well I asked you all over on Twitter as well as my community tab which video you
wanted me to make first either what Empire Records taught me about love
or my strange obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a child and an
overwhelming majority of you wanted me to talk about my strange obsession with
Buffy the Vampire Slayer so let's do this thing everybody this is
Chris from the rewired saw where we talk about the problem but focus on the
solution if you're new to my channel my channel is all about mental health and
what I like to do sometimes is not only pull different topics from movies TV
shows pop culture and things like that but I try to use my own personal
experience of my own mental health recovery journey to try to teach you how
to improve your mental and emotional well-being so if any of that stuff make
sure you subscribe and bring that notification bell and like I mentioned I
put up a poll over on my community tab as well as over on Twitter so make sure
you follow me on social media at the rewired soul over on Twitter as well as
Instagram because I like to get feedback from all of you on what types of videos
you want me to make all right anyways let's jump into this thing this idea
kind of came up some of you know that I've been talking about making videos
about TV shows and movies and things like that
I was actually sharing a story with my beautiful girlfriend Trista the other
day about my obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a kid and for a lot of
us just through my experience of working in a treatment center as well as talking
with a lot of other people who have had mental health issues a lot of them stem
from childhood all right so a little bit about me for those of you who don't know
I am the son of an alcoholic mother she's been sober over 13 years now but
she didn't get somewhat till I was 20 so not only was I being neglected by my
mother but my father raised me and he was constantly working so I was often
raised by movies and TV shows and for a lot of us when we're neglected as
children from what I've learned through my experience is that we latch on really
hard not just to other people right like friends or someone we have a crush on
but also like fictional characters right so I was upset
as a child growing up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer just absolutely loved it
like I actually wanted to name my son Xander because I've just always loved
that name and it stems from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
so yeah wasn't allowed to name him Xander but hey I don't know anyways but
I absolutely loved this show and I could really just I loved it and like just
this idea when you're a kid and you feel neglecting you just want attention you
want to be heard and things like that Mike I was so in love with this show
that I wanted to reach out to the cast member it's like maybe I don't know what
it was maybe just to get some attention and looking back at this like this was
in the day 90s maybe yeah must've been the 90s so I don't even know I don't
remember how I got their contact information I was like for the studio or
something like you know you send my fan mail so I have two stories one of them's
a little bit brutal but the other one kind of has a happy ending
I guess so anyways he obviously had Sarah Michelle Gellar and I had the
fattest crush on Sarah Michelle Gellar when I was a kid
her being Buffy and just being a badass and then that movie Cruel Intentions
came out and she was looking good enough anyway so I wrote her a fan letter and I
can't remember what the fan letter sound just something about you know how much I
love the show you know all these things I must have been maybe I think I was
like maybe 10 11 12 somewhere around that age I know it was before like more
maybe during middle school and I wanted this fan letter and to my surprise one
day I get home from school cuz I always check the mail I open it up and I got a
letter from Sarah Michelle Gellar herself oh my oh my god writes so
excited this is this celebrity will have a massive crush on you those wrote me a
letter back so I open it up and it's a picture it's a picture of her like
posing like as Buffy and it's signed like you know Sarah Michelle Gellar and
xoxo something like that I wish I still had that picture right so as a thank you
because I was a polite child I decided to write her
let her back faking her and then next thing you know within a week or two I
got another letter from Sarah Michelle Gellar and I open it up and all it is is
another signed picture that says Sarah Michelle Gellar xoxo and I'm sitting
there and I'm looking at these two pictures right and it's like clearly a
stamp right so I'm sitting there and I'm like okay so she's got like an assistant
or something like that that is just sending out these these fake autographed
pictures whenever she gets fan mail she's not even doing me the courtesy of
reading the letter I have sent her that I've poured my heart out to this woman
right and that was the other thing like I grown up had a lot of problems with
emotional regulation and black-and-white thinking of things like that black and
white thinking if somebody is all good and then they could go all bad real
quick so once I saw that I was furious I was absolutely furious all right so I
decided I decided to write her another letter just saying how upset I was that
she wouldn't even do me the courtesy of sending me a a real autographed picture
because it was clearly just stamped right or be like sending me an actual
letter an actual response and it's interesting now because you see that in
the influence of world today like youtubers you know influencers and
things like that they're trying to communicate with the audience when they
can and it means a lot you know know about that courtesy so anyways I send to
this angry angry letter now how upset I am I heard and then a week or two goes
by and I get a letter from Sarah Michelle Gellar and I open it up and
it's a signed photo of her that says Sarah Michelle Gellar xoxo
sitting there with three photos of Sarah Michelle Gellar all with fake signatures
and so real quick real quick while I was editing this video I was like hmm if
anybody else would see this exact same photo of Sarah Michelle
and I found it I found it in a Google search here it is here's the exact photo
that she sent me three copies so it looks like sarah michelle gellar was
cheating on me and sending this photo to other people
best of everything alright anyways the other character that I had a big crush
on was Willow played by none other than Alyson Hannigan who got a little bit
more fame when she was in the American Pie series and then she grew up and she
was on How I Met Your Mother and I had a really big crush on the character willow
for a different reason cuz like Buffy was like you know the man character she
was out there you know everything like that but I remember growing up I I would
get really attracted to women who were a little bit more shy and introverted they
I don't know if it just seemed kind of like they were a little bit more
obtainable right so I had a whole different reason for having a crush on
willow played by Alyson Hannigan so that that summer vacation like I can't
remember like I remember wedding I can't even remember his name the guy who plays
Xander as well because I could really relate to him as well ah but I wrote a
letter to Alyson Hannigan and I wanted to like I don't know I want like meet up
with them like I had this I remember having this idea in my head like I could
meet up with these people and they'll like be my friends it'll be so cool and
I don't never like wanting to meet up with them like just like at a restaurant
is having lunch with them right and anyways I wrote a letter to Alyson
Hannigan just asked me her to like I don't know
just like please like you know wake me back or call me I can't remember this
was before or after the Sarah Michelle Gellar incident but anyways I wrote
Alyson Hannigan a letter just saying like you know at least like if you can
call me and I could talk to you like I would be awesome right so I ended up
writing her that letter and then I filled up pages with the word please one
thousand times all right one thousand times like as a child I had
this obsessive think you know so I spent hours upon hours
upon hours and I'm left-handed and I'm writing an epistle pencil so I'm like
smearing it as I'm writing it just please please please please please
please please please please for pages and pages until I got to a
thousand all right so I wrote that letter put it in my little envelope
sending it off now is that something I was on summer vacation during summer
vacation I was visiting my mom and yeah I ended up getting a phone call and like
I forgot like my mom brought me the phone she's like hey it's for you it's
some woman named Allison I'm like what like by this time I totally forgot I'm
like hello and remember I'm like 10 11 12 something like that and she's like
hey Chris it's Allison head again I got your letter it was so nice and I just
absolutely froze I totally froze like this whole thing of like wanting to meet
up with them wanted to talk wanting to do whatever like alyson hannigan
actually called me and I totally froze I didn't know what to say I didn't know
what to do she thought it was funny how awkward I was that call maybe lasted
like three minutes and basically I just blew it and I stuttered like an idiot
like just got off the phone and that that was my experience with that so I I
think she kind of balanced out the situation that happened with Sarah
Michelle Gellar but anyways what's the moral of this
story um throughout life like until I really started working on my mental
health that's just the way my brain worked and it can still work like that
today like I I can get obsessive thinking
where when an idea pops into my head or I really like something and this is
something that a lot of people in recovery from addiction or even an
active addiction struggle with like they lock on to things just absolutely lock
on to it and they you know just obsess over it and that's one of the reasons I
wanted to do videos about movies and TV shows because I would watch the same
movie 50 times right I would binge watch you know the same show over and over and
over again and it created like almost like an unhealthy
obsession and we even see it in the world today like this this type of
mental health issue didn't just go away you know now that we're geared more
towards like some of us are geared more towards YouTube then we are TV shows and
you know famous actors and actresses and I think in my opinion it's almost worse
to now with YouTube creators because it feels as though you know there's less of
a middleman you can get you can get to them easier right because back in my day
I was hand writing letters you know stamping an envelope like when's the
last time you sent out a letter unless it was like something to do with like
bills or something like that you know like now we have social media we have
you know YouTube comments we have Instagram we have Facebook we have
twitter you know what I mean and I think you know when I look at the world today
and people's like defense of you know or their stand relationships with youtubers
they feel even closer to people than ever before right but what's interesting
about what I was going through was like these were fictional characters wasn't
even like the real you know actual person and as I grew older and I can
make more videos about this but I had obsessive thinking about a lot of
different things about other shows but then it even happened with people and
this is something that I talk about you know with just some of that emotional
dysregulation I've struggled with for most of my teenage years as well as my
early 20s and it could be very very damaging the relationships I think a lot
of it comes from a combination of this intense fear of abandonment as well as
this intention of this intense like wanting to be loved or cared about or
even noticed you know what I mean and it took me a lot of work and a lot of
effort to get out of that way of thinking and find this kind of balance
with it right and I know a lot of you watching my videos you struggle with
that intense emotional dysregulation where you just you know it's it's one of
two extremes like you just absolutely love and obsess over somebody or you
just hate them and you want nothing to do with
even more right anymore right it's like these two extremes and what we gotta
find is that equanimity and that kind of balance in between
anyways thought I'd share that story thanks for voting again go follow me on
Instagram and Twitter after we wipe soul I like putting up polls to see what you
guys want to talk about I am still going to make the video about what Empire
Records taught me about love Tristan and I just watched it again last night I'm
like oh God right because I can really relate to that and growing up so um but
yeah if there was any like TV shows or characters or if you could relate to
anything I'm talking about let me know down in the comments below alright
anyways that's all I got for this video if you like this video please give it a
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alright thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time