I could start this out by complaining that hardly anyone ever watched the stream, but that wouldn’t be a valid reason. The few who did, I enjoyed talking to. I could say the stream was repetitive, each night when I’d get off work, anxiety would set in, because I’d rush to get home to bathe, and hope I’d be able to start the stream in time. Though the work schedule changed, meaning I’d be getting home an hour later, this is still not a valid reason.
My online persona is that of someone who isn’t really me deep down, it’s more like a character I portray. I saw a change in me and it hit hard, I felt I was crossing a line and was heading towards a form of Gang Mentality. I realized that I wasn’t actually enjoying streaming anymore, I was constantly running off viewers, because I wanted to please everyone. I kinda let it run wild in the chat with all the sounds and video clips constantly playing, (I’m no authority figure anyway). I understood that new viewers probably didn’t want to hear or see that kind of stuff (especially the FU Baltimore clip), but it’s like I just didn’t care and wanted to see a reaction. Would they get the joke and stay wanting more, or would they be offended and leave?
Then there’s the need to sustain the energy capable of continuing to please and entertain that was draining me. My thoughts were becoming more negative (I suffer from depression), until I just stopped it. I disabled viewing of the clips, removed all information from my twitch channel and left it. I deleted the most recent videos saved and that was it.
My thoughts started to lead me to my next phase, which was Discord. I sat around on it, voice chatting, messaging. See, every time the little red dot pops up when it was on the taskbar, it caused anxiety, I felt compelled to check out what new thing was posted. I’d close it to do something else on the computer, and then see the red dot pop right back up again. I muted channels to try and prevent this as best as possible. Until I just stopped opening it up one day. I kept thinking about possible private messages of questions being asked, current help I was providing needing more assistance with. I overwhelmed myself with too much thinking.
I had been helping Aquathor with scripting his chatbot commands and OBS, it was stable, did what he wanted, he came up with some more interesting ideas. I didn’t feel as though I could continue to do that either. Since I had dropped streaming, and twitch is always ever changing how things are done with it’s API and other stuff, I wasn’t sure that I could keep up with the changes of constantly updating code since the testing phase consisted of actually live streaming. Testing upon testing, new features, changed features. Anxiety and Depression kept kicking my ass about it. I was constantly afraid I’d get an message on discord about a script not working. Anticipating a problem would occur every day, until I overwhelmed myself with that thought process as well. I just knew, something would need fixing, kept wondering what it would be. Tried to think ahead at possible scenarios, obsessing over it. See that’s how my brain works, when coming up to a fork in the road, I don’t see 2 choices, I see the possible choices of those choices. I left Aquathor hanging and that haunts me to this day as well. Imagine someone you rely on for something and they just dropped off the face of the Earth leaving you with the fate of the world on your shoulders. Giving someone a set of keys to a vehicle only that person knows how to operate. That’s ME, here’s the keys, good luck!
In short, the routine that started from Twitch Streaming just became too much to continue. Obsessive Compulsion mixed with Anxiety and Depression. I know I’ve disappointed several people, responded to those disappointments as best as I could. Always thinking, I never did enough when I was doing what I did. Burned Out, I guess is the shortest answer. Hell even with this blogging, I’m sure one day will come where I’ll just stop that too.
Know that it’s not a single other person that did this, I did this! I continue to do things that trickle into failure, which is why I have to be alone for long stretches of time.