A little bit of an explanation, a lot a bit of an apology.
For everyone who cares to see, this is a copy-and-paste of a post over on myĀ PatreonĀ (hyperlink should be to the post itself) that I finally decided to revitalize. This has taken me... Quite a long time to write, but it finally needed to be put out there.
That being said, the whole thing is under the cut, so that people donāt get a hugelarge post across their dashboard. Thank you for your time, thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day.
So I wanted to start out by saying thank you to the people who supported me when you did, and thank you to the people who wanted to support me, and thank you to the people who still support me. When I received that support, it was at a time of my life when I needed it.
That being said, you might look at this post and wonder "So, Nova, why haven't you touched anything in over four years?" and to that I say... Well, I don't really have an excuse. I've got a couple of reasons, and you can take them or leave them, it is all ultimately up to you. I've been writing this for... Longer than I'd like to admit, wanting to get the words down just right.
Ultimately, there's a couple of very simple reasons for my absence.
Back in 2017, at the end of October, I ran away from home. I was living in an abusive household, and, with the help of a dear friend, I bit the bullet and just... Left. I gave live updates about my journey to what would be my new home, letting people know that I was still alive, and that I'd finally reached my goal: Freedom.
At the beginning of 2018, I moved out and into a shared apartment. I'd recently started up my YouTube channel I'd always wanted to start, and had tons of energy for creating content. I was brimming with ideas (even if I was limited by the resources I had access to), and wanted everything I put out to be the best that my unskilled hands could make it. I was learning as I went, and I kept trying my best, each and every video, to make it as great as I could. I had a job that I worked overnights at, and I felt like I had so much to do, all I had to do was put it into words. I was ambitious, and I felt like I could reach my ambition, and nothing could stop me. I created a Patreon! I had professional-level photo and video-editing software! I was on top of my own little world.
Then... The latter half of 2018 hit. I quit my job to work at a different place, with better conditions (even if it wasn't better pay,) so I could have more time to create. But, in August, a huge storm hit the area I live in, and I live in a basement apartment, so there were a lot of things that got ruined. It caused chaos in my life. I couldn't create any content anymore, because the areas I worked in were being blocked off by things because of my apartment's near mismanagement of repairs. There were constant notices, every week, "Be on the lookout for people coming between X and Y time on [Day when you're off work and can record]" wasn't really something I could work around. My work flow, mostly due to the OCD, required I be able to start on a project, and not stop until it was done. On top of this, I'd also recently been unable to go to therapy anymore, so things slowly started feeling like they were adding up.
By the way, it ended up taking them 10 months to finally fix everything that got damaged by the flooding, in case anyone was curious.
I'd started up a couple of YouTube series before I moved into my apartment. I was doing some indie games, and I had a Fallout 4 Let's Play going, because it's what I had access to. I attempted to do a blind playthrough of DOOM (2016), but the footage got corrupted. (Side note: Loved the game, may still play it for people and do a blind run of DOOM Eternal) I'd had a Minecraft Let's Play going, as well, because I loved the game, but I, simply put, wasn't putting that same love into my content. My last Fallout 4 episode was on July 22nd, 2018, and I hadn't done anything since. This was mostly due to the computer I was using for my basic video editing software ended up dying, and ironically the people who made the software discontinued it shortly around the time it died.
But I couldn't just leave people with... Nothing, that would be hurtful to both myself, and my audience. I attempted to do more livestreams, since it was easier for me to get the energy to stream a couple of hours, rather than record, edit, re-edit, possibly re-record, and output a more polished product than what I'd been doing. The livestreams went relatively well. I did Minecraft, because if and when (and there was a plan for a when) I went back to Fallout, I wanted to make it nice and polished. I'd done Minecraft streams before, what would be the difference?
And it was good. For a while. But ultimately, I lost my creative energy for it, and I felt my own performance getting worse and worse with each passing stream. The burnout was hitting, and it was hitting hard. But I kept trying to push through it, and, in the end, the burnout got the best of me. I just... Stopped it all together.
It was a situation that I'd hope that, if I ignored it, the problem would go away. The problem being: Lack of creative content (or content in general) and lack of energy to do anything. I felt that if I could just... Take some time without thinking about it, the content would come back to me.
The end of 2019 came with a new job, and the start of 2020 came with leaving said job. They apparently were only hiring seasonal work, and were a lot flexible on hours than they said they'd be, so I took the simplest solution and left, telling myself I could find something else quick.Ā
And then the beginning of the pandemic hit.
It was hard to find work. And, due to some fuckery that happened when I quit my first job, I couldn't collect unemployment (which hit extra hard when the pandemic started.) The majority of 2018 I'd had to rely on people to help support me, same thing for 2019, and 2020 was shaping up to be the same. I got a job at the end of 2020 that lasted for a couple of months before an altercation between me and another coworker (that they initiated) led to me leaving (I wasn't asked, I just didn't want to cause any further ruckus.)Ā
By this point, I hadn't had posted any form of content in almost a year, I was quiet on every form of social media, and the burnout, anxiety, and paranoia were extreme. I kept telling myself I just needed to get back on my feet, just needed to stabilize, and I could get back to living my dreams. It's only sensible for people to want to live their best lives, I told myself, and I just needed to be able to get the things (I've had a list on PCPartPicker for years that I've been trying to build to get back into streaming/recording, as well as peripherals on an Amazon wishlist that I've been staring at for ages.)
The majority of 2021 passed by without much. No job offers, no callbacks, not even a rejection letter. Nothing. But in September of 2021, a friend of mine told me that his kitchen was hiring dishwashers, and so I said "Fuck it, it's work, and they're paying decently, let's try it."
And it was honestly one of the best jobs I've had ever. It was good pay, full time, and slowly over time my duties shifted away from dishwashing to doing prep work and cleaning, something I was much more apt to do. I had enough money to pay my bills and do fun stuff every so often, and started saving up a bit of money so I could finally achieve my dreams.
In January of 2022, however, I started feeling under the weather. I'd been sluggish, coughing a lot, and slowly just felt my energy draining harder than it had up until that point. Turns out, at some point, I'd caught Covid. Now, At that point I was fully vaccinated, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could be, I told myself. And then I was sick for six weeks, and was constantly feeling like death after the second. I do know it would've been a lot worse, with my case, had I not been vaccinated, but it was still unfortunate. I didn't have insurance (because it was still way too much to be taken out of each paycheck by my employer, so I didn't want to risk it,) and I'd actually just spent money right before it hit, so I was flat broke for two weeks. Over the course of those six weeks, however, I received a total of two weeks of payment (when I was told I'd be getting Covid pay for all six weeks), went through constant tests to see if I would make a recovery. My life had fallen apart with regards to income and socially, and ultimately, long Covid would kick my ass. I never was able to really fully recover, and as a result, my hours were cut, and I was ultimately laid off after 11 months of employment there (even if it was only 9 and a half of actual working).
After this last job, however, something just... Felt different. I didn't feel despair as I had from every other job I'd gained and lost over the years. Sure, I've been depressed the last month or so I was unemployed, but it wasn't the same soul-crushing depression that I've been feeling the last few years. I resolved to take care of myself better, at the very least, than I had in each of my depression slumps before, and it's... It's been a lot more manageable than previous years. Still depressed, still unemployed, still (unfortunately) having to ask for favors just to get by, but this time it just... Hits different.
But after my life's story over the last five years has been spilled, with my 24th birthday right around the corner, I just wanted to say... Thank you. Thank you to everyone who did support me when they did, and thank you to everyone who supports me now. I'm truly, truly sorry for (what I feel like, at least) was betraying people's trusts, and I don't know what else to say besides that.
Lately I've been working on actually, officially writing the story I've been wanting to write for years. Actually over 13 years at this point. It's something I've been trying to convince my brain to do, and I've slowly come to realize you can't... Force these things. That's been the big theme of this massive depressive episode, I suppose, is that you can't force anything to happen. I've also got some video ideas I've been writing down and getting things together for them, to try to do, because they're fun, challenging, and I think that people would have fun watching them. I'm not going to say dates for anything, because I don't want to promise people something and ultimately end up not being able to deliver on time. I'm trying, this time around, to not force anything that doesn't want to be made to be made, just need to let the creative process happen when it happens, so I don't get overwhelmed and burnt out again. I want to make sure that if I make something, if it isn't a rough draft, it's as good as I can make it in the moment I make it.
That being said, some keen eyes may have noticed a lot of content went missing from myĀ YouTubeĀ channel. Don't worry, the content isn't deleted, it's just... Not up to my standards, so I privated the videos. They're an important part of my journey, even if it's a low point, but I want to try to improve so I can show people how much I've (hopefully) grown. I at least put effort into my Fallout videos, so I kept that together, and a few other fun videos along the way I was personally proud of when they happened. They may not be the best content by any means, but I was at least proud with what I could make when I made it.
Along with this post, there will be theĀ rough draftĀ of the first chapter of the story I'm working on available to anyone and everyone, so they can see it as like a preview of what I've been up to recently. In the meantime, like I said I've also got some videos I'm working on that I've been testing things for that I feel like can turn out to be really fun content, so we'll see about that when the time comes. Hell, I even started aĀ Ko-FiĀ (that I also have no idea how to use) in case people want to do something over there.
People may also notice that there is now only one tier: The "Pay What You Want" tier, starting at $1. For the time being, this is the one and only tier I have on Patreon. I want to make sure I can consistently put out content for people before committing to more (as well as getting more ideas for more varied content for people for various tiers, though it may only stay with the one tier until I decide to either pull the plug or go harder into Patreon things.) This phase of my life is all about taking things at my own pace so I can make good, quality content (or as good, quality content as I can) for everyone. If that means I can put out multiple videos in a week, then I put out multiple videos in a week. If it takes months, it takes months.
By no means is anyone required to monetarily support me, I know I've given virtually nothing these last few years, but I want to try to change that, and if people decide "Hey, I like your content, can I do anything about it?" then I'm simply going to direct them to here and Ko-Fi until I can get YouTube back on track, and Twitch, as well, and go from there.
One step at a time, we will make it there.
I'm working on cleaning up a lot of things, and for the first time in a very long time, I've felt like I can get things back on track.
Once again, a huge thank you to my friends and people who have helped support me over the years, though I haven't done anything I've felt like deserved it. You've been amazing to me, and I wouldn't be here without you.
And, as always, I'll see you all in the next one!
