A Bit About Me
Welcome back
Hello, and welcome back to the Feronus blog. To start with I’d like to introduce myself, my name is Justin Kubeck and I am the founder of Feronus. I am diagnosed with ADHD and as you might expect picking a direction in life has been difficult. As young as nine years old though, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you I wanted to be an engineer with my own machine shop. Although the answer to that has changed over the years one thing hasn’t, I’ve always wanted to be a business owner and Feronus is the actualization of that childhood dream.
Discovery
Using dopamine as my guide and growing up as technology rapidly evolved it wasn’t long before my hyper focus dived into the internet. At 12 years old I taught myself HTML and how to build websites. This paired with a love of videogames, blossomed into graphic design and video editing. I would make my own websites to host flash games to circumvent the school’s firewalls, and I would just change the URL to something new when they eventually added my website to the blacklist. What I didn’t understand at the time was that I was learning content creation.
In an effort to try and get into content creation I had figured out a way to use my father’s DVD recorder to record gameplay from my Xbox360, with a tandem laptop I would record a voice over as I played. Then I would rip the game footage from the DVD and layer my voiceover over it. My first few videos got a few hundred views but after my fourth video the DVD recorder stopped working and my YouTube dreams were put on hold. An unfortunate but necessary delay, I still had a lot to learn.
Just a few years before discovering my love for content creation I discovered my love for poetry. Although I was a terrible speller, I loved playing with words and cadence. This led to me being published in high school and I even self-published a book my senior year. This is something that I still enjoy today, and hope to share with you in the near future.
Halfway through high school one of my best friends decided to get into DJing. He brought me along to a few shows to help move equipment and soon enough his boss hired me as a DJ as well. After my first year or so I was given an opportunity to try emceeing a wedding and working the mic. It came naturally and I loved it, I fell in love with public speaking and working with people. My time in the wedding industry was short lived though. Just three years and that was it.
But Wait, Biology
After dropping out of college, I got an apartment with some friends and I got something I had always wanted but was never allowed to have while living with my parents; a pet snake, his name was Mordecai and he was a pastel ball python. I bought him from a guy I found on craigslist. We met at a food court in a mall, and I proceeded to make just about every mistake imaginable while learning to care for a snake. The silver lining here is, it caused me to find a community of caring and knowledgeable people that were local and willing to help me. Just a few months later I was participating as a volunteer doing hands on reptile education with the public.
Over the next couple of years, I helped organize a group that is still performing educational events today. During the warm months we had shows almost every week at farmers’ markets, libraries, anywhere that would have us really, we even had a reoccurring show at the children’s museum. We made it on the news and Radio Milwaukee too. I was doing shows like this for right around six years before life started getting in the way, in that time I had also joined the board of directors of my local herpetological society and even volunteered at the Milwaukee Zoo. As life started to get busier, I did my best to find another way so that I could be a part of the reptile industry, since I didn’t have the time to do shows anymore.
The Best of Both Worlds
I decided to try and combine some of my passions and I launched a YouTube channel called The Daily Herper, which might sound funny to most, and for people that don’t know, in the Herpetology hobby/industry a herper is a name for someone who keeps reptiles, amphibians, or arachnids. The channel was based around going to reptile trade shows and interviewing and showcasing the vendors and the animals they had with them. The first show I went to, to record my first episode, was the North American Reptile Breeders Conference (NARBC) in Tinley Park, Illinois. It was the fall show of 2019, you can still go on YouTube and watch the episode. I brought a friend as a cameraman, and we had a great time. There were some difficulties during editing and the final product wasn’t posted until January of 2020. By the time the weather warmed up though, there weren’t any tradeshows to go to anymore. Covid stopped me in my tracks and The Daily Herper was put on hiatus.
Introspection
It was around the same time as me moving into my first apartment that I started looking into my mental health and spirituality more seriously. I’d like to save the discussion of spirituality for another time but on the topic of mental health, this is when I was diagnosed and first medicated for ADHD. My doctor was inexperienced in the field and reluctant to even see me about the topic, but I ended up being prescribed by him for around 6 months. I initially stopped because my doctor moved, and I had to find a new one. I decided after meeting my new doctor that I liked him less than the last one and I would rather go unmedicated.
That was fine for a while, and I continued managing my ADHD with meditation practice but eventually it was hard to keep up with and in spring of 2020 I realized that I needed help. I had been dealing with what I thought was seasonal depression, but that year, as the snow melted and the weather started warming up, my depression didn’t fade like years past. I went online and found a doctor that was accepting patients, and I made an appointment. I remember during my first visit with him I felt it was necessary to explain myself a bit to allude to the type of person I am.
I said “I know I’m not every doctor's favorite person. I google things first, question things, and if I come to you with concern, I probably did some research first. But I realize no amount of research that I’m capable of will make me a doctor, you will always be the expert. That being said, I will always be the boss.” My relationship with that doctor has been the best doctor-patient relationship I could imagine, and I cannot talk highly enough of him. When I first came to him my concern was depression, but I told him about my unmedicated ADHD and expressed concerns that my depression could be stemming from that. Through a few discussions we decided to treat me for both, and it was just six months later when he recommended weening off the antidepressants, and we did.
Content Creation, Take Three
With my ADHD managed, my depression kept at bay, and COVID in full swing I had to find something to keep my brain occupied. I had dived back into my love for video games. I spent too much on building a PC and to offset that I figured I would try my hand at content creation again. I created a twitch channel and although I never thought I would have much luck, I still put a lot of effort into my brand and online persona. It was just six weeks after I started my twitch channel that I hit affiliate, and I grew to be in the top 4% of streamers, on the platform, making a bit of money along the way. It was something I had always dreamed of, making money doing something I actually enjoyed doing.
With my first check from Twitch, I went out and bought a Ferrari with my streamer money. It was a Lego set, but it still made for a very fun stream and it started a trend of me building Legos on stream rather than playing videogames. I had a lot of fun streaming on twitch and I’d love to get back to it, but it has been tough. Just like earlier in life, life started getting in the way.
Not Early, But in Time
I never intended to stop streaming all together. It started with PC issues in September of 2022, then it was put on hold while we moved, then my fiancée’s appendix tried to explode during the move, then we had holidays and new years, and a little time to settle into our new apartment. Then my whole world was turned upside down. February of 2023, I found a lump where it wasn’t supposed to be and within a week I had an answer. The results were stage three testicular cancer, and it was that day I told myself I am a cancer survivor. A couple surgeries later and my tumor was removed, and I have a medical port in my chest to get three rounds of chemo over the next fifteen weeks. I remember asking my oncologist if the chemotherapy drugs would feel like hot glass. I was scared and I didn’t know what to expect. I did all I could do; I rallied my friends and family for support and together we got through it. It definitely wasn’t easy, and weed brownies helped, but what truly got me through was my time spent introspectively.
I not only was dealing with the physical trauma that this brought, but the mental trauma as well, and not the anguish you might expect. That was definitely something I was dealing with, but the true struggle was going through hormonal changes that came as a result of my surgery. My ideas of who I was and why I was were challenged and all brought under review. Now it has been about a year and a half since my last round of chemo, and I am healthier than ever before. I feel good physically and mentally, and I feel confident in who I am. I have learned to ask, “what if it works out?” rather than just asking “what if?”
Thank You
I have plenty more to share but wanted to give you a brief snapshot of my life. There are countless more stories to share and lessons I have learned. Cancer has been a powerful teacher and motivator for me, but that is just the surface. So, thank you for taking the time to check out my blog. Check back regularly for new posts and be sure to follow our social media.
