My Twitch Story
Firstly, many thanks for reading my story. I'm not sure how you happened upon this, but I'm grateful to everyone who takes the time to read this.
If you don't know me, I'm a full-time Twitch streamer under the name EternalLeeHD. I wanted to take a moment away from my channel to explain my story about Twitch, how it helped me and what it means for me to be doing this today.
I first set-up my Twitch profile back in June 2015. I set it up purely to join in on a couple of chats and to watch a couple of Twitch streamers I found quite interesting. I never intended to broadcast on it. Streaming on Twitch - to me - was the pastime of people who didn't have anything to do. Me, as a married man with a baby boy, didn't have the luxury of time. I think I broadcast me and a friend playing a game of FIFA, and that was about it.
In October 2015, my life was turned upside down. Just two days after my son's first birthday, my wife decided that she "didn't love me anymore" and ended our near 10-year relationship, as well as our near 4-year marriage. I'll be painfully honest here, I was pretty devastated. It took me completely by surprise. Up until maybe two weeks before, our lives had been pretty good. We had some complications with our little guy being born very premature (although he is doing awesome now!), but we worked as a team to get through everything and we seemed pretty strong. My wife and I sat down about two weeks before she ended things and we talked through a number of things in our relationship, made sure we were on the same page, and vowed to make each other happy. Like any guy, I wasn't always the tidiest, and not always the most thoughtful, but I worked damn hard to get us into a comfortable situation and I made sure I provided for her to spend as much time with our son as I could.
During dark times, when you don't fully understand the reasons for bad things happening, your mind can be your biggest obstacle. I spent a huge amount of time really beating myself up. I faced every single personal demon I could muster to try and understand exactly what it was I did that could cost me everything - my son, my wife, my house, my life. I faced up to everything I hated about myself, and I found myself in the darkest of places during this initial period. The shining ray of hope in my world, and the light that kept me from doing some really stupid things, were firstly my little guy, and secondly my closest family. And despite all their support, I felt isolated in the world. I felt like a failure without understanding the cause. I had friends around me who knew I was suffering, but I couldn't face talking to them or seeing them, as I knew I would face questions.
One day in December 2015, somebody suggested I played Minecraft to "relax". I'd never really played Minecraft before. It was a phase which totally passed me by. I hadn't been in the mood for video games since my wife and I split. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't an avid gamer in the slightest, but we would often share gaming experiences. She was quite versed in LEGO games, she was a massive fan of Fable, she'd even play random games like Diablo, Tearaway and Journey. She'd often sit and watch me play something, and we used to play Guitar Hero and Rock Band together. My biggest problem with playing video games at this point was that everything reminded me of her.
Minecraft was different. It was new to me, it had no correlation to the past, and in truth it was a very relaxing game to play. I taught myself the basics in Creative mode, before I then opted to have a stab at Survival mode. I quickly found myself in a position where I had no idea what I was doing, and Googling anything seemed to bring more questions than answers. So, in a strange twist of fate, I decided to hit the "broadcast" button on my Xbox One, and hope that someone might be able to help answer some questions for me.
What I found through Twitch and Minecraft, was a community. A bunch of people who came and watched me, who understood what it was like to be a "noob", who understood the game I was trying to learn, and who were entertained at my inability to grasp the concept. I never felt like I was making particularly entertaining content, I felt like it was actually serving me more of a purpose. But my chat started filling up with the same people, and I found people starting to follow me - so I knew I was doing something right. But the coolest thing about these people was - they let me be ME.
None of them knew me. They knew nothing about the battles I was in with my own mind. They knew nothing of the dark place I was in away from Twitch. They didn't constantly ask me how I was, or what was happening. They didn't talk to me sympathetically, they didn't molly-coddle me. This group of 5 or 6 regular viewers, in a really strange way, became my best friends. They were the people I knew I could speak to most days, but NOT about the shit part of my life. They were the people I could laugh with, I could make feel good by playing their game with them, they were the people who I let feel superior to me with my inability to grasp a concept of how the game actually worked. Throughout December and January, with my baby steps into Twitch streaming and Minecraft, I suddenly started realising that life wasn't quite so bad. I hadn't become a bad person overnight. Sometimes, bad things happen. And sometimes, the ability of a person to pick themselves up is more important than the shit that put them down there in the first place.
The confidence Twitch gave me in myself inspired me to get a new job, to start afresh. I did just that. And then, the day before I started this new life, I got hit for six again.
My wife told me that she was in a relationship with the guy who had been my best friend for over 21 years.
Now, I had been a little suspiscious about this for a long time. I'm not going to go into the details about why I was, but there was always a really nagging feeling regarding their "friendship". My wife swore to me when we broke up that there was never and would never be anything between them. And in my desperation to blame myself for my marriage falling apart, I took her at face value on that and believed her. Evidently, I shouldn't have.
Back I went into a downward spiral. I was just starting out in a new relationship at the time which I struggled with, as I didn't want to show a weakness. I couldn't cope with work. I couldn't cope with the questions. It was so bad at one point, I could barely cope with my mother. My mum is the most supportive woman in all the world, but her failure to grasp the situation was matched only by my own inability to do the same. To lose everything you have worked so hard for, to blame yourself for everything, only to pick yourself up and face your demons, only to then lose your best friend in the worst kind of betrayal imaginable is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I wouldn't even wish it on him.
After some time, after speaking to a doctor and getting some tablets, after speaking to a counsellor and after giving myself time and space to come to terms with everything, I made a decision.
My wife and I were going through the divorce proceedings by April. By May we were waiting to sell our house, having found a buyer and started the process. The financial agreement had been done, and I didn't have the strength to contest it. We agreed terms back in January on a split of the equity and assets, back before I knew what she had done. While a part of me regrets giving her more than I should, I still quantify it was the right thing to do for my son. My wife was dragging her heels on the sale, as she had found somewhere else to buy and was trying to slow down the process until she could get her new house ready in time. Then, in June 2016, we completed and sold. I had money in my savings account - more than I had expected - and I was at the point where I had the freedom to do what I wanted to do.
So my decision was to return to Twitch, full-time.
In truth, unless you are a partnered streamer, it is very difficult to make a living on Twitch. Yes, you can get donations. Yes, you can get affiliate deals and click commissions. Yes, you can even get a couple of little sponsorship deals. Enough to pay a mortgage and bills? No way.
But, when I suddenly had the opportunity to chase my dream, to finally do something for myself, I thought that this was the right time, the right opportunity, the right platform and the right situation to do just that. I left my job, and on July 1st 2016, I made the move from the world of full-time work to the insecurity of live-Twitch streaming.
My channel is growing. I'm getting numbers I didn't think I could get, especially from someone with such a small starting point. But, unlike the streamers who take it for granted, I love making a big deal out of every single person who takes the effort to follow me, to donate to me, to watch me, to talk to me and to support me. For me, Twitch is the same as it was in December 2015. It's a community of awesome people. It's just now a slightly bigger community for me. It's a community who want to be entertained, and I am working my absolute ass off every single day to entertain them accordingly.
I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to do something I genuinely love for a "living". Be under no illusions, at the moment it isn't a living. The donations are going into a pot to buy better equipment for my stream. My contacts in the games industry are being used to get some support for my channel and to get things for which I can give away to my viewers. I'm under no illusions that I need to get much more behind me in order for this to pay for itself. But, I have set myself goals. I know what I need to do.
As much as anything, I want this blog to be seen as someone who is chasing their dream. I want people who are in difficult places to know that there is always hope. Life is not simple. Sometimes, pain can be a liberating experience, making you a better person. I have no idea if this Twitch thing will be the thing I end up doing, but I am chasing my dream, and I will continue to chase it until it cannot become reality. And from the clutches of the darkest days, I now find myself in the most positive point in my whole life. I have my son. I have a girlfriend whom I love very much, and makes me happier than I've felt in years. I've got my dream and I've bought my ticket.
Anyone who comes along for the ride - I thank you. Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart. Any support I get to keep on being able to do what I do, that means the world.
