 Okay, story time. I have depression and anxiety, and it's not as bad as it used to be, but sometimes it gets bad. And a lot of you already know this. I try and be very open about it. If you've ever joined a live stream, good chances I've talked about it. If you've ever met me in person, there's a good chance we've talked about it. And if you've ever watched that video I made a while back, then yeah, that video, yeah. But for a lot of you, it might be a shock. I don't know. I don't like using the word public figure. But whenever a public figure talks about their depression, especially when it's someone that tries so hard to be positive every single day that they're on the internet, sometimes it can be surprising. So let me give you a little bit of background history. Let's summarize that video I made in not so many words. When I was young, my parents were terrible people. They didn't love me. And they were very open about the fact they didn't love me. My dad would straight up tell me to my face and also show me. And mom never said it, but it was obvious. And on top of that, there was a lot of abuse in my house, mostly mental. And it definitely took its toll. And I think the biggest thing for me as a young kid growing up was the feeling of just knowing your parents don't love you. It's a crushing feeling. And it's something I didn't understand for a long time. It's just something I was used to growing up, like that's what my parents were like. So when I started going to my friends' houses and seeing what their parents were like and the relationship that they had, I started to realize that something was wrong at home. And I was a very, very good kid. I was like a straight A student until 15 when they kicked me out and I just gave up caring at that point. But I was a good kid while I was there. And I was still good after that, but I just stopped caring. So it was, I didn't understand, I remember thinking at the time, I do my best and they don't love me. I don't know why. And it feels you full of insecurities. At least it did for me. I was very insecure. If my own parents didn't love me, who would? Who could? That's, I thought that all the time. And that filled me with anxiety. When I was younger, it wasn't so much depression, it was mostly anxiety. I would have anxiety attacks all the time. And then moving into high school, I was, for lack of a better word, a baby. I was going to say a word I shouldn't say on this channel. I was a baby. I was just so insecure. I had no self-esteem, no self-worth. And I was bullied a lot and I let it happen because I felt like I deserved it. But that's what started my depression. Obviously it didn't help my anxiety, but that's what really kick-started my depression and led me down suicidal thoughts. I started to not care what happened to me anymore. And then leaving high school after bombing the last couple years, because, I mean, my parents didn't care. Why would I? Right? I didn't really have any ambitions or really any qualifications to do anything with my life. So I started working data and jobs, retail, stocking shelves, and I hated it, obviously. Well, I mean, depending on the job, you can enjoy that. But where I was, I hated it. But it was a very secure job, so I stuck with it and my depression just got worse. And I never sought help because I was very, very stubborn. I never wanted to try anything. I just believed I could get through it or believed I deserved it. And then, stroke of luck, I came across this channel called The Game Chasers. My friend did, actually, and he said, hey, why don't we do something like this? And I started a YouTube channel, and it gave me a hobby, it gave me an outlet to be creative. And I was very creative before I gave up. And so it was like going back to that, and it helped a lot. And I started getting support from you guys, and a lot of nice comments made me feel a lot better about myself. And then that channel got to the point where I wanted to travel with it. I wanted to go see some of the friends I was making through the channel and the friends I had made overseas. And so I did, and it made me happy. So I decided to move and try and stay. It made me happy for a while, but just like anything, you live somewhere for a year or two that's no one exciting, depression sets back in and the same old things start bothering you. I didn't truly find happiness until I met Kim. Kim is everything. Kim showed me what it was to be loved. So for the first time in my life, I felt loved. And around that same time, my channel started blowing up, which that in itself didn't give me the happiness like a similar level that Kim was giving me of course. It made me happy, but it did help in a way I didn't expect because the more I tried to put positivity out into the world with my content, the more people told me I was making them happy and that my content was helping them. So all of a sudden after not even knowing what happiness was my entire life, I went from having my own happiness and being able to give happiness back to hundreds of thousands of people, which is a feeling I can't describe, and both of those things gave me a reason to live. This is why I don't talk about this stuff. But not everyone knows how to deal with depression. Not everyone has their Kim yet or has their outlet or knows where to turn to or know what to do with their depression and their anxiety. Holy crap, this is so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I told myself I wouldn't cut this video or edit it, but man, they're happy tears. I mean, I'm talking about good stuff in my life. It's got me a little emotional. Stupid. I wear my heart on my sleeve. While being able to spread positivity the way that I do is great, I want to be able to do more. The fleeting moments of happiness that you may get from my channel or being involved in my community is amazing and it fills me with happiness. But there needs to be more. There needs to be a way that I can actually help more and help put people in the position I am. So this Monday, I am doing a live stream. I don't know how long for, I'll get to that, but I'm doing a live stream to raise money for charities that help people with depression and anxiety. This is something that's extremely important to me. I have always wanted to do a charity live stream and I've always put it off because I always knew what charity I wanted to do it for and I dreaded making this video. For obvious reasons, but it was time. It's time. And there's a reason why it's time. But before I get to that, I want to do this because a lot of you, every time I talk about depression or even when I go to these conventions, are so way too many of you. And I love that you have this outlet through my content and through me, but it's too many people suffer from depression and anxiety. And I just need to do my part in helping. So by doing this, I'm not only raising awareness or trying to raise awareness for these places that can help you. So even if you're not donating, even if you're not, you know, on that side of it and you're on the other side, the depression side and you don't know what to do when you've been looking for an answer, hopefully these charities will be a place that you can look to for your help. And then on the other side of things, if you just want to donate to these charities because they feel like that's something that's close to your heart or you just want to help support those people or myself, then, you know, that that one's obvious. You can you can do that in the live stream. These are the charities, by the way. OK, the reason why I'm doing these four is because I found a site that recommended them, but also they kind of tackle different parts of depression and anxiety. So the first one is American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. This charity works to understand and prevent suicide, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. This Foundation awards scientific grants to those working to make discoveries and understanding the causes of improving the treatments of mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, autism, bipolar, attention deficit, hyperactivity, post-traumatic stress and obsessive compulsive disorders. Treatment Advocacy Center. This charity works to improve the treatment of severe mental illness by promoting policies and practices for the delivery of psychiatric care and supporting the development of treatments for and research into the courses of psychiatric illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. And then finally, the Trevor Project. This national organization provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens and young adults. So please, if you're free Monday or you want to donate to these causes, I'm going to leave links to everything down below and join me on Monday. I want to raise $1,000 minimum for each charity. I'm not going to stop until that's happened. So we're going to need at least $4,000 and there's two surefire ways we're going to get there. The first one is you watching this right now. I know not all of my half a million subscribers are going to watch this, but imagine if they did and they all turned up. What would you have to give each like two cents? Like if you all gave $1, that's half a million to all these charities. So I mean, the bare minimum for each person is so small that we can definitely get this done. If you come and show the support I'm asking you to show. And the second way this is going to happen, almost immediately get halfway there is I obviously have a Patreon and my Patreon, if you go and look at it right now, it's public. I don't hide anything I do. It's almost up to 2000 a month. That is half of what I'm asking for. So I'm looking at you right now, Patreons. There's 402 of you right now, I believe. And I know you're watching this because if you're not, then why are you leaving a Patreon? So please for this month, take that donation away from me, cancel it, whatever it is you need to do to make sure that doesn't go through this month. And instead, either join me in this live stream or just use it down below and donate towards this cause, preferably in the live stream so we can all see that bar grow because that'll be the coolest way. But as long as you're giving to these charities, it means the world to me. And I would much rather it go towards this. So right there, we're halfway there, guys. I'm going to stream for as long as I humanly possibly can before I just want to go to bed. But I'm going to at least get this 4,000 funded and it should not be hard. Again, this is obviously something that means a lot to me personally. And I just want to do whatever I can to help more than however much I already help. That is the point of this video in a nutshell. I've said it, I've said my piece and here's why I'm doing this thing. And here's how you can help. And if you have depression, here are places you can go to to get help. That's the point of this video, but something that's really going to help me right now and my depression is saying something else. That has definitely been an instigator for me doing this video and supporting this cause because I've wanted to turn this negativity I've been experiencing lately in a positivity. And it's something that I need to say. I need to get this off my chest because I'm going insane. I wear my heart on my sleeve. And when people say mean things about me that I don't feel like a true, I have such a hard time leaving it be. But every time I've tried to combat these things that are being said about me, it's just gotten so much worse. And a lot of people might say you should still leave it alone. And a lot of people have no idea what I'm talking about. Those that do are who I'm talking to. But this started a couple months ago. People started making these videos about me and about my friends. Calling us scammers, essentially, which went on. We haven't been doing anything differently on the platform than any other creator, nothing differently that we haven't been doing for years and years now. That in itself is fine. You can look at that. It sucks. It's going to happen when you grow a channel that that thing is going to happen. I mean, you can look at it. You know, it's misinformation and you can leave it there. You can laugh at it with your friends and just and just ignore it. That's easy. But it became harassment and it became bullying pretty quick with constant, constant comments on all of my social medias and these videos being made nonstop. And I was still going to ignore it, but then very quickly, it became amazingly toxic, just so disappointingly toxic. And what really broke me down and destroyed me was and I know this person is going to know who they are and they're going to take it as a victory. But I don't I need you to know how much it hurt. They made a video about me purely because they don't agree with the fact I have Patreon. They made a video about me and wanting to hurt me physically. They were talking about what they were going to do to me. That I can take. I think it's a bit extreme and it's definitely harassment and bullying, but that I can take. But very quickly in the video, it turned into being about Kim. And it was disgusting. And I immediately felt like a failure. I felt like I should never have brought Kim onto the channel. I felt like I wasn't doing a good job protecting her. And I didn't understand why it had to get to that point. And now that that's allowed by YouTube, people are legitimately trying to find where I live. And it's scary. Kim wants to get security alarms put on the house, which I agree. And I'm going to do that because I need to know that she's safe when I'm not here. It's just very scary. And it seems to all be because I have a Patreon and I have a PO Box. And so I need to address it and I need to at least get my opinion out on these things and explain to you why I have these things and what they do. Because I don't want it to get to the point where one of us gets hurt because I have these things. And I just didn't say anything about it leading up to it. So here it is really, really quickly. Okay, because I know a lot of you already understand and I'm talking to about 200 people right now. But my Patreon I started when Patreon itself started and no one cared then. I had a few people donating and it helped me buy certain things for the channel. It was nice. As the channel grew, obviously it grew. And initially I only had a $1 tier, a $5 tier and a $10 tier. But then as people started donating more crazy amounts like $20, $50, I started to look at that and be like, wow, this guy's giving me $50 a month. And I didn't have a reward for him. So I made a $50 tier. And then Patrick, blaming this on you Patrick. No, not really. I told him not to. He did it as a joke initially but then just followed through with it. Gave a $100. And I didn't have a tier for a $100, but I wanted to give him something back. I don't think playing games with me is worth $100. But I wanted to give something to him for donating that much. So I made him a tier at that point. I didn't have a $100. I didn't have $50. I didn't have $20. I gave these people tiers so they had something to look forward to for the insane amounts they were donating. And then more people gave to those tiers. I'm not making it any higher because that's insane at that point. I just wanted to give them something. So that's why those tiers are there. And I've always been very public about my Patreon. I've always shown exactly how much my Patreon makes because I didn't want any misconceptions. If someone wanted to donate to my show because they wanted to show support and they went to my Patreon and saw how much I was getting a month and thought that's enough for that guy, I wanted that to happen. I wanted them to know how much I was getting. It was very important to me that I was very open. I'm also very open with my Patreons about where the Patreon money goes. I'm not going to get into it now. The Patreons already know and those are the ones that matter. The Patreon supports the show. It directly supports the show and it really helps. And the reason why the channel keeps growing and exploding in quality is because I can afford to buy new cameras. I can afford to buy stupid things from Etsy. I can afford to have an editor help me make more content than I usually would make. Shout out to you Jordan Fringe. I was able to buy this mic recently and stop wearing that stupid lapel. It directly supports the show. I don't ask for any more than what's already given. I just use what is given to improve the quality and keep doing what I do as best as I can do it. I have a PO box because I made one back when I have a thousand subscribers because everyone else had one and I really wanted to get fan mail. I thought it would be the coolest thing and it was. It was amazing. I still remember the first thing I was sent. It was a freaking Xbox from the Netherlands that had 5,000 games put on to it. Chris and I lost our minds when we opened that. And I made it a point to show everything I was ever sent on my channel because it was important to me because I know that these people are sending stuff to me because they get happiness from my show and they want to give it back and I know if I show what they have sent I'm giving them that moment of happiness in return and they get to see them making me happy and we get to make each other happy and happiness is so goddamn important. Shoot. But I don't ask for any of it. I don't need any of it. I'm not trying to take any of it. It's just there if people want to give it. And I use it to create content. I use it as a crowdfunding source to create more and do more and give it back to the people that give to me. That is why I have Patreon. That is why I have a PO box. So if you still hate me for that and you still want to make videos about me and my wife and my friends know that you're doing it just because you don't like me. Not because I'm doing anything wrong. Not because I'm scamming people. Not because I'm a bad person. But just because you don't like me and that's fine between you and me I'm not very fond of you either. But that's why you're doing it. You don't like me. I don't know why you don't like me. Not everyone likes me and I understand that people don't like me for different reasons. The reason why I changed my Twitter bio to say I'm in a quiet taste like Vegemite is because I feel like I am. I'm a very loud obnoxious person. I'm very sensitive. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm a big old baby a lot of the time and I'm just always yelling at the camera about games. And people hate my clickbait. I don't care about that one though. It ain't gonna stop. That's why you're here right now, right? But if you continue to make these videos and I'm sure you will and power to you I just want you to know that you're not exposing me. You're not exposing any of my friends. You're not calling us out on anything and you're not making a difference. You're not making a change because nothing is happening here. I want you to know the reason why you're making these videos because you don't like us. And because the people that watch you don't like us. That's why it's violent threats. That's why it's homophobic comments. That's why it's sexual threats towards the woman I love. It's not because we're doing anything wrong. It's not because you're exposing us. It's because you don't like us. And that's okay. But just know that that's why you're doing it. And know that you depressed me and upset me so much that you inspired me to do more and be more active in my community and help more people. It's because of you that thousands of dollars are about to be raised for charities. And you can take pride in that if you want. You weren't about it a really bad way but that is the only positive thing that has ever come from the content that you make. Now that I got that off my chest I do feel a lot better. And I can go into taking all this negativity and turning it into positivity on Monday with a happy, light-weighted heart. And I really hope all of you join me for that stream. I hope all of you understand the context of this video the purpose of this video. And let's give. If you have any connection to all of this, if you understand where I'm coming from let's give on Monday. Let's see how crazy we can make this thing. I want it to be insane. I'll settle for the 4,000 but I want it to be insane. I love you guys and remember this goes to each and every one of you even those that might not be dealing with depression right now but definitely those that are you are not alone. Those are the most powerful words I can give that helped me so much. You're not alone. Whenever you feel like you're alone you're not alone. There's so many other people dealing with exactly what you're dealing with. In so many different ways and walks of life there are people out there dealing with it as well. It's not just you. You're not alone. It's not anything that's wrong with you. It can get better. And you can find help. You can get through this. You can. There are people that are in such worse positions than I was ever in and I even can't imagine what that feels like. But there's always a way. There's always something. I never thought YouTube and starting a channel was going to be my thing and you will never know what's your thing. You won't know until you try. So do not give up.