EsfandTV

Esfand · @EsfandTV

24th Jul 2020 from TwitLonger

I'm taking a break (yes this is 3 days late)


Hey everyone, I've sat here with this twitlonger thing open for like the last 3 days and I can't exactly figure out how I want to put what I want to say into words, but I'm just gonna go ahead and go for it and try to express myself as best as I can. Some parts of how I feel will probably remain private, at least for now, but I'm going to try and express myself as best as I can. For the first time in over 3 years, I'm taking a break from streaming.

Basically I'm just run into the ground man. I'm burned out. I've had so much going on recently between building the house, building the home gym, org/sponsor related stuff, managing my ADHD issues, leading a Classic WoW guild with 6 raid teams going into AQ 40, going for Grand Marshal, and even potentially going for Scarab Lord... I feel like it's all coming to a head and seriously weighing me down, both mentally and physically. I don't feel like myself.

The last year has been pretty wild, the hype leading up to the launch of Classic was insane. Classic WoW was everything I was looking forward to ever since I had gotten my YouTube streaming ban (TLDR: I used to stream private servers on YouTube, got DMCA'd and 3 month ban, moved to Twitch, started following the rules and waiting for Classic to come out), and it was finally here. I'm finally going to get a chance to finish out what I was doing when I started streaming in 2017. I could finally play the game. Since then, my channel saw an overwhelming amount of success which I was incredibly grateful for, but what followed was a lot of weird toxicity that's been specific to Classic WoW. I would prefer not to focus on too much on that, because the reason I'm taking a break has to do with a lot more than that, and although it did initially start around October of last year and it has kind of been wearing me down over time.

What has been going on more recently, is that I've been kind of overwhelmed with the amount of responsibility that I've put on myself, that I mentioned earlier. While a lot of this is going to be great and make for some awesome streams and great content in the future, I'm kind of paying for it now. Some of the time that I'm taking off is directly to take care of those things. But moreso than having a checklist of tasks that I'm needing to mark off, I feel like putting all that responsibility on myself has been wearing me down mentally. I don't feel sharp, I'm getting distracted even more easily than I normally do with my ADHD (another issue), and I've been much more irritable than I normally am. Trying to do the Rank 14 grind in and of itself is a massive commitment and it's something that I want because it's one of two things that I feel like I haven't "accomplished" in my history of playing Classic WoW, the other being Scarab Lord. Couple that with trying to manage a stream, leading one of the biggest guilds in WoW history, building a house and everything that comes with that has really started to add up and affecting my health. On top of having all these things going on, I'm struggling immensely with my ADHD and I feel like there's times where I can't string together a consistent thought, I'm being incredibly forgetful, and just can't focus when I'm on or off stream and it's super frustrating. Just take for example how long it's taken me to write this thing out. Honestly all that's probably exacerbated by the fact that I only get about 5-6 hours of sleep a night. Most nights I can't even fall asleep unless I take some melatonin because my mind is running 100 miles an hour.

Now all of this is one part of it, a big part but just a part. The real issue I think comes from the fact that I've been unhappy despite the fact that I'm making great progress towards a big goal that I want to achieve, I should get Grand Marshal on August 4th. So I've been spending a lot of time thinking about things that have made me happy over the couple of years, and really it has very little to do with Classic WoW. Sure, Classic has been a part of some of that, but it really hasn't been about the game despite the fact that I love playing the game so much. What I'm realizing, especially having to spend so many hours grinding honor, is that I'm not being creatively fulfilled and it's really making a negative impact on my stream in multiple ways. One of which, it makes my stream more stale because I'm not being dynamic with the content that I'm making, and the other putting me in a negative mindset because I feel like I'm not being dynamic. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. I feel like I have the ability to do a lot more with my stream than I am doing, and it's making me feel disappointed in myself and ultimately making me not feel good about my stream. Yeah I do variety and IRL and all kinds of other stuff, but if I'm streaming WoW... I need to stream WoW, not just play WoW. And I need to take some time off to figure out how I want to do everything going forward.

Looking back on the nearly 2 years I was streaming on Twitch before Classic came out, the whole time I all I wanted was Classic WoW. But now that I have it, I realize it's not Classic WoW that I wanted so bad... it was Classic Esfand. I want to do the things I was doing 2-3 years ago. When I was driving down to Austin and doing cooking streams and IRL streams, and making MEMORABLE CONTENT with friends like Asmon and Train. The Europe Trip and EU TwitchCon with Mizkif and Erobb. And most recently, and what was probably the biggest point of realization for all of this really, was the quarantine streams with Jinny. I hadn't really felt like I was creatively fulfilled like that since Classic launched. I felt like I was being fun, being silly, and just having a good with what I was doing. I felt like the guy that "loves everything about this" from the Very Good video, and I really haven't felt like that guy very much lately. And yes, Vanilla WoW and the stuff I did on YouTube was part of that too. But back then, I only streamed like 2-3 days a week, I wasn't grinding vanilla WoW on stream everyday. I would do my show, it was fun, it was great and then I'd make videos and go try and get a job the rest of the week because I was living at home and I had to pay those off and wanted to support my parents. Going forward, I think that's a little bit more similar to what I need to do. I'll continue streaming WoW, Classic or Retail, for big events and things I want to grind out. But on a regular basis I think that if I'm doing more variety, IRL, and bottom line MEMORABLE CONTENT either by myself or with my friends. I want to be creatively fulfilled because It's going to make for a lot better streams in the long term. Both as far as the content on those streams go, and how I feel about it.

I have some stuff to figure out before I come back, I thought maybe it might be a few days but that's already passed. Could be another week or more, I really don't know. I have a lot to figure out before I come back and I just want to come back right and with a plan. The AQ War Effort starts on July 28th, I'll hit Grand Marshal on August 4th, but not exactly sure when I'll be back between or beyond that. But whatever I figure out is definitely going to involve more than Classic WoW, especially once all the AQ release madness dies down.

If you care to keep up with updates, I'll be on twitter and in my discord. I don't know I might post a YouTube video. But hopefully that helps explain my absence a little bit in the last few days, and to be honest typing it out and finally getting this out there is making me feel a little better too. Thank you guys for being so supportive and I'll see you guys soon. That's one thing off the checklist.

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