauma therapy for over a year now, trying to create more sustainable routines and environments for myself, working full time / overtime to try and appease people at my job, supporting my wife through her own struggles and pursuits, supporting my kids and trying to learn more about how to help them lead a better life as neurodivergent people than my wife and I have, and providing for all of us and our life with not just my main income, but also this streaming/content creation income, which has indisputably turned into a 2nd job that I cannot quit due to the way our economy has been falling apart.
In addition to all of this, my relationship with my family of origin has completely fallen apart as well, and in the midst of that we found out my amazing Father has cancer. He has thankfully finished his treatment at this time, but it is very much still "wait and see". Even if he does come out of this on the other side, both my parents are very old, and likely won't be around much longer. This is a reality I've been grappling with for 5-10 years, and I have watched their health deteriorate at an increasingly aggressive rate since COVID.

Back to day job stuff, I've been working very hard to re-integrate in a meaningful way at my job since I returned in February, despite them treating me the way they did. I got an Autism diagnosis to advocate for myself, and HR left me on read after that. In May, I felt like things were finally started to turn up, just to be told that I was being reassigned, my team was being dissolved, and there was nothing I could do about it. "I should just be grateful I get to keep my job". The same day I was told this, our company suddenly laid off 250 employees, insisting it had nothing to do with AI or outsourcing jobs. That was a lie. AI is actively replacing many people at my company, and recently there were hundreds of openings for the jobs that were laid off, outsourced to India.
In July I was told I was being reassigned again, but then word on that went quiet, because the person who was supposed to be replacing me had actually also been on a leave of absence due to mental health/burnout, and I am aware of at least 10 others who have also experienced this in my job/role over the past 2 years, not to mention others before that. Ultimately I was allowed to stay on the new team that I had started integrating with, but then our lead got promoted, and I was told I would be filling his role (a promotion for me) but with no pay bump. That was then retracted from me and the other member of the team filled the position instead (I was supportive of this decision).

This entire year we have been told at an increasingly aggressive pace that we are not enough, we are doing it wrong, we need to use AI more, they continue breaking tools that we have that are working, and replacing them with worse AI slop versions. All I want to do is support my client base and try to keep them happy, but literally everything is working against me in these efforts.

Last week I received some feedback on my quarterly/annual performance from my boss. It was positive. "Finally, things are actually turning up" I thought. I told my therapist that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop because "things finally feel uncomfortably stable again". I didn't know how else to express it.
Yesterday, I received feedback again, I really wish I could share more detail about this experience, but suffice to say that the feedback was all AI generated, and lacking context for my actual job/how the call actually went (it was a good experience.), and yes, it is impacting my performance review.

I have fought tooth and claw to improve at this job. I have done it in the midst of autistic burnout for years. I have been jostled around, dismissed, and mistreated. Last night sent me into a full panic attack that I had to navigate, in the midst of trying to figure out how to continue taking care of my family through all of this too.

You guys, I am trying so hard. I am working so hard. I know most of you don't see that. You maybe see glimpses of it in my streams, but for the most part I am just a small streamer/youtuber who appears to be very good at this little game called Super Metroid "just because". It was a big part of my life, it IS a big part of my life, but it literally is the tip of the iceberg with everything that I am dealing with and working through. I am trying so SO hard, and I feel as though I am walking uphill in the sand, losing traction with every step and slipping further down.

I basically never do this, but if you are still reading this I am directly asking for your help. If you have any wiggle room with your finances, we could really use a boost right now. PLEASE DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER HELPING IN THIS WAY IF IT WILL NEGATIVELY IMPACT YOU.

If you want to support through Twitch or YouTube, that is totally fine. I get about the same cut from each of those options currently. Recurring Subscriptions on Twitch help me stay at a 70% cut on that platform, so those are always welcome, but Bits on Twitch,  or Memberships and Supers on YouTube are also always welcome.
If you would rather support directly, you can do so either through the tip form on my Fourthwall Merch Store (or by purchasing other merch) located here: https://shinyzeni-shop.fourthwall.com/

Or directly to my PayPal: https://paypal.me/ShinyZeni

Other ways that I am directly asking for support are as follows:

If you enjoy my content, please advocate for me and share it around. The more eyes that see this stuff, the better. Everything helps, almost literally. Share my Twitch and YouTube channels. Share my instagram. Hell, share my TikTok if that's the only thing you can do. I don't expect that platform to go anywhere, but again, everything helps.
If you work in the tech industry, please send job postings relating to Cybersecurity my way. I make it a point not to talk about my job in detail on these platforms, and for good reason, but I will share that I have a degree in Cybersecurity, a CISSP, a number of other smaller certifications, and close to 20 years of experience in the field. My main strengths are in consulting and vulnerability management, but I'm open to learning and growing however I need to in order to support myself and my family. Realistically, we cannot relocate at this time, so I am looking remotely primarily, but feel free to send something over if it seems like a good fit regardless.

To address my existing community directly -- thank you all so much for supporting me the way you have over the past 9 years. I never imagined that when I decided to stream Super Metroid seemingly randomly one hard day after work in 2017 that it would turn into this. I never saw myself as being able to compete professionally at all, let alone hold World Records, become best friends with the person I idolized when I started, make so many other good close friends along the way, and become somewhat of an advocate for other people struggling... not just with "the game", but so many other things along the way. I have had many people reach out over the years telling me that my stream has been a comfort for them through difficult times, and that watching me struggle and push through my demons has helped them as well.

I feel so awkward, and honestly pretty bad about myself for having to write this up and share it, but I need the help. We need the help. I can't just keep struggling quietly (or relatively quietly) through this. It's too much for me.

Thank you all for everything. Hope to see you around my channels in the coming days and weeks as I keep trying to figure this stuff out. shinyzFeels