A Small YouTuber's Journey

Being a small YouTuber has definitely been an interesting experience. I only have thirty-something subscribers, so I'm still a really small channel. I posted videos pretty frequently for about a year, but I stopped for the last couple years. For the most part, I was only posting vlogs and a series that I called Days of Happiness, which I will be starting up again soon. Up until recently, I was only recording on my phone camera since that was all I had. I started up college classes about six months ago and was required to get a decent webcam for my tests since all of my schooling is online, so I am now able to use that and a mic that my best friend gave me to record. I can record better quality videos now, which excites me. I also found some decent editing apps for my laptop, but most have the watermark on them that I can't afford to get rid of yet, but you make do with what you can when you don't have that many subscribers to impress. I used to record every chance I got, but I found recently that I was struggling pretty heavily with my mental health and trying to find the motivation to record. I was in a mentally abusive relationship for the last two years and I was actually engaged to him for four months. The entire time that we were together, I was pretty well cut off from all of my friends and I was actually afraid to do some of the things I enjoyed doing such as recording videos for YouTube. I've been out of that relationship for a little bit now and I'm slowly finding my motivation to start back up with the things I love. It has taken a lot out of me to get back to how I used to be pre-mental abuse. I have ideas for a couple videos I want to make, but ultimately I'm unsure of what to do with my channel. I have thought about doing gaming videos or just remaining with vlogs, but I guess that's the beauty of having such a small channel. It's easier to experiment around with the type and style of video I want to do when there's less of a risk of losing my fan base. The next two videos I want to create talk about my mental health along with the abusive relationship I was in and the story about my r*pe. Yes, sensitive content. I'm scared to share my story, but I feel like it's time to let it out and let it go. It has been a scary journey for me and I know that others have gone through worse, including my sister, but I feel like it is important that people see that they can tell their stories and there are people out there who will listen. I want to share my story with the world, even though it is one of the most terrifying things for me to do. I know exactly what points I want to make in the videos, but it is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, so I haven't even began to record them yet. I am excited to begin recording and uploading videos again, though. I do hope to one day have a larger fan base, but I don't mind only sharing my story with the thirty people that have stuck by me thus far. Even without posting for two, almost three years now, my subscriber count hasn't really dropped very much, and I'm glad to know that I've got loyal subscribers with this small of a channel.