Well since it’s Mental Health Awareness month… figure I’ll share where I’m at after trying to put my stuff out there for the first time in person at UFO fest. Honestly it feels like an embarrassing failure to me. When the idea started, I thought my daughter and her friend were going to be with me most of the time to help hand out cards, and the posters weren’t a factor at first. Adding the posters changed the energy around it, to then feel like I needed to make that money back to reimburse the investor at the very least. Found out after my daughter was going to a birthday with her friend and wouldn’t actually be here for most of the festival. So turned into me essentially trying to walk around handing out cards awkwardly carrying a basket full of posters I was too uncomfortable to do anything with by myself.
There were so many people, I already struggle w/social situations and getting out of the house in general, especially by myself. I have C-PTSD, and in last 6 months was diagnosed Bipolar 2 and Borderline Personality Disorder. These were things I suspected I struggled w/most of my life but was too embarrassed to seek a diagnosis. Because I’ve always struggled to handle my emotions, it has always made it difficult to keep jobs, friends/relationships, and take care of myself in general.
The things I’m trying to do now are things I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but since I started, I’ve been in a manic state most of the time. Seeking social connection and trying to prove I can contribute value and take care of myself w/something I enjoy and am passionate about, in a way that hopefully my MH doesn’t interfere as much or just end abruptly. But I feel like I keep trying things that aren’t working and proving the opposite.
Yesterday I relearned I can’t walk around a crowded area trying to do that, alone at least. Maybe if I had a booth to set stuff up so people could approach me if they were interested I might be able to handle it better, but affording the fees and stocking up on product for something like that isn’t something I’m anywhere near atm. So left me feeling pretty ashamed, like I just wasted all that money and tried to hype it up socially to just shut down and not be able to follow through. And now have a huge stack of cards left and all but a couple of the posters that feel pretty worthless because I decided to put the year on it. In hindsight if I left the year off I could have used them next year, so that makes me feel pretty dumb too LOL.
So yeah I’m just feeling pretty down atm. Like I’m not sure what I should be doing, it’s been a struggle to get above 40 followers, nothing I’m doing seems unique or appealing enough to gain people’s interest. I know until I have more of my actual game to show I’m not really going to appeal to that market cuz too many people are making custom tokens etc. But I’m too much of a perfectionist and until my TCG matches more of my vision I just don’t want people to see it, especially cuz my skills at making them look more visually appealing is way better now and makes the existing test prints look like garbage. I had hoped to find a way to start making some income and interest in what I’m doing to help fund the next round of Test Prints after I’m able to rework them to look much better and more of my positional/movement direction mechanics I’m trying to add/refine.
So I’m starting to think I need to stop spending all the time, energy and money scrambling at something I’m not proving to be very good at, whether it be the social marketing aspect or just not creating anything uniquely appealing enough, until my TCG I’m trying to Develop is updated visually and ready for playtesting again after rework at least. That I just need to focus on that for now, because until I have something more tangible to show people, what I’m trying to do isn’t really working for the amount of energy and money I’m putting into it.
But who knows, like I stated above I’m bipolar 2 and borderline, so I may feel differently later lol. I’m not giving up entirely, but if I’m not able to do the in person stuff right now and online stuff really isn’t gaining any traction, I feel like maybe I should be redirecting my energy to other stuff for now. I’ve been slowly getting back into MTG, playing online a bit, and been sorting my friends huge collection to start building decks with, so maybe I’ll still make some videos related to that stuff for now. But not sure how much energy I have to continue trying to make and advertise products atm until I have a better idea of what aligns w/making something I’m passionate about that hits w/others as well.
There was some positivity, the people that my Daughter and I were able to hand out cards seemed to really like them. I wish I had kept it simple to that idea. I think I’m mostly down with guilt someone gave me money to try and sell posters, and I was too uncomfortable to try and do so. And made way more cards then I was able to stay and hand out. Thought I’d be more capable of handling it, and really disappointed I shut down.
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