When do you give up?

I have a friend who live streams. Yesterday I read in one of his posts that he gets complaints from people that he’s a bad streamer. Apparently he’s got haters. When I asked him about it he said happily: “that means I’m doing something right!”. I got kind of sad, because that means I’m not. He tried to cheer me up by reminding me that people have disliked my YouTube videos and one person did actually unsub because of that. That made me feel a little bit better… At least one person hate me enough to unsub…

All joking aside, of course it’s never fun to get haters and of course he’s not happy about it. He works really hard to make people smile and doesn’t deserve this. It’s impossible to make everyone happy, some people will like what you do some won’t. I just don’t understand why the people who don’t just leave and find something they like instead. That would make their lives so much better maybe they’ll even lose their wish to hate, but maybe that’s what They work hard to do. It reminds me of that person who disliked all the people calling themselves writers, but who only write boring, self centered stuff that even makes libraries sigh. You can’t please everyone, but it is difficult not to react when people say these things. You have to be very egoistic to just turn your back to it and keep writing your boring, self centered rubbish instead of quitting as was suggested. Being able to call myself a writer took some time, having my right to the title questioned could have made me give up. But here I am still being self centered. And my friend will keep streaming for all the people who believe in him, pretending haters doesn’t bother him, but of course they do. To feel nothing would mean your not human or maybe that you don’t care about what you do. And we’re not the ones being weak or fragile. We keep moving even when it hurts. One smile at a time…

And of course I’m not happy someone unsubscribes because of a video I made. With my low numbers it’s all friends, which means a friend of mine chose to stop supporting me and my channel because of one video. That’s some pretty personal hating right there. I know that not even friends have to like everything you do, or watch it, or read it, and I have had many friends commenting on some of my videos. But they have come to me and said it to me directly. I can take that. I haven’t always been completely serious with every single video I’ve made. It’s okay to tell me what you think, we’re friends, right? That’s what friends do. Not saying a word but unsubscribing is not exactly what I’d expect a friend to do. It’s not as if I make a constant stream of weird videos that would completely fill your inbox with stupid stuff. I’m easily ignored.

Sometimes socializing with people can feel as if you’re taking a walk in a mine field. A walk can be such a nice and pleasant thing, and so is meeting people, dinners, parties, hanging out with friends, talking, whatever you, it should be nice and pleasant. But with some people you feel as if you constantly have to be on guard, you never know what’s going to happen, but sooner or later a mine will go off. I don’t know if that’s how I make other people feel too, but I wouldn’t be surprised. For some reason, though, I never get the feeling that they are taking this walk with the same caution as I am. Maybe I am very sensitive and appear to be made of glass, but some people I know can be very disrespectful and rude. They never seem to listen or even try to understand whatever it is I am trying to say. Or maybe they just aren’t interested. Maybe the self centered boring writer has met one of those readers who aren’t all that interested in me, despite claiming to be a friend. Or my mother. I keep it all down, bottle it up, say nothing for as long as I can. Fake the smile for as long as I can. When I can’t smile anymore I try not to frown. I still try to at least keep my poker face, and trust me, I can have an extreme poker face. That’s the only thing about poker I’m really good at. Not giving it away. Make believe I am fine, when I’m boiling inside. Anyone with any kind of sensitivity would eventually feel the tension in the air. Notice that I am not responding anymore. It’s difficult to say anything when you’re biting your tongue so hard to prevent all the things you really want to say from slipping out. My mother never has any idea. She can go on and on, from one rude comment to the next. And because she never stops eventually I will snap. And when I do she gets so shocked, how could I?

Some people are difficult to get along with, but when do you give up on family or a friend? In my mother’s case, she doesn’t understand that she’s done something wrong. She always thinks she’s right. No matter how close to bullying her so called help is, she still believe she’s right. Even when everybody around us can see how she’s only hurting me, making me feel worse, making me give up, making me want to die. She can’t see that. She believes she’s right and that she’s helping. Even her best friend called me last year apologizing for believing my mother, My mothers best friend called me to say she finally understood how difficult my life with my mother must have been. She understood why I had to call the police to get my own mother removed from house. My mother can seem like such a nice person at first, but say or do something she doesn’t like and you’ll understand why I am afraid of her.

I knew all this about her and I still let her move in. I should have known it wouldn’t work. I did know it wouldn’t work. But when do you give up? I could see she was lonely, I’m her only child. I know she doesn’t understand me like I understand her. I know she will hurt me, but when do you give up? I keep letting people hurt me because I just don’t know when it’s time to give up.

Giving up on writing for today, well past my magic number so it’s time to stop. Thank you, keep smiling and be careful in mine fields!!!