 I've been talking about other youtubers a lot lately but it's time for me to open up and be honest about some of the struggles that I still deal with. 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 all about mental health. I provide information, I talk about my own mental health, I educate, I offer advice and support and all that kind of good stuff so if you're into improving your mental health make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So today's problem that we're gonna talk about is black and white thinking. I have a bunch of other videos about black and white thinking. I'll explain it a little bit in this one but anyways, I do want to start out the video by saying this. If you want to check out the video I'm gonna put up in the info card about my BPD story. I have never been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I just want to put that out there. I don't want to claim that I've ever been diagnosed but after talking with a psychiatrist and things like that, I can relate to a lot of the BPD symptoms. So one of the symptoms that I have definitely dealt with and it's still something that I work on overcoming is black and white thinking. So my life is leaps and bounds away from where it used to be but I wanted to talk about like how this still affects me and also towards the end of the video I'm gonna tell you about some solutions that I use that help me manage my life and manage my emotions, manage my relationships and all that kind of stuff. So black and white thinking, all right, to sum it all up, basically it's putting somebody in one of two categories. They're either all good or all bad and it's really difficult to have relationships because someone they could just be the best person on earth one day but then they do something that you don't like and then they are just the worst person on earth. So like one of the things is I constantly analyze myself. I meditate, meditation helps give me clarity, it helps get out all the noise and I take a look at myself and what I'm feeling and the thoughts that go through my head and everything like that. And like something I kind of thought about was you know when it comes to like setting boundaries black and white thinking it sometimes is very beneficial and what I mean by that is like it has helped me not hang out with bad people, bad friends or stay in bad relationships. So like I look at myself and I realize why I do that and I push people away pretty quick but one of the reasons for that is is because I'm somebody who has stayed in bad friendships for way too long or bad relationships for way too long, you might be able to relate to that. So one of my fears is is letting somebody come in close when they have all of the red flags and warning signs and then I get stuck in a relationship whether it's a friendship or relationship right. So like I notice like I cut out a lot of the BS but I'm going to be real with you. So my black and white thinking has come a lot from being a YouTuber, being a small YouTuber trying to build my channel and things like that and I've noticed that I have a lot of black and white thinking. So there's that old saying that says never meet your heroes right and one of the reasons they say that is because you idolize somebody or you look up to somebody and then you meet them and they're not a great person they're not what you thought they were. Well as a YouTuber trying to grow my channel like I interact with other YouTubers I reach out I talk to them but sometimes I don't. So I can think of two instances of other YouTubers and I notice the complete shift the change right and here's what I mean by that I'm not going to name who these YouTubers are but in one scenario there was a YouTuber that I just love I love it's a comedy channel it's pretty funny and things like that well they sent out a tweet they sent out a tweet talking about mental health and I replied and they replied back and I kind of noticed that they don't really align with my views on mental health and just I don't know advocacy helping people out being compassionate towards others who struggle with mental illness they're they just didn't it didn't sync up with me and like from there like I saw it and I'm like oh wow now I see your true colors and and there's another instance where you know multiple instances where there's YouTubers who I like and watching like if I never became a YouTuber I would look at certain YouTubers and just love them forever but now that I'm like kind of in this thing like I can't tell you how many YouTubers who I absolutely loved where they they never replied to a DM comment an email or any of that thing and like my brain just like tells me that they are just the worst person on earth like it's crazy and like the way it affects me I'm not even joking is it it's difficult for me to even watch their content okay and some of their content is very informative it educates me about different things whether it's mental health stuff or things going on in the community but now that I kind of see them in a different way like I can feel my anger there as I watch their videos some of the channels I watch that I used to laugh and have fun watching like I sit there and I kind of just have this like stink face like you're not a good person you're not a good person but I recognize that happening in my brain and it's it's kind of nuts you know and again like I do have some solutions that I'm going to provide with you but anyways you know one of the most uh you know recent forms of black and white thinking that I can talk about is when it came to me being single and you know going out in the dating world so when I was like dating uh you know and I was talking to a girl or anything like that like I I limited the amount of time like not limited but if they had some red flags right if they had certain viewpoints or certain things that they didn't like about you know what I mean I didn't try to you know make it work like I looked at it and I was like nope bye nope bye nope bye and like there's some balance that comes with that because yeah like you shouldn't try to force a relationship just because someone's attractive or they have a few of the same interests as you like you shouldn't try to force that but maybe in some instances I was pushing women away way too fast from one sign of uh you know trouble or a little red flag but anyways a funny story about me and my girlfriend uh you know in December it'll be like two years that we've been together but a funny story that I talked to her about um and I've told other people about too is when me and her first started talking like everything was great it's that whole honeymoon phase and all that kind of stuff you know she's busy doing her thing I'm busy doing my thing I have my son on the weekends and you know it was before I let her meet my son well I think it was like one weekend um his my son stayed with his mom and I asked her if she wanted to hang out it was like a Saturday I'm like yo let's go out let's go do something right and here's what she says to me she's like no I'm pretty tired I'm just gonna sleep all day and I just got furious and at that time I had a roommate and I went and talked to her like in a room and I was just like can you believe this chick can you believe I'm trying to hang out with her and she said that she would rather sleep that day and I'm just spewing all this stuff every crazy thing that my brain's telling me right like obviously she doesn't care or like me if she to it rather sleep then hang out with me and I'm just losing it right and I was I was about to never talk to her again you see how the black and white thinking could just ruin relationships right but after talking about it with my roommate and stuff she's like Chris you're acting a little nuts maybe she's tired maybe this doesn't you know what I mean I was like fine so I gave her another chance and we're still together to this day it was after that the remanded official started dating and stuff it's funny because she has a similar story where she kind of was testing me on some things but but anyways that's an example of how black and white thinking can affect us but anyways I want to get into the solution right because that's what we do here at the rewired soul talk about the problem but focus on the solution so what I do I do two things I do two things when it comes to my black and white thinking the first one is empathize so I try my best to put myself in the other person's shoes so when we're talking about like other YouTubers who don't get back to me or ignore me or you know whatever it is like I empathize okay and sometimes and I will make a video about this when it comes to anger management I lie to myself I lie to myself I'm like okay okay maybe they have like a thousand DMs they just didn't see it you know and all these other things maybe they just missed this tweet that I tagged them in or they didn't see my comments you know whatever it is right but I also try to empathize because sometimes I'm really bad at replying to all my messages and I'm a fraction of the size of some of the people I'm trying to reach out to and talk to you know just to get to know or collaborate or things like that so that's one way that I try to get out of my black and white thinking is I try to put myself in their shoes and imagine what might be going on in their lives that would cause them not to talk to me but not that negative kind of crazy stuff like oh they hate me or they're better than me like I try to acknowledge if my brain's going to that judgmental place the second thing I do is I try to find a balance okay I try to find that gray area rather than the black and white and what I mean by that like my black and white thinking will will make it so people have like one strike and they're out okay so I do my best to give somebody another chance another chance but it's all about balance because there's that there's that other saying right fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me you know but when it comes to that balance what happens is I lower my expectations I lower my expectations where it's like I don't expect you to reply but if you do that's cool you know and that's that's for me personally like this might be an awful person who thinks they're better than me or doesn't care about small creators and is only going to talk to me when I get huge and can benefit them more and all that might be the case but for my sanity for my mental health I have to tone it down and not stay stuck in that thinking all right so I really hope this video helped you whether it's helping you understand black and white thinking a little bit more or if you're somebody who struggles with black and white thinking I hope some of my suggestions help you out all right but if you are somebody who struggles with black and white thinking make sure you leave comments down below like let's let's make the comment section like how do you deal with it how do you cope with it what are your tips and tricks to dealing with black and white thinking all right I can't wait to see what you guys say down in the comments all right but before I end this video see this cool shirt it's actually available in the shop right now the rewired souls shop all right so make sure you go check it out if you want to be twinsies with me get yourself a rewired soul shirt I also got a bunch of other shirt designs in there as well as some coffee monks or if you're a coffee drinker check those out all right that's all I got for you if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you're new to this channel make sure you subscribe ring that notification bell because I got all sorts of mental health goodness on here all right and a huge huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon and if you're looking for that link to the rewired soul shop boom it's right there for you all right thanks so much for watching work on your black and white thinking and I'll see you next time