Is it okay not to be okay?

To be honest, I am not really sure that it’s actually right to post it because I just feel like those things that I’m gonna address are just something that has been heavy on my heart recently. And yah, if you know me through my videos or even in real life, you guys would think that I am some kind of a positive person. I mean my pov is somehow kind of filled with optimism and hopefulness. However, recently I found myself in a slumn for probably a couple of weeks. It’s not easy for me to express those personal feelings, stuffs like that in a public way, but if I don’t do that, I feel like I can’t continue with the next video, to be honest. And today I choose to pluck up the courage to tell my own story about my mental health, even though it’s hard but I know that this is what we should know and if I can even just help one person to know that they aren’t alone, that their feelings are validated, it’s actually a matter and it’s totally okay to feel upset, vulnerable to feel insecure like that sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I’m not trying to present myself as a person who is cool because of experiencing breakdown, nope, I myself and my channel are always trying to be positive to be uplifting but at the end of the day, I think it’s important to recognize such phase like this. The phase you have to wrestle with a thousand negative thoughts in your minds, like a lot of stones are sitting on your chest. I already sat down and looked deeply to my inner side to see what was actually happening. But with my extrovert personality I don’t choose to just stop keeping silent but talking about these things because I think it brings people together and this is what a lot of people, especially young people should recognize.

Since the time I set the deadline for myself that I have to upload 2 videos per month, I became really overwhelmed with that. Actually, before saying that I already considered a lot about how consistently I can maintain to make a video. My boyfriend always advise me that I shouldn’t put too much strain on myself like I have just started, everything is still new to me, besides that I also need a lot of stuff to deal with. With all his caring words, I just turn a blind eye and insist that I can do it and I should do it because as I read in this book, “Youtube strategy will recommend your channel more if you upload it frequently”, and as I studied in the course of Ali Adabb “When you have just started making a video, please don’t focus on the quantity but the quality. For the 50 first video, don’t make a too high expectation, 50 first video, is for you, this is the time that you can take advantage from it to learn to talking in front of the camera, filming, editing, all the stuffs, and through a new video, the quality will improve by itself” That’s why I was determined to make 2 video per month and yah. It did take a toll on me so much. I think the first reason is because I was blinded by too many successful Youtube channels. From the time that I started to be serious with Youtube, I already acknowledged that my content is not suitable for so many people. One is because I speak English, which is considered unfamiliar to a lot of my friends and my acquaintances. Second is because I don’t dedicate myself to creating a better scene in my video, I just sit down and keep talking, sometimes it is even too serious. Yah, I know it, but somehow, I still feel really upset and daunted because I feel like with all the efforts I put in, my contents deserve more recognition than that. Then, I chose to keep moving in misery, I set the deadline for every part, I need to finish the script before this day, I need to finish filming before this day. I also studied a lot from other channels to see what they do so that they can gain a lot of views like that. But the more research that I did, the more stress I gained because for some pp they even just need to film some stuff in their life but they could gain thousands of views, some of which I consider to be meaningless for pp’s life, and it creates wrong perception about reality, and I feel it’s really unfair. I became so freaking insecure, anxious and depressed. I spend a lot of nights just choosing and reading materials to write the scripts to not miss the deadline, but then the next day I still force myself to wake up early. Then I instantly felt burnout and I even consumed a lot of comfort food to make me feel better. I also skip exercise, read books, every healthy habit but just only spend time on Youtube and academic work. One more time, my skin experienced a breakout again. I really really feel unconfident whenever I look at myself on the camera. I really think that how can people be interested in my channel if my image isn’t beautiful, gorgeous like some other content creators. That’s the time I realize I did forget my pure and beautiful goal of making Youtube which is learning – living - sharing and putting myself in a very toxic relationship with it. What’s the meaning if I live in an unhealthy way like that but still keeping to present myself as a very productive person. That’s so deceitful. And what is the point when I love to talk about self love, self care but I treat myself badly like that. No, I can't keep everything like that anymore. I need to stop this. I decided to be myself, simply cintachun, a twenty-year-old girl with imperfections. Even though it’s slow, I really believe that it will bring some particular value for people, I told myself like that. Since the time I set the deadline for myself that I have to upload 2 videos per month, I became really overwhelmed with that. Actually, before saying that I already considered a lot about how consistently I can maintain to make a video. My boyfriend always advise me that I shouldn’t put too much strain on myself like I have just started, everything is still new to me, besides that I also need a lot of stuff to deal with. With all his caring words, I just turn a blind eye and insist that I can do it and I should do it because as I read in this book, “Youtube strategy will recommend your channel more if you upload it frequently”, and as I studied in the course of Ali Adabb “When you have just started making a video, please don’t focus on the quantity but the quality. For the 50 first video, don’t make a too high expectation, 50 first video, is for you, this is the time that you can take advantage from it to learn to talking in front of the camera, filming, editing, all the stuffs, and through a new video, the quality will improve by itself” That’s why I was determined to make 2 video per month and yah. It did take a toll on me so much. I think the first reason is because I was blinded by too many successful Youtube channels. From the time that I started to be serious with Youtube, I already acknowledged that my content is not suitable for so many people. One is because I speak English, which is considered unfamiliar to a lot of my friends and my acquaintances. Second is because I don’t dedicate myself to creating a better scene in my video, I just sit down and keep talking, sometimes it is even too serious. Yah, I know it, but somehow, I still feel really upset and daunted because I feel like with all the efforts I put in, my contents deserve more recognition than that. Then, I chose to keep moving in misery, I set the deadline for every part, I need to finish the script before this day, I need to finish filming before this day. I also studied a lot from other channels to see what they do so that they can gain a lot of views like that. But the more research that I did, the more stress I gained because for some pp they even just need to film some stuff in their life but they could gain thousands of views, some of which I consider to be meaningless for pp’s life, and it creates wrong perception about reality, and I feel it’s really unfair. I became so freaking insecure, anxious and depressed. I spend a lot of nights just choosing and reading materials to write the scripts to not miss the deadline, but then the next day I still force myself to wake up early. Then I instantly felt burnout and I even consumed a lot of comfort food to make me feel better. I also skip exercise, read books, every healthy habit but just only spend time on Youtube and academic work. One more time, my skin experienced a breakout again. I really really feel unconfident whenever I look at myself on the camera. I really think that how can people be interested in my channel if my image isn’t beautiful, gorgeous like some other content creators. That’s the time I realize I did forget my pure and beautiful goal of making Youtube which is learning – living - sharing and putting myself in a very toxic relationship with it. What’s the meaning if I live in an unhealthy way like that but still keeping to present myself as a very productive person. That’s so deceitful. And what is the point when I love to talk about self love, self care but I treat myself badly like that. No, I can't keep everything like that anymore. I need to stop this. I decided to be myself, simply Cintachun, a twenty-year-old girl with imperfections. Even though it’s slow, I really believe that it will bring some particular value for people, I told myself like that. Since I started, my friends of the same age gave me lots of compliments like they said they love my positive energy, and asked me to update more about my life because they think that it’s vividly colorful. However, I set limit to what people can see from my life because I’m afraid they will get me wrong. Being positive is the thing that I’m looking forward, but that’s not everything in my life. Social media is just a means for us to present ourselves as the way we want, not the way it is. Thus, when we look at these perfect moments, we will easily feel that we’re the only one who have to bear with the tough time. Actually, it’s totally wrong and unfair. It’s like we’re just comparing the trailer of their life with our normal scene. Even though I had acknowledged it, but I still got lost in that loophole. I think one of the reasons which made me suffer from a mental breakdown like this is because I overuse social media. During this time, I spent most of my time to lay down on my mattress and scroll the feed continuously. But then, here I am. I’m still here, healthy and happy. I realized that after everything, I’m sitting in front of the camera talking. I wasn’t okay, and it’s totally okay. I know it sounds like a cliché, but when we hear this quote that says everything’s gonna be alright, it’s true. It’s a wisdom of life. At the end of the day, we’re still here. What I feel and experience might be similar or different to others, but we’re humans still. We have to be there for each other, regardless of the different story that we have. Thank you for watching my video today. When I started to make that video, I didn’t really think that it has a serious purpose, I just wanna show my real vulnerable side with you guys and I just want you guys to understand that we are all struggled at one time or another with not knowing who we are, what we really want or where we’re headed. At this stage when I finished making this video my mental health already got better than before a lot.