Accepting who I am

I've tried making a video about this, I think I did about 15 takes in total, but I found myself getting emotional and unable to get through filming.

April was unexpectedly a very very difficult month for me. I did a lot of yelling and roaring. One day I talked and yelled for about 6 hours straight and lost my voice for two days. 

But why?

There were a lot of factors in April. First of all, I established myself as a legal entity; a company. Something that I told would be "simple" was anything but. It took a lot of my personal time and a lot of requiring me to go back and forth to the offices. 

But as I set up a company I have now brought on people to work for me and they've been letting me down. Even the simplest of tasks would not get done for an entire day. If I assigned them something to work on that I can usually finish in 2-3 hours it took them 2-3 days. It got to a point where I was pushed to the brink and was so incredibly frustrated because they kept dropping the ball. It got so bad that Blaire and I almost parted ways.

Then my family got into a random squabble that had nothing to do with me but apparently I had to step in and mediate the fight. And for reference, they fought over nothing. I mean quite literally. They were just "sensitive" because they were "tired" from working so hard.

This baffled me. How were they working hard? For reference, I now 100% fully support my parents and grandmother financially. That's rent, food, living expenses, etc. So they don't even have to WORK for a living, so why are they working hard? So hard to the point that they're so exhausted that they become emotionally volatile? 

That's a long ass story but it eventually led to this. Everyone, from my parents to Blaire--if anyone gets in my way of working, and it's not something out of your control, then you are sabotaging me and worst of all, disrespecting my audience.

I am very grateful to all you guys. I make sure I try to push past my limits and always give you guys 110% even if it doesn't always show on camera. I gave up everything for this: hobbies, a social life, my time, etc. And I'm OK with that. And what I demand from the people around me is not 110%, it's to just try your best and be the best human being that you can be.

But their failures all fall on me. I thought "well as long as I make the money and financially support everyone, they'd all live their lives properly right?" Wrong.

That was my mistake. I realized that whether it was work or whether it was their personal lives: I had to guide them. If it was work, I had to train them. If it's their personal life, I have to coach them. 

The last time I tried to kill myself was I think July/August of last year. Since then I think have changed more in 8 months than I have in the past decade. After my last "incident", I really felt ashamed that I had let all of you down. Our content and schedule suffered because I had to recover from my incident. It was then that I decided to really change my life.

Yes, fitness and a healthier diet has helped both my mind and body, but my soul has been greatly improved by studying philosophy. I've been pouring into a series of letters from an Italian philosopher by the name of Seneca. Discovering philosophy was like realizing I was queer for the first time. Everything suddenly made sense as to why I've felt different my entire life.

I have always felt like a freak.

My entire childhood I was beat and tortured both at school and in my home. And it was always because "you're a freak". "There's nobody in the world like you". My mother used to beat me, pummel me to near death just because I said or thought ideas that were different.

Since I was 16 I have been like a tree telling my family that this is my future. I told them about my vision. My dream to make the world a better place and to heal people through film. None of them believed me and said the worst things to me.

Yet I never let it discourage me. 

I was publicly online calling out racial/queer/police issues before woke culture existed. I won't say who because many of you will know them, but even amongst YouTubers, they would laugh at me in front of my face saying "oh PD is so serious all the time" and trying to give me "advice" and that I'll never grow or get sponsors if I'm so politically vocal on social media all the time. They ridiculed me just for being OUTSPOKEN. 

When the Sandy Hook shooting occurred, I was lost. That night after work I walked into a Catholic Church looking for meaning. I spent weeks going to various different churches looking for answers.

My mother told me not to care about that or else I'd go crazy. 

Now, all these years later I don't know how to handle this situation. This past month, various members of my family have revealed that they all feel "burdened and pressured" by me. Not for anything other than: Because I was right. Because I have been WILLING my future, this current future, into existence for TWENTY years. They told me that they keep failing because they don't know how to be as good as me. 

This didn't make any sense. I'm not good at what I do, I just try really hard. 

But it didn't dawn on me until I poured into my book from Seneca. It scared ME, to be reading his letters and they all sound like I wrote them. The more I dive into philosophy, it disturbs me that I arrived to most all of these conclusions on my own and have been applying it to my life for some time now. 

I realized while reading Seneca that I have always had the heart of a philosopher. A philosopher is unpopular but their main duty is to help people and guide their minds. The philosopher's heart is to care about ALL people not just the immediate friends and family. We retreat only into the dark to work on and improve ourselves. You guys may not see it but when I'm not on camera for you guys, I'm always just studying now. I'm always studying: how do I become a better version of myself.

I realize now that it's my duty to train and guide my family and friends. It's just a responsibility I never considered because I never wanted or considered myself to be a leader. But I felt it this past month. I am surrounded by people but they only care for themselves. I take care of everyone but... No one takes care of me. It's weird. 

This made me sad for the past few months if I'm being honest. My 30th birthday... It made me really sad to see how little effort anyone put in. 

Let me give you an example. For Christmas, I not only got one but MULTIPLE presents for everyone. I got them all so many presents that I needed a large gift box but no gift boxes in that size existed. So then I went to Home Depot, bought giant moving boxes, but since regular boxes are boring I spray painted all the boxes. But I wanted everyone to feel special and know that I put thought into each of them so then I also spray painted and decorated all the boxes in different colors and designs. Then I filled the boxes with filling confetti but also forest scented pinecones and filling so that it would smell nice and not like paint when they opened the box. I did this for FOUR people. 

And for me... People just handed me stuff. And no matter what, I am grateful, but I never tell anyone how it breaks my heart. No one does either the big things or even the little things for me.

No one ever asks me how I'm doing. No one checks up on me. I just felt...very alone this month. But I accepted it. Seneca helped me accept it. And the truth is, yes it makes me sad but I'm still happy so it's OK.

But then yesterday something happened.

I made a YouTube community post because I hadn't put out a YT video in a month. After I made that post, I guess the last post I had made was about NU'EST so I thought "oh I want to see what people said about NU'EST". I was surprised to see that a small handful of the comments were from people asking if I was ok. It was something like "we haven't heard from you in a while just wanted to make sure you're ok".

And that shit sent me. 

I don't have any bad feelings towards the people in my life for not going the extra mile for me. I guess they all assume I'm "strong" since I'm "the leader" but it's not true. Every day is hard for me, I just did the WORK necessary to give myself the strength to get up everyday and try my best. And someone told me recently that I'm the weirdo here and I can't get sad about people not doing things for me or checking up on me because most people don't do that, I'm just the outlier.

As always, I feel like a freak.

But now I know why I'm a freak and I'm happy. 

But seeing those comments... It just really means a lot that somebody cares or even asked. I have felt so alone my entire life. My friends have always made me feel alone, my family, my significant other. I like being honest and speaking from the heart. I like caring about things. I like to discuss politics and world issues for fun. And the people I came across just never liked any of these things. 

But you guys.

There are people who come just for the reactions, which is totally fine, but there are the people who understand. 

See, I hate being called things like "smart" or "good". I'm not a smart person (I have the report cards to prove it). Nor am I a good person. What frustrates me about people calling me these things is them setting themselves up to lose. The truth is, my only true talent is that I am to truly give 100% of myself to any task at hand. Anyone can be me. My family, my friends, and all of you. Nothing I do requires intelligence, just the passion to care.

I realize you guys are quite literally the best part of my life. You all inspire me to work harder, be a better person, and not give into society's toxic teachings. I hope I can inspire you all to be better people as well.

Thank you for caring. I'm a very lonely person, but you all make me feel a little less lonely.