How hayfever ruined my childhood

When it's summer in the UK, everyone seems

to get a bit excited. People start

flocking to the beaches, men start taking

off their shirts and walking around half

naked because for some reason in this

country it's considered to be attractive

to have orange, leathery, sun-damaged

skin, which I'll never understand. People

start saying things like, oh, look at the

weather, it's so nice today. Good weather

today, isn't it? No, it's not good

weather. It's horrible. I hate it. I

really hate summer, and there's a number

of reasons why I hate summer so much. For

example, it's too hot to wear layers, so I

can't hide my skinniness as well. There's

too many insects. I can't look outside

because it's so bright and it's just

blinding. But the number one reason why I

hate summer so much is because I suffer

from hay fever. It's not too bad now, but

when I was a child, it was unbearable.

From the end of spring until the end of

summer, I would have a constant runny

nose. I would have to walk around with

piles of tissue paper. I would be sniffing

all the time, irritating people around me.

I would be sneezing all the time. My eyes

would be so itchy, I would rub them until

they went red. When I was at school and

the afternoon came, I was so exhausted and

fed up from all the sneezing, all of the

itchiness, all of the nose wiping. I used

to just put my head down onto the table

and go to sleep until it was time to go

home. I wasn't in the mood to talk to

anyone. I wasn't in the mood to do

schoolwork or to listen to the teacher. I

would become really irritable and grumpy,

and people just left me alone. Even the

teachers would leave me alone. They would

just let me sit there with my head on the

table. They wouldn't say, wake up,

Daniel, focus on your schoolwork. They

just let me kind of fall asleep because I

guess they pitied me. When I got home, I

would go straight to my room. I would

close my curtains because the sunlight

made me sneeze more for some reason, and I

would close my door and I'd just stay in

my room for the rest of the day playing

Sega Mega Drive games. If I went outside,

hay fever got worse, so I ended up hating

going outside during summer. I tried

everything. I tried taking Benadryl

tablets, I tried those nasal sprays, but

nothing really alleviated the symptoms. I

would just have to endure it. I would have

to suffer the entire summer having

cold-like symptoms, and it wasn't fun.

Sometimes I wiped my nose too roughly and

it would start to bleed and I'd get a

really bad nosebleed. Sometimes in the

morning my eyes would be glued shut

because overnight they They started to

water because they got irritated, and then

that water solidified into this yellowish

gunge. There was this one time when my

eyes were so itchy, I rubbed them really

hard, and then this layer of yellow pus

started to form on top of the eyeball,

and it was kind of scary. When I started

secondary school, the kids would tease me.

They would say things like, oh look,

Daniel's picking his nose again, Daniel's

crying again, and I would try explaining

to them that I wasn't crying, that I had

hay fever, and then they would say, oh,

you only have hay fever? That's nothing to

cry about. There was this one time during

Cooking class, and we were making dough or

something, and my fingers were covered in

dough and water and stuff like that. And

then my nose suddenly started running,

and because my fingers were covered in

dough, I couldn't get a tissue and wipe

it, so I had to just let it run. And I let

all the snot just run down my face. It

looked— it looked disgusting. The main

reason why I hated going outside so much

when I was a child was because of hay

fever. The moment I stepped outside, the

symptoms would start, and It was, it was

just hell. It was unbearable. I watched

all the other kids running around outside

playing, having fun, and I felt really

jealous because I couldn't join in with

them, because if I went out there as well,

I would just become miserable because of

all the sneezing and the snot and the

itchiness. And I ended up hiding

in my room basically playing video games

during the whole summer whilst everyone

else, all my friends, were outside having

fun. After around the age of 16, my hay

fever started to get better. I stopped

suffering from it so badly. I still

sneezed and I still had runny noses for a

bit, but it was nowhere near as bad as it

was when I was a child. Right now, I

barely suffer from hay fever at all, but I

still hate summer. I still have this

built-in hatred for summer, maybe because

of all of those nightmarish childhood

memories of miserable summers thanks to

hay fever. Whenever I went on holiday with

my family to a different country, for

example Malaysia or Spain, I didn't suffer

from hay fever at all. I didn't have any

symptoms, so I guess I'm only allergic to

British pollen. So, um, yeah, I just

wanted to share that story about hay fever

and why I hate summer so much. Maybe that

explains why I'm such a shut-in, why I'm

so weird, because instead of socializing

and mixing with the other kids playing

outside during summer, I was inside of my

room escaping the nightmares of pollen and

Playing video games. I know that's not

really an excuse because lots of people

play video games in their rooms and they

didn't turn out to become complete weirdos

like I did. For some reason, England has

this reputation of having really bad

weather. People ask me all the time,

isn't England always cloudy? Isn't it

always raining? And it's not, even though

I wish it was. I wish it was cloudy all

the time. Am I the only one who likes it

when it's raining? Am I the only one who

likes it when it's overcast? It feels like

Everyone in this country loves the sun so

much they go on holidays to Spain or

Paris— well, not Paris, maybe France— just

so they can sit outside on the beach all

day getting a suntan, getting skin cancer,

and it's just— I don't get it. I don't

understand it. Oh, and if you didn't know

already, my girlfriend has made a YouTube

channel and you should go and watch her

videos because They're kind of weird.

They're basically videos about me with

music playing in the background or strange

animations, stuff like that. It's, um,

interesting to say the least. So if you

want to see my girlfriend's channel,

it's— well, it was Tommy Michael, but then

people kept saying, oh, her name's Tommy

Michael? Is she a boy? Daniel's gay now?

No, that's not her real name. So we

decided to change her channel name to Tomo

L, T-O-M-O space L, You might not be able

to find it under that name yet because it

hasn't updated yet, so I'll leave a link

in the description. And, um, yeah, go and

subscribe to her and watch her videos

because she'll be very happy and she might

like me even more if I promote her channel

It's raining.

Don't you just love the sound of rain?

It's so relaxing.

So first of all, we have the door, and

this is my name in Japanese that the

Japanese exchange students drew or painted

for me. And this is my room. There's a

bed, there's a desk with a computer,

um, there's a hair straightener, some

battery chargers. My luggage from

Japan, which I still haven't put away. It

still has stuff in it. It also has a

lot of unused condoms. That was a waste of

money. Here's all my clothes just piled

up in a gigantic mess. That's my old

computer that I— it was the very first

computer I bought when I was 17. My

clothes are all hanging up there. Here's

my merch. Link in the bio.

This is the orange suitcase that my

ex-Korean girlfriend used to use. She left

it here. Um, here's my bed. It's covered

in Japanese words. Uh, here's some

emergency tissue which I keep underneath

my pillow. That's the chair I sit on.

And there's my mini ITX computer.

Lots of plugs and cables, my microphone,

used up toilet roll.

That's my main monitor. I think it's 28

inches, I can't remember. That's my old

monitor. There's my little webcam. That's

a Star Wars lava lamp. I never use it.

That was a waste of money as well. Here's

the infamous penis lamp, and there's loads

of junk down here. What else can I

show you? I've got some computer parts,

CPU fan, graphics card.

There's loads of junk in here as well.

I don't really tidy up, I just hide stuff.

So I've got a lot of junk, but I just hide

it in drawers or drawers and under my

desk. What else?

Scissors, deodorant, cream, nail clippers,

empty bottle of Jack Daniel's. Here's my,

my setup, my YouTube setup. I know it's

very professional. So I have a tripod for

my phone to go on, and then this is for my

microphone. I put the Blue Yeti onto these

boxes, and this book just makes it a bit

higher. I know it's not very— it's not

very good, but it works. Um, what's down

here? VR headset. My sister bought it for

me for Christmas. And oh, it's one of

these pop filters for the microphone.

I don't use it. And my ginger beard.

Good old ginger beard.

I think that's about it. There's,

there's a box over there. There's a dead

fly which I trapped in this little cap

ages ago.

Ew. I just wanted to see what happens if I

leave it there forever, see what happens

to it, if it fossilizes. I wonder if it

fossilizes or not. And, um, my winter

coat. I bought this in Korea. The North

Pole, 1997, by CLRN.

And, um, jackets and shirts that I never

wear. Whoops.

And there's more junk in here. These are

sharpening stones that I bought from Japan

hoping to sell on eBay, but I got banned

on eBay and I got All of these— I have all

of these sharpening stones left over,

which I can't be bothered to try and sell,

so I just leave it in here.

And I have this wooden box that I made

during secondary school. I made it by

myself. Look, it opens. Oh, there's a

phone case in here and, and a picture

of me. I look really

So that's my room, and goodbye.