My first streams were mostly League of Legends, streaming once or twice a week on weekends for about 1-2 people. I was 22, in university, streaming from my laptop in my bedroom.

Around my second year of university, my dad decided he wouldn't pay for any more tuition. So I applied to Ryanair, got accepted, and moved to Dublin to work as cabin crew.

I took my low-cost tower PC with me to Ireland — well, technically I took all the parts in suitcases and bought a new case there. Nothing broke! I kept streaming for those same few people, mostly on my days off since my work hours were intense.

After a year, I sold my PC in Ireland and came back home. With my last paycheck and the money from selling my setup, I bought what was at the time a really good gaming PC. I planned to apply to bigger airlines while streaming, but things with my dad got worse. He didn't believe streaming was a "real job" and would literally shut off my internet or take the router to work so I couldn't go live.

Even though I got interviews with Qatar and Emirates, they were in Lisbon and I couldn't afford the trip. My dad refused to help because I'd "wasted money" on my PC. So I ended up working as a cashier at a supermarket.

After three months, I moved to my mom's tiny apartment. I had to sleep on the couch, but at least I could stream without someone yelling at me or cutting my internet. That's when I discovered osu!, got a tablet, and gained new viewers. In 2017, I joined a stream team and started doing Halloween horror events and Christmas specials. The end of 2017 and start of 2018 were some of the happiest times I've had streaming.

While working at the supermarket and streaming, I started planning my dream trip to South Korea. Since I wasn't paying rent at my mom's, I saved every penny for three months in Seoul.

Here's the thing: I couldn't afford both a desktop PC and a travel laptop. So I sold my gaming PC (the one I'd fought so hard for) and bought a gaming laptop instead. With just one monitor, gaming wasn't great, so I switched to creative streams.

I had been cross-stitching as a hobby for years, but I didn't realize people would enjoy watching it live. While I was in Korea, my streams actually got me sales and commissions. Those three months were some of the best of my life. Korea still feels like my dream country.

But more than the country itself, it was the community. I had recently joined a stream team, and we'd hang out on Discord, do events together, and just… exist together. As someone who never really fit in at school or university, I'd never had a group like that before.

When I came back from Korea, I made what might have been a mistake: I moved back in with my dad instead of returning to my mom's couch.

For a few months after Korea, streams were going really well. By late summer 2018, I was averaging nearly 20 viewers — the highest I'd ever been. I was making almost as much as a part-time job from donations and cross-stitch commissions. Things finally felt like they were working.

But my dad still didn't see it as real work. The constant pressure made my depression and anxiety worse. In the fall of 2018, I enrolled in a programming course. With classes all day and stress at home, my streams went from sparse to zero. By October and November I was barely streaming. Then from December 2018 to February 2019, I didn't stream at all.

When I came back in spring 2019, I was doing short morning cross-stitch streams before class, but my schedule was completely all over the place. In October 2019, my internship started — full-time with a 1.5-hour commute. I could only stream some weekend afternoons. The constant schedule changes made my viewership drop since people who used to watch me couldn't anymore.

In March 2020, I moved in with my boyfriend at the time. The pandemic hit, and we were both working from home. I spent about two years in that house, but I don't have many memories — especially from the second year — because I was in a bad place until I got out.

I did very sporadic streams during this time. Like I really tried to continue streaming, but my schedules were all over the place. My games were all over the place. Eventually I got a new PC and went back to streaming games.

In April 2021, we got a puppy — you might know Pixel. Somehow, I got back to streaming around that time, but no longer cross-stitching. I discovered Genshin Impact and got completely addicted, streaming it on weekday evenings and weekends.

At some point in 2021, I discovered coworking and body doubling streams. Between making new friends in the coworking community and being somewhat regular, my numbers looked good again.

But my mental health wasn't. I was in a relationship I didn't want to be in, and I was using streaming to escape my reality. I streamed in January 2022, then stopped as I planned and executed leaving that relationship. I moved in with my sister and didn't stream for a couple of months.

I only did 41 streams in 2022 and 53 streams in 2023. I had a full-time job, was living in a new place, and was trying to heal. Those two years, I was more focused on YouTube than Twitch.

For most of 2023, I didn't stream much. I still played video games. I still made some YouTube videos. I just didn't stream. That whole year was a mental healing year. I just wanted to find things that I enjoyed again. I just wanted to feel like myself again.

During my healing years, my viewership completely dropped — probably because I was streaming very sporadically with very random games. Honestly, I was just trying to remember why I liked Twitch in the first place. But I was still healing.

And then a lot of unexpected things happened. After me and my sister had a good year together, she started having some issues. She ended up losing her job and moved out because she couldn't pay rent.

I tried finding someone else to live with me instead of moving out with her. Didn't work. Not only didn't work — I got laid off by the end of 2023.

2024 was a new year. I was looking for a job. I was looking for a roommate. Nothing seemed to be working. I felt like I'd hit rock bottom when I had to give up the apartment, move back in with my mom — no plan, no money, increasing debt.

What was I gonna do?

And I turned to Twitch again.

I started being very consistent with Twitch while doing other stuff. Obviously I was still looking for a job. I was trying to improve myself by taking online courses. I was trying. For the rest of 2024, I tried so many things for so long, and honestly nothing really seemed to be working.

But one thing I was able to do was be consistent on Twitch. I had amazing support from the Twitch community. I feel like I would've starved — maybe not because my mom wouldn't allow it — but I had the most amazing support during that year and this year through the community.

What did I achieve in 2024? At least I was consistent. I streamed every single week, at least twice per week. And I had weeks that I streamed almost every day. It was absolutely insane.

2024 was the year I hit rock bottom, but it was also the year I made my Twitch comeback.

And that brings us to 2025. I'm still consistent with Twitch. Not only that — in May I held my first-ever subathon because I wanted to go to my first TwitchCon. And the community made it happen. I had a successful first-ever subathon, and Twitch sent me to TwitchCon Europe where I live-streamed IRL for the entire trip. It was absolutely amazing.

This year has been incredible. By the end of 2024, I had a goal of reaching 10 average viewers and I did it. And for the whole of 2025, I've been very steadily growing and it has been great.