Kai Cenat is taking time out on his 24th birthday to be honest with his millions of followers.
In a video shared on his social platforms on Tuesday (Dec. 16), the streamer opened up about his struggles with mental health, adding on to comments he made on stage while accepting the “Streamer of the Year” award at the Streamer Awards earlier this month.
“I felt like it was the perfect day to be transparent and honest with you guys,” Kai said in the 90-second video. “A few days ago, I spread awareness on mental health and how important it is to take care of yourself. Honestly, for the past few months, I’ve been struggling with mental health out of self-doubt and fright of pursuing goals that I really wanna achieve. The reason I’ve really been in my head is because I just want to do more. I’ve [come] to realize that I’m a true creator, and I’m very passionate about creating and I have other goals and things that I just want to achieve and do more of.”
According to Psychology Today, self-doubt can generally show up in self-handicapping, the desire to overachieve and even imposter syndrome. With Kai, self-doubt has been on display several times during his marathon streaming sessions, all in the chase of his desired goal.
While on stage at the Streamer Awards, he urged those in attendance to prioritize their mental health and admitted that after his September “Mafiathon 3” marathon streaming session, he was focusing on himself and taking a rare break from being in front of the camera.
On stage, he saluted anime as one of the things he used to help him get through a depressive episode. In his latest video, Kai not only admits that his mental health is “getting better,” but his own doubts and fears were getting in the way of him achieving even more as a creative.
“Out of frustration and fear, I’ve just been in my head for some reason,” he said. “I’ve never had this feeling before, but I want it to be known that I truly want to create. I don’t know if I’m getting mature, or I’m just looking at things from a broad point of view, but I’m so passionate about creating in general and I’m excited to show you guys what’s going on.”
Kai then pointed fans to his kc3hidd3n Instagram page, one that would showcase more of his life as he went through his journey and revealed the page would soon be private so that only those who initially joined him could stick around to see his progress. So far, the page contains various photos of Kai through the years with captions about him telling fans he’ll go private at certain milestone follower numbers.
The 24-year-old turning to anime is similar to another young star who found himself trying to figure out his mental health and alter his coping mechanisms. Keith Powers shared earlier this year that he had gone on a sobriety journey and is inching closer to his milestone of one year of no liquor. What prompted the change for the actor? He’d always drink to calm his nerves before jumping into social settings.
“I’m literally just overthinking everything, I’m like, ‘Man, how do I look?’ And then I start sweating and my armpits would start sweating and I’m just losing it,” Powers told Dave Bellevue in 2020. “I noticed when I would take a shot or something, or I would drink, and I would be loose. I’m able to be myself. But as I’m doing that and afterwards I’m thinking to myself like … that is not a way to cope. That’s not the way to cope at all.”
He added, “Realizing that made me scared. I didn’t notice I was drinking before certain industry parties to get loose – I didn’t really connect the fact that it was my anxiety that was making me feel like, ‘OK, I need to take a drink before going to this party. Once I realized that, I felt low.”
