 By now you've all probably been privy to my little April Fools 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 up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and 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 for 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 um 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 I'm sorry you know I didn't toss a trigger warning at the beginning of this but we're gonna be talking about some serious stuff um but anyways I was at a point where I lost everything I lost you know my friends my family uh 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 text and everything like that I send him messages every single morning and all that but 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 gotta go through this all over again and this led to um congestive heart failure them 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 won't 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 when 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 meetings 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 at right now this is not funny right and 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 I won't dive into but I didn't like him 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 um Patrice O'Neill 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 whoa whoa because I hadn't laughed in so long and we're 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 uh this guy handed up becoming one of my best friends we're still friends to this day we are some of the few people who actually stayed clean and sober um 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 one up each other and be like gatekeepers or my story was worse than your story not like that's just annoying right but we started sharing stories with one of 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 could laugh and joke about these things that happened to us and it was kind of this liberating experience because our past sometimes 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 where 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 thing 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 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 die 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 to be taken seriously and the other things like I'm just happy to be alive and I joke and 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 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 that meditation has done with me because meditation is about watching your thoughts rather than getting caught up with your thoughts like I am 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 pass by and I hey Chris you won crazy son of a 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 Gabby Hannah 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 except for people like no this is serious this is a very serious thing right like and 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 here and live the rest of my life letting that have power over me all right 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 serious like 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 was 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 and I get 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 past 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 and making 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 words fraud scam right all sorts of things with absolutely no evidence that I've ever ripped a personnel 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 incorrect all right so the moral of this story is don't take yourself too seriously don't take everything so seriously because I guarantee you your life will get a lot better and that is the rewired soul guarantee baby all right but anyways if you like this video feel free to give it a thumbs up if you feel if you still think I'm a jackass feel free to give it a thumbs up 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 all right a huge thank you to everybody who still supports the channel over on patreon you're all amazing and I'll see you next time