My Mental State

This has got to be one of the most difficult times of my life. Everything has been thrown up into the air and I'm trying to catch what I can. Everything that I have been striving for has been called into question. Jawesome Possum was created after a very difficult time in my life. I'd argue the most difficult time. I was kicked out of my home at 18, lost to the world and unsure of what to do other than I knew I had to strike out and make my own way. I had $200 to my name, a laptop, some clothes, and a copy of Clash of Kings. I could have gone back home, but I knew I had to adventure off and do something. So I lived on coaches, moved across the country, made new friends.

I have a lot of goals in life. Author. Filmmaker. Musician. Entertainer. I moved to Washington to be with my friends I made doing film. The goal was to make movies and write books. But making movies cost money and I didn't have a job. So while I hunted and even while I held jobs, I decided to make Jawesome Possum with Mike. I think we were both in this weird stage of life. He had essentially left his webshow CNS and I was wrapping up mine, Pavel Hall. We needed something and Jawesome Possum was it.

After a year, he left. I started to have a steady job, moved in with Josiah, and was writing and editing the last season of Pavel Hall. Jawesome Possum took a back seat for a good 2 years, though I did occasionally do a livesteam or make a video or two. And boy, was I writing. I wrote 3 different novels with multiple drafts along with short stories and novellas. I was a man possessed. I still wanted to make movies and I still do, but it's the one art form I want to make that requires a good deal of money.

So I wrote and wrote and then one day I stopped. It wasn't writers block. I know what I want to be writing, but the words and the passion died as it usually does every November. Why? I work retail, I'm a manager, and it's Thanksgiving. Then it's Christmas. Then New Years. Then Valentine's Day. Then there was a Pandemic. 

But something else also happened in the fall of 2019. I looked at Jawesome Possum and a fire burned in me. I saw the League of Maidens video which had I believe a good 3,000 views and I thought to myself that I could do something with that. Jawesome Possum, the goal of it, other than to entertain people, was to become the day job. To be the main source of income to replace the grocery store job and to do something I enjoy so I could work on writing in my spare time at this job that I choose my own hours. 

I was fed up with my job, writing had died, and I got a yearning to do Jawesome Possum. And do it I did. And for the next year and a half I worked my ass off and got this little channel of 72 subs to 12.6k.

It's been a month since YouTube deleted Jawesome Possum with no warning and with no specifics other than a link to the terms of a service and a general "You did a bad." This has, quite honestly, devastated me. I was happy before July 5th 2021. I was in such high spirits. I was the most creative I've ever been. The hardest working I've ever been. The light at the end of the tunnel was getting brighter by the day. New people were finding JP at such rates that half the time, if someone asked me what I was at, I would have no idea. Money was coming in, much needed money for rent, for food, for the doctor I haven't seen since I was probably a teen. JP paid for my new teeth so that now I can eat without pain and smile without shame. Paid sponsorships were starting. I was on the up and up, until I wasn't.

The accumulation of 5 years of work has been destroyed. The dream that was just within reach just blinked away. YouTube has completely and totally disrupted everything. I've spent the last month fighting to get my channel back, reuploading and sorting through 700 videos, all the while moving to a new apartment that I have to leave in the first week of September, so now add apartment hunting to that. 

Quite honestly, this has left me incredibly depressed and heart broken. I sincerely do not know what to do. I feel like even if my channel came back today, I would be numb to it as YouTube has shown their true colors to me. You always think it won't happen to you, until it does happen to you. 

A part of me wants to stick with this. I got it to 12k once, I can do it again and go further. 

Another part of me wants to move on back to writing and leave the YouTube dream behind. 

It is devastating and I am lost. I hope that eventually I can figure out what I want to do. I'll keep up on the reupload for now, and I'm almost done uncensoring things for Gumroad. But I feel incredibly betrayed and I am an emotional mess. 

To everyone who has stuck with me, I thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart and you are all so fucking fantastic. 

I have some soul searching to do, and I will try to keep you all informed. 

Until next time, Stay Jawesome Out There!