October 15th – BLOG

If you’d like to listen rather than read, you can do that here:

It’s been a while since I sat down and wrote something personal for people to read, although not that long since I tried.

The last 6 months have been an absolute roller coaster for me and frankly I had to get off for a few rounds, from my daily Glory Hunter series on Youtube to streaming practically every day on Twitch while being locked down with the rest of the country throughout the pandemic, all while nursing a pregnant fiancé with other family in high risk categories elsewhere and at the same time deciding to run the biggest monthly online FM tournament to have existed, it’s been pretty stressful, rewarding in many aspects, but stressful.

Most of you reading this will probably know that me and Elly welcomed a baby boy to our family at the end of August, he’s already 6 weeks old, which seems crazy, I bought a baby monitor today so I can keep an eye on him throughout the night, I feel like I’ve become his personal security, but I guess that’s part of parenthood anyway. I think most days we’re both still pinching ourselves at how lucky we are to have not only each other but a new friend, it’s as special as everyone told me it’d be, he’s the best.

Creatively I’ve been trying to get out of what I think is a slump? I’m not really sure, it’s weird. I’ve spent that last few months trying to give people comfort, people who are going through mental health struggles, struggles that I myself went through in my late teens into my mid 20’s, struggles that largely although not entirely I feel like I’ve managed and beaten, but since Dougie was born things have certainly become more challenging for me mentally, taking the longest break from work that I’ve had since starting FM content in 2015 has allowed me to reflect but at the same time left a huge gap in my day to day life, FM21 can’t come quick enough. I think talking about it is the key though, me and El are very open to discussing how we’re both feeling and trying to understand each others difficulties, I think I need to just remind myself of the lessons I’ve always told myself and my audience since beating depression, potentially you reading this, that a bad day or week doesn’t mean I’ve got a bad life, it just means that this chapter of your own story isn’t how you’d maybe imagined it, but that’s ok, the book isn’t remotely close to finished.

It feels good to simply document how I’m feeling at the moment, as I said at the start, I’ve tried to provide updates on Patreon for the past few months and failed repeatedly because of some weird pressure I put on myself to be interesting, I’d rather not post anything than glamorise something that actually isn’t all sunshine and lollipops, there’s enough of that online already. It’s felt really strange not waking up every day making a video and then streaming, I’d put myself in a real 8/9 hour routine over the worst of lockdown and while I was acutely aware of other’s struggles I was thriving, which did bring about a guilt that I’d to a degree expected would wash over me. The pressure to be the best version of yourself every day on camera though is actually very draining, it’s an element of online content I think people probably just forget, I know I’m culpable of judging others despite being in the middle of it myself. It’s why I’ve not posted anything or streamed very much recently. I’m not prepared to just stream or make videos I’m not proud of because it’ll keep the lights on for the month, I’m fortunate the summer was good to me financially that I can afford to have just one month off…everything, hopefully that doesn’t come across as to braggadocios, the reality is I’m fucking proud of myself, I told myself in December last year that 2020 I was going to really try to be a better version of my creative self and while there are still loads of things I’m yet to do because of little insecurities I suppose, I’m going to try force myself into more risk taking creatively moving forward, it’s about damn time.

So why write about all of this today? Well for the first time in a while I felt a degree of calm that I’ve not had for a little while and it’s given me some clarity to just talk about how I’m feeling knowing people with an interest in me and my life that follow me across a few social medias and have hopefully connected with me over the years feel updated. It’s a part of this job people really seem to take for granted but the relationships I have with the people who watch and support me, be it a comment, like, tweet etc, it’s so powerful to the personal growth and motivation of a creator, of a person, and I’m very lucky to be surrounded by such a strong community.

We’ll leave it there for now, but thank you for reading, if you enjoyed this and got to this point, go back to the tweet that brought you here, and like it, only us lot that got to this point will know, tremendous.

With love, with care

Ben