Fear

The above video is your context. Vaguely.

As someone who wishes to create and has the potential to create I know the fear of putting yourself out there. I feel it a lot. Every time I've uploaded a YouTube video in the past I have obsessed over views and like to dislike ratio. It's a very specific kind of fear. If you create something or you put effort into something no matter how big or small it is and people don't like it? It feels like an attack. To me, and judging from the responses to the above video, to many others too.

When I write I keep it to myself mostly. The few blog posts you can read here is maybe about 5% of what I write. A lot gets binned. A lot gets saved in Word files or as notes and gets buried away on my laptop. I'm scared to even post my personal thoughts and feelings sometimes in case someone reads it and doesn't like it. Putting myself out there is something I struggle with a lot. I'm an introvert, usually. I have the odd good day where I feel extremely confident, but I'm a very awkward person around most people. None of this is good considering the career I want. I have to put myself out there, expose myself to criticism and ride any negative wave to its end.

And that terrifies me.

I've tried posting video blogs before. I watch them now and cringe. I hate them because I have this view of myself. They're still on YouTube, but I try to avoid them. The thing is they got fairly positive reactions. Especially one particular video about tiddlywinks, but even that wasn't enough to boost my self esteem past a few days.

I'm not sure how to fix it. It's a confidence thing, I know that. It's a hard thing to change when you've been like this your entire life. I wasn't well liked at primary school or high school. I had a solid group of friends, but I was ignored or straight up bullied by the majority. Even when I went to university for a year I barely spoke to anyone, I was on my own a lot and just wanted to be out of there. It wasn't until college I felt like I belonged in an educational environment. All the issues I have now stem from the confidence that was taken away from me growing up. I wasn't allowed to be confident, I was allowed to be meek. The less I did to be noticed the worse my confidence got and the more introverted I became.

Now I'm way past the point I should be able to do certain things, but because of my life up until this point... I find it very, very difficult. I feel ill.

If people don't like what I create does that mean they don't like me? No. Not really. But it feels that way. I feel better writing this than I have in a long time. I need to be able to show the world what I can do and I think I can.

Later days.

xx