Ahh the hole again, huh?

Yeah… been in there for a long time without realising it.

Well hello there, it has been very quiet here for a while now. That usually means I was doing pretty okay. And I kinda was… until I realised I wasn’t.
Since the last blog post in May 2021 a lot has happened, and nothing. I created a small one-man company for my streaming and Youtube stuff but not because I became successful, more because you kinda have to when you make a little bit of money in Germany. I don’t want any legal trouble so I just did it. No big deal.

For a while now I got money from the state, because I don’t make nearly enough money with the stuff I want to do. I kinda have a deal with them until May 2023 to see if I can grow my business enough to sustain my life with it so they leave me alone for now. Spoiler Alert: My project/business/passion (whatever you wanna call it) is not nearly as big and does not nearly generate enough money for me (and I don’t need and don’t want a lot of it).

For 3 years now I streamed for at least 30 hours a week and for 2,5 years I published 2 videos a day. I still have less than 10 viewers in my streams and not enough subscribers on Youtube to even get monetized. Apparently, the stuff I do and love is not interesting & entertaining enough. Of course I could just look up the trends and the stuff that works and just do that but firstly I mostly hate these things and secondly I don’t want to be a Youtuber/streamer/influencer. I just want to play videogames and make people laugh eventually. I would be fine to not be famous in any way if I can just do that and make enough money to pay the bills. So yeah I have a strict border with things I can and want to do.
And I tested a lot of things, changed stuff, tried other approaches. Nothing. Well nothing is unfair in regards to my small community, which I am grateful for, but the bottom line is it doesn’t work. Maybe I am not likeable or entertaining enough. I don’t know honestly. I think a big part is the games I play. I mostly play smaller singleplayer games that end eventually. So it means I change up games quite often. And that’s not good. On Twitch and Youtube you have to do/play one thing/game and stick to it. But I hate that, everything gets boring for me really quick. I just like to experience new things/games and I like to finish stuff and move on. That’s the worst you can do to grow as a streamer unfortunately.

In the last half year I really realized that I grow WAY to slow and that my stuff is probably never big enough to have even a part time income. That’s what I mean with I was in the hole for a long time before I realized it. I am miserable at the moment, honestly. I don’t know what to do. Over the last months I tried to prepare myself mentally for a part time job. But I can’t… I am scared of everything! It paralises me completely. Every aspect of a potential job scares me. Conflicts with colleagues, fucking up easy things, getting a challenging task, you name it… I am even scared to loose my will to life again.
And with those thoughts I then realized fear is an even bigger problem for me generally than I knew before. I am even scared of going to the psychiatric again, because I don’t want to be put in a clinic and not being home. The only place where I feel calm is in my flat. And lately I had a lot of problems with my flat so not even my safe place was reliable the last 2 months.

Currently, I need to go to some kind of coaching to help me find a way to work a normal job again. The state suggested this to me but what they actually mean is (in my opinion) “do this or you’ll get fined or don’t get any money anymore”. Honestly I don’t know if this helps me. It might, it might not.

My biggest problem is as soon as there is an external factor that expects something from me, I only feel fear and I freeze. External factor can be anything really but the main problem is, of course, an employer. I can’t even explain why. It can be the same task, if I do it for me, because I want or need to do it, it’s mostly fine. If someone else wants me to do the same it’s just fear. I hope I can at least reach a state where I don’t feel so much fear to be able to work part time.

It does not help that I probably suffer from the “Imposter Syndrome” in which people doubt their skills, talents or accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. Maybe this syndrome is creating the fear, maybe it just boosts it. I don’t know.
What I know is the next few months will be scary!

And that’s it for now folks. I hope you enjoyed the read and maybe can relate a bit.

Until the next one, Peace!