What's funny is there are at least 3 of us (D'snowth, MWoO and I) with a similar background of tough times. I'm sure there's more in here as well. I can't speak for the rest of them but I'm **** proud of what I've accomplished in life despite it.
I'll admit, I feel like there's so much more I wish I could have accomplished . . . unfortunately, I feel part of it was being born at the wrong time. Granted, the entertainment industry was never an easy one to break into (even way back when, there was the popular phrase, "don't call us, we'll call you"), but back then, it was considerably easier, because there was much greater respect for quality and the overall creative process in what went into making TV shows and movies and such - as opposed to today, where the little guys like me are kind of shunned and cast aside, because we'll never amount to anything. Even on YouTube - an outlet that was created specifically for little guys like me - it's the bigger channels by people who do nothing but make vlogs about their lives, or what new gadgets they bought, or review what movies they saw, or counting down top 10 lists, or what have you, who get all the exposure and attention, while little guys like me - who actually put time, work, and effort into actually creating something artistic to share - are consistently swept under the rug and hidden under a bushel.
Granted, I never set out to become a YouTube celebrity, but rather, I just wanted to use it as a tool to help boost myself as a creator/producer/puppeteer with potential, and that I would eventually move on to something bigger, and better (I still got tons of ideas for shows and even movies that still have never gotten off the ground) . . . but that never happened.
And, now that my mom's permanently disabled, and I've pretty much become her full-time caretaker, while my dad still works full-time as a truck driver (a blue collar profession where the workers are continually exploited and screwed by the white collar higher-ups, hence the periods where we've had struggles while growing up), I'm still not exactly sure what my next move should be. I know at least a couple of options are working from home (like a customer service rep or something), or finding some kind of part-time work that's close to home so I won't have to be too far from my mom . . . if I had more subscribers on YouTube, I could probably monetize my content, but I'm nowhere near the minimum number of subscribers required to monetize.