I know you've all probably been privy to my little April Fool's joke so in this
video I want to discuss how I went from being suicidal and wanting to take my
own life to learning how to laugh again
what is everybody this is Chris from the rewired so where we talk about the
problem but focus on the solution if you're new to my channel my channel is
designed for anybody out there who wants to improve their mental and emotional
well-being so if any of that stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that
notification bell so in case you didn't get the memo I am
NOT a licensed therapist I know I know rather surprising but I am somebody with
a lot of life experience and all I try to do is share my experience with others
if you want to take something from that cool if not that's cool too
so anyways part of my experience let's go back to the end of my drug addiction
I was using drugs and alcohol as a way to numb myself right I didn't like any
emotions I didn't like the pain the terrible emotions that I was feeling so
I like to numb those out but I didn't even like good emotions like happiness
and laughter anymore because I felt that I was undeserving of those things I
remember just the final months of my addiction just being completely numb
like even songs that would come on the radio
that were like my jam like I didn't even find any enjoyment in those and I
remember like sitting there thinking just like what is wrong with me I was
just completely numb to all emotions and my life was terrible and sorry you know
I didn't toss a trigger warning at the beginning of this fight we got to be
talking about some serious stuff but anyways I was at a point where I lost
everything I lost you know my friends my family our job money truck all of that
worst of all I was not allowed to see my son either and that's one of the gifts I
have today is that I have an amazing relationship with his mom and I get to
see him all the time and now that he has a phone we get to tax and everything
like that I send a message every single morning and all that
anyways during that time I wanted to take my own life I was extremely
depressed extremely suicidal I saw no light at the end of that tunnel and I
was absolutely miserable and every single night I was going to sleep with a
bottle of booze and a handful of pills just hoping like if there is a God
do not let me wake up tomorrow morning and every single morning the light would
shine through my window and I was like damn I got to go through this all over
again and this led to congestive heart failure that I'm saying yo you have like
a 10% chance of living and yeah that led to my sobriety which you can learn about
in other videos and everything like that but anyways I was pissed I did not want
to get sober and the one thing I want you to take from that too by the way is
like there's this like myth that in order to get sober you have to want to
stay sober you wanna have to want to get sober that's completely false I'm over
six and a half years clean and sober and I am somebody who did not want to get
clean and sober I was furious like for a lot of us who were abusing substances or
any kind of toxic behavior that's the only thing holding us together like in a
way my substance abuse was keeping me alive it was the only thing that I was
living for so I was stripped from me and I had to get clean I was pissed right so
I moved into a sober living house I didn't go through a rehab I went through
a sober living and I was in that sober living house and we were we had to go to
five minutes a week and I remember going into these meetings just absolutely
miserable I lost everything I had no money I had like three pairs of clothes
everybody in my life hated me I wasn't even allowed to talk to my son
none of that stuff just life was awful and I go into these meetings and people
are smiling and laughing and giving hugs and then like when they're sharing in
these meetings and they're laughing and joking about their past or their
addiction or whatever I'm sitting there like what the fuck is so funny what is
so funny don't you understand don't you understand how serious this is how
terrible things are don't you understand where my life is that right now this is
not funny right I was just pissed that these
people were smiling and laughing later on that would be a beacon of hope for me
but I was absolutely furious that they were joking about such a
serious subject right but one of my best friends died from addiction and you guys
are in here laughing about this stuff and eventually at my sober living house
I quit isolating so much and the only time I
was able to really socialize with my roommates was if I went outside to smoke
and there was a guy in my house and that's another funny story but I didn't
like it I didn't like him right and he was outside smoking I went down to smoke
and I sat down with him and he was like awkward and shy and me without
substances I was awkward and shy and had social anxiety and everything but I sat
down with him to have a smoke and I forgot how it came up but we started
talking about one of our favorite comedians Patrice O'Neal who had
recently passed away around that time and we started talking about him and
these radio show episodes that he was on and we were talking and talking about
some of the skits and some of the jokes he said and that was the first time I
laughed sober and I was busting a gut laughing I'm sitting there like woah
woah cuz I had it laughed in so long we were laughing about it and and like it
felt so good and that was kind of my first kind of like insight into my
recovery I was like oh my god because one of the lies that addiction tells you
is that you can't have fun if you get clean and sober so it was kind of
mind-blowing to me that I was able to laugh right and this guy he ended up
becoming one of my best friends are still friends to this day we are some of
the few people who actually stayed clean and sober so my a couple of my buddies
from that house they're celebrating seven years pretty soon I celebrate
seven years in June if I stay sober and all that but anyways we kind of stayed
as this tight-knit group and we would go to meetings and like after the meetings
we would like make fun of people and then we started making fun of ourselves
one of the things that we did like I try not to share like war stories some of
you are familiar with that like all the terrible things like is everybody trying
to one-up each other and be like gatekeepers or must story was worse than
your story now that like that's just annoying right but we started sharing
stories with one of them one another and just laughing our asses off at the dumb
stuff we did right like one of my stories involved like getting drunk and
pissing my pants right before going on a date with some girl right one of my
buddies he had a story about about being high on meth and writing and filling out
an entire notebook and it was all written in highlighter and it made like
no sense right and we can laugh and joke about these things that happened to us
and it was kind of this liberating experience because our past sometimes is
is in charge it's the boss right it's directing our lives right and there's
something empowering about being able to look at that and look at the crazy stuff
we used to do and laugh about it like today I can laugh about that situation
that I was in six and a half years ago when I was dying and I wanted to die and
even though things were terrible which is very serious like when I am today it
empowers me it empowers me to be able to laugh about those subjects you know what
I mean but it's also helped me out a lot with
my social anxiety because my social anxiety stemmed from this idea that I
had to be perfect I'd always say say the perfect things and do the perfect things
some of you might be able to relate to this this perfectionism right now I can
sit there and laugh at my screw-ups laugh at my mistakes but you know the
bigger chunk of me is like how do I learn how do I grow okay but here let me
tell you guys something too like not many people have been through
this experience where you legit almost died right like since I've been through
that experience my experience is much different than a lot of yours watching
this but when you almost died when my son almost didn't have a father for the
rest of his life and he was only three years old things like I take serious the
things that need seriously and the other things like I'm
just happy to be alive and I'm joking I laugh and I smile and everything like
that and some people get this this delusion
like no no you cannot talk about mental health and you can and and have fun at
the same time these two things cannot intersect and that is an opinion and
it's one that I don't agree with all right like something the meditation has
done with me because meditation is about watching your thoughts rather than
getting caught up with your thoughts like I have somebody who's been
diagnosed with depression and a generalized anxiety disorder as well as
substance abuse disorder and I have a slew of other symptoms that have made my
life a hot mess but meditation I can sit there and in that anxiety or in these
instances of cognitive distortion I can sit and watch my my thoughts and I laugh
while I meditate because I sit there I'm watching these thoughts passed by my
head Chris you one crazy son of bitch you
know what I mean I can laugh at the crazy things my brain does today and it
helps me lighten up but again this is something that's empowering to me I was
actually having a conversation with my therapist this morning we had a session
this morning not long after I uploaded my April Fool's prank video which I am
changing like tomorrow like the title and thumbnail because it was about Gabi
Hannah um but anyways I was telling her about this I'm like man people are
really upset like on the one day on the one day when people are supposed to
lighten up and accept Prince put the pill I know this is serious this is a
very serious thing right like excuse my crude humor but that is part of who I am
but it's not like I was joking about death or somebody's suicide all right so
here's the thing if you're not into that if you're not here to live a better life
and quit taking yourself so damn seriously and quit taking everything as
these like catastrophic events like if you're not somebody who wants to work to
that place where you can be free of all this seriousness and everything going on
if you're somebody who doesn't want those things this is probably not the
right channel for you all right but surrounding the recent drama and
everything like that like I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit
and live the rest of my life letting that have power over me alright
and I hope some of you think about that too with some of your previous
experiences yes I'm learning things from it yeah but like not everything about it
was seriously like you guys there was so much misinformation being thrown around
I had people I still have people making videos about me labeling me as the fake
therapist or fraud therapist even though there is not evidence of one clip out
there where I ever claimed to be a therapist that is a joke all right I
have to look at this and see the humor in it I have to take a look at this and
like look at the humor that people are playing playing pretend journalists and
not adhering to any guidelines or standards spreading misinformation I
have to laugh about it why in God's name am I going to take that seriously all
right now I give it I get it some of you want to be serious and take everything
seriously that's cool you do you baby but for me it's much different and if
you want to be on the same path as I am where you can work on your mental health
and learn how to laugh at yourself to learn how to laugh at your pass so it
doesn't have control over you then you're in the right place because that
is what I'm about all right but those of you who want to take everything very
seriously especially the small things to make them very big things go for it but
like at the end of the day at the end of the day right yes I am remorseful of
anybody that who may have been hurt but be I'm also accepting of the fact that I
can't control how other people feel about me one way that I keep my sanity
is knowing that I have no control over how other people feel about me all right
but if you look at the track record if you look at the evidence people are
throwing around words and this is one of the reasons I wrote that media post
people are throwing around the word fraud scam right all sorts of things
with absolutely no evidence that I've ever ripped a person off so if you think
that I'm not going to look at that stuff and laugh about it and make jokes about
it sorry that is very very incorrect all right so the moral of this story is
don't take yourself too don't take everything so seriously
because I guarantee you your life will get a lot better and that is the rewired
soul guarantee you baby alright anyways if you like this video feel free to give
it a thumbs up if you feel you still think I'm a jackass feel free to give it
a thumbs out but if you're new and you like what's going on here make sure you
subscribe and ring that notification bell because again my videos are for
anybody who is determined to work on their mental health alongside with me
alright a huge thank you to everybody who's still supposed to channel over on
patreon you are all amazing and I'll see you next time