With my recent success and happiness, I wanted to share with you guys how my life was before LCS, and how much it has changed to this date.
My school life was never very good, my grades were fine, but I had other things that made me want to stay away from there. Ever since about 4th/5th grade I was bullied a lot, it's hard to be the tiny skinny kid in school. You cannot fight back, and you cannot win. I was bullied mostly by my male classmates and my teacher, so I never felt like it would stop. Since the authority was bullying me too, if anything I felt like he was supporting it. My escapes during depression were always video games, it was what I did as soon as I got back from school. It was kind of my dirty little secret, since gaming was frowned upon, and I didn't want to give them more resources to bully me with. I had some rough years, but finally made it to 8th grade, where I would change to a bigger school with a new teacher. Around this time I was really depressed and didn't want to go to school anymore. Yet I felt like the new school could be my new chance at life, also it was mandatory to go, so I never really had a choice. Unfortunately at this school the bullying between my classmates got a lot more physical and it ended up with me hardly ever being in school. After about half a year I dropped out of school due to depression and anxiety. I was in the worst state of my life, I would hardly talk to anyone outside my family. I sat inside my room all day every day playing League of Legends as my escape. It was the only thing that made sense to me, and the only thing i enjoyed. My parents made numerous attempts to get me back to school but it would never last more than a week until I had another breakdown and stopped going. Around this time I started getting good at League and reached really high elo, getting recognition from good players. I started playing online tournaments for tiny amounts of money, but just getting anything from playing was amazing to me. After many teams, I finally ended up in the team that would change my life... Copenhagen Wolves. We went to my first event at dream hack in the winter of 2012. I almost ended up not going because the anxiety was getting to me, but Deficio (who was our manager at the time) eventually, after a long talk with me and my dad, talked me into going, promising that he would watch over me, and help me with anything that I needed. I was an extremely awkward kid who didn't know how to do anything by himself, so having someone like Deficio who could help me out if I ever needed anything really lowered my anxiety level. At dream hack we finished 3rd and qualified for the LCS qualifier, at this time all I really cared about was that we actually won a decent amount of money, because I had no idea what the LCS really was. Unfortunately I was too young to play at the LCS qualifier, so my team had to go without me. At this point my parents were still trying to push me back into school, and I honestly had no expectations of my team qualifying, so I was still in a weird stage of my life not knowing what to do and what would happen next. Somehow my team pulled off an amazingly strong showing and qualified for the LCS, beating out the favorites. I was obviously really happy about that, but still didn't really have a clear idea what it meant to be in the LCS. After my team had lost the first 3 weeks straight, I finally turned 17 and was able to play with my old team. In our first victory I got a pentakill, and all of a sudden I had all this hype around me, but all I really wanted was to stay under the radar. I didn't want the fame, I didn't want to be interviewed. I didn't want people from back home knowing what I was doing, because I had this belief that gaming was frowned upon in society. Riot asked ESL every week to get interviews with me but I always declined, I just didn't want the spotlight. At this point a lot of people starting looking up to me and writing me on various fan pages. I don't want to sound mean, but I thought all my fans were fools. Who would want to be a fan of a nerd, a dropout who was bullied in school. I never really talked to many of the other players in the first split because I was so shy and insecure. I was constantly scared that if I said something wrong they would all bully me, since I was the young, awkward skinny kid. What I soon came to realize was that all the players and staff at ESL/Riot were extremely nice and I had nothing to worry about. Even though I didn't have great success in Season 3 LCS, I grew more as an individual and a person that I have done the remaining 16 years of my life. When I left Europe to join TSM, I was not the shy kid, shaking and stuttering in his first interview on stage. I wasn't the kid who dodged all interviews and ran away from conflict. I wasn't always wearing long shirts because I was insecure about my weight and arms. I was a changed person, and I still am. I have never been as happy as I am right now in life, and I want to thank everyone I've met and that has been in my life the past year. I especially want to thank Deficio.. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be here today, he opened himself up to me, and I strived to become confident like he was. I wish him all the best luck in the future. I am proud to say that I can share all this information about my past, knowing it would not hurt me if people try to use it against me. I am sorry for any grammar mistakes, I've been writing this on my phone, so it's extremely messy. Sorry for the super long read, I just wanted you guys to know that if you are in a shitty place in life, hold on... Things get better!
TSM! ~
디아3
