 Alrighty, I don't know how to start this video, yeah, okay so this one today's video is gonna be pretty like, I don't even know how to word it, today's video is gonna be like super deep, very personal and just a trigger warning for anyone that struggles with mental health and stuff like that, this may not be the video for you as I'm gonna talk about some various things that have happened to me throughout my life that has led me to where I am today and the reason I'm making this video is definitely this season, this season in particular, the channel's definitely grown to a place that is outside my comfort zone in terms of meeting new people, meeting other people and just fitting in in a community setting and it's definitely been taking a huge toll on me and I just want to explain myself for anyone that has met me in person because it's honestly it's kind of like traumatizing for me when I meet new people and I know that when I meet someone at Canada's Wonderland that's a fan of the channel, I'm super awkward and I hate it, I absolutely hate that about myself, I hate that I'm not this super energetic like out there like super like social like I wish I could be that, I really do, I wish I could be that but instead I when someone goes oh my god amusement insiders or it's Brendan or I know you guys like I instantly shut down and in that moment my head literally slows down to like half a second for every second and I overthink and overanalyze everything and I'm literally just panicking and I'm like just be cool just be cool just be cool and anyone who's met me you'll know that like I ask very generic questions to try and get the conversation going so I don't want to shut down and trust me I like when people come up and introduce themselves to me and I love meeting new people in fact I've met so many amazing people this season I just wish I had the courage to like be a better person when you meet me and every time you walk away I sit there and I just regret every second of that interaction and I just want to apologize to anyone that has met me and has thought that I didn't like you or that I wasn't interested in getting to know you it's literally all me I struggle with severe anxiety and depression and I have severe trust in people and that is why I felt like I really needed to make this video and explain myself and put myself out there and what's interesting is I never really had intentions to do this until recently I got to talking to someone in that profession in terms of things that have happened to me in my past and it was kind of like their idea for me to get it out there and be a little more open about it because they said that like I hold my voice holds this like pain and they can like hear the pain in my voice and I just like it seems like I'm holding on to the pain and like I'm not letting it out and I get that I guess I'm extremely reserved anyone who knows me and has known me for a while knows I'm super sensitive like beyond sensitive a bug could look at me the wrong way and I'll cry and I overanalyze everything I upload a video on YouTube and I sit there for the first hour literally panicking are people gonna hate it if they do hate it what do I do I always feel like I owe everyone an apology all the time and I just feel like I'm not doing enough I I always feel like I'm not doing enough I always feel like my channel is the worst channel out there I feel like my content is the worst content out there I hate myself I hate my channel and thanks to an amazing new group of people that I've been able to meet especially this season I've had like the ability to kind of catch myself before I fall into that and that's an important message I just want anyone if you if anyone listening to this video or watching this video because obviously I don't have the courage to put myself in front of a camera and talk about my my mental health problems at the current moment I'm using a video of mine to hide behind with my voice because that's classic me anyone who knows my channel I do like to hide unfortunately that is just me I don't like the way I look and yeah again that comes with being not not having confidence and I'm working on it I am trust me I'm working on it and you guys are a super big part of why I'm still here and my confidence building up the people that meet me the people that thank me for my content the people that continue to just uplift me it's it's really important because I I do struggle deeply with it now I'm rambling I should probably get to the point okay I apologize if I sound like not comfortable making this video I am comfortable I would never make this video if I wasn't comfortable it's just really deep I'm gonna I'm gonna try and explain this really quick I'm gonna try and rush this video as much as possible I don't want people sitting through like a 30-minute video I guess the one message I want people to learn and understand from this is if I can make it and get through it on the other side like so can you and I'm so thankful I did that's the message I want there for you to get out of this video I am so thankful I did life is truly great life has curveballs life has really crummy moments but life also has super amazing moments those uplifting experiences those life-changing experiences it has so much to offer it really does and you just got to look for it you got to step outside of that and I'm gonna talk about that maybe in some other videos you know maybe I'll end up starting another channel I'm not sure I don't know how this video is gonna be received sometimes in the community I feel like I do get hated on sometimes it is deserved sometimes it's not and that does leave me in a position where I panic for everything I upload but I talked to people in my life and I've talked to a specific someone that I've been see like kind of like speaking to and getting help with and they think it's a good idea and I feel like it'll help people understand that I don't hate you I'm not a bad person I swear I'm just someone that's struggling like a lot of people are this is a very normal experience if you're struggling right now or if you're going through a hard time just know that a lot of us are and it's okay and in fact I wish I had spoken up when I was a teenager that I wasn't okay it will probably would have helped a lot if I did and I if there was a piece of advice I can give you right now tell someone that you're not okay tell your parents you're not okay tell a friend you're not okay speak to someone I think like the biggest step in my life was speaking to someone recently about this in fact there's only two people that know all these details and what to say in this video and that's Craig and someone that I have recently spoken to so I guess to start off the story my father was someone that was extremely close with me someone that used to take me to Wonderland all the time and that is why I kind of fell in love with Wonderland I wasn't enthusiast rides used to scare me he used to force me on rides there's funny photos of me on like the bat and stuff where I look absolutely terrified as like a kid and he was just someone really close to me he was someone that like paid attention to me which is key for me because I was never popular and there was obviously always differences about me that made me bullied or stand out and it's unfortunate but that's who that's what made me who I am today so I am super thankful that I never did change and I'm super thankful that I stayed true to myself whether it led to me not fitting in and whether it led me to being extremely bullied I'm thankful for that but my father was someone that I was extremely close with and basically what had happened is to start the story off I'm leaving a lot of information out but I'm doing that to keep it so much short I think this video is already at 10 minutes and I'm so sorry if you're still listening to this I appreciate it but to start it off I guess my dad got a really serious promotion with his company he became vice president of his company and my family moved and I had to go to a new school and I left a school where I kind of had other misfits to fit in with that school had a group of people like me and I fit in there and it was great and I had you know we were bullied as a group but we had a group to lie on but then my family moved as my dad got promoted and I went to a new school and in this school obviously I had to make friends and it wasn't easy for various experiences I'm trying to keep it as short as possible I obviously have a different voice I guess you could say it stands out a little more I'm not your back then when I was in school like you know I wasn't your typical macho man to keep it short and simple and I got bullied for it and it was very difficult for me to make friends in fact I remember I ended up making one friend this that year and I remember him saying that he had to keep our friendship on the low so he didn't get bullied and we would hang out after school well my dad passed away about halfway through that first year at that school and it was traumatizing to me because I didn't really know it was coming it was something my mom had chosen to hide from us as kids the two older kids in my family my older siblings knew that it was coming but I hadn't I remember I was at school and I came home for lunch and they dropped the news on me out of nowhere and I literally remember my life spinning like it was just shock and I was sick to my stomach and I didn't talk to anyone in my family I didn't want to talk to anyone in my family and I shut my family out and I kept to myself and I didn't go to school for like two weeks which is normal I then went back to school and of course everyone you know I was in a school that would extremely bullied me but everyone was being oddly nice to me after this experience I think I we were just starting our second semester of the school year something like that I'm not quite sure it's a blur because it was so long ago and everyone was being oddly nice everyone was like you know offering help it was really weird I guess that's what humans do people were talking to me people wanted to hang out with me after school it was it was weird it was different the popular people asked to hang out so we started hanging out we'd go to my house and we'd all hang out in my room and in my basement and just at my place and little did I know that it was all part of a scheme this is probably the most traumatizing thing that has ever happened to me and I wish I had seeked help from my family after this but I'm an Irish family and me and my siblings it was always competition who had the better life and I guess we all hid things from each other to make ourselves seem like we had decent lives I never told anyone I was getting bullied I never seeked help and I wish I had but turns out this popular group of people one day at my house had gathered a bunch of my dad's left belongings to me and we went into the forest near my house and they burned my dad's belongings in in front of me and documented it and filmed it and shared it with the whole school and I just remember hiding my anger in that moment trying to pretend like it like wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to me and I remember kind of just like running away and going home because I always refused to cry in front of people my family I used to refuse I refused to cry in front of people at school I used to refuse to cry when I was getting bullied and I yeah I guess I never really had time to heal from the like culture shock and just like the shock that you know for once I felt like I was finally being accepted and welcomed into like the popular people group and in turn it ended up to be like a really cruel just like a way to like hurt me and it worked and it was embarrassing and there were yeah there were videos of it and no one ever apologized for that I still haven't spoken to anyone at that school about what had happened and it got even worse I don't know if I could get worse in there but the one friend that I had the only person that I would hang out with after school and talk to in this specific grade was convinced to fight me on camera to beat me up after school because they had found out that we talked and that we were friends so everyone convinced him to fight me after school I remember he had kind of like found me during the school day to kind of be like I have to do it but don't I won't hurt you too bad but I have to do it and I just remember accepting it because I was so weak and so like I had no ability or power courage or confidence to stand up for myself I just accepted it and fine I'll take it I'll do it it's okay it's whatever and I accepted it and after school everyone forced us over to the field and in front of the entire school he beat me up punched me in the head I just remember standing there taking a bunch of punches to the head being kicked and it was all filmed and documented like everything because I was the outcast that never stood up for myself never spoke up and I just allowed it and that was the end of those bad experiences but I just it was those two things back to back were like the biggest backstabs or portrayals to me in my life that led me to like not trust people and to fear people and be scared of people so I always kept to myself after that and from that moment I kind of just like never trusted people easily I never told anyone anything I didn't talk to my own family about anything I pretended like life was great and like I had friends and then I moved on into high school and because of the area where you're living in I went to one specific high school and I think I lasted two weeks there because obviously my voice is different and I stood out especially as a teenager and I drew a lot of attention to myself and I didn't have the ability to stand up for myself I wish I did I wish I had the confidence I do today in terms of standing up for people and myself I would have stood up for myself if I had even the ounce of confidence I have now but I remember literally every single day I was getting basically all my money taken from me and bullied and beat up to the point where I was receiving death threats from one specific student at this school who I know deep down didn't mean it like he never would have actually killed me or ended me but he threatened it and it scared me because back then I was you know scared of everything including myself and every person so I would sit in the washroom and eat my my lunch and then eventually I just gave up and stopped going to school so I transferred schools and in this time frame I feel like I should put a trigger warning here I'm so sorry if this is really deep I get that this is like I don't even know what to say here I'm sorry the trigger warning here this is this is gonna touch on like a really sensitive self-harm subject so if you're not comfortable with that please click off but someone really close to me in my life I was sleeping and I woke up at 3 a.m. and I just remember hearing some weird noises and I never had the courage I was that person that was afraid of dying and always afraid of everything I didn't have the courage to go check but something in me just like forced me to go check and I went checked and I had seen someone extremely close to me do something really dumb that almost led to them not existing anymore I'm trying to be really careful with words here and if I hadn't had like gotten up that that weird hour and you know gone to check on this person like they wouldn't be here anymore I wasn't even the first that wasn't even sorry the last time that happened it it happened again like six months later this time the person at least had the courage to come and seek help from me when they attempted it again and I just remember that was an extremely traumatizing experience and I was never able to talk to anyone about it because my family doesn't believe in mental health and health all that that I just went over kind of happened in my teenage years leading into my young adult years and then after school and erasing a lot of in between I had a career at a very popular company that I worked for for 10 to 11 years of my life and it was absolutely amazing and I had some of the best people I've ever worked for I've I worked for and near the end of my career I started I was placed in the last two years at the busiest location in all of York Region and my boss district manager who had worked for the company for 20 years that I absolutely adored was laid off and that was extremely shocking and hurtful to me just because she was the most uplifting supportive like best thing to ever happen to me believed in me uplifted me just was like a rock in my life so I was clearly upset and we had this new district manager that was just all about numbers and not about culture at all faked it and was just any little mistake would penalize it I do want to stress that in this next part I do take blame for what happened I am mature enough to understand that what I did was wrong but it just goes back into why trust is such a hard thing for me I had my team was like my family at this location extremely close we were all like family we had group chats we'd all go hang out and this one specific guy in our close little group at this store I was the store manager he was quitting he was leaving due to moving and I we got along really well we hung out the small group of us all the time there was you know nothing going on I hadn't written him up there was nothing to warrant anything out of nowhere decides to just send all of the screenshots in our little private group of me not liking my boss my new boss to her to my new boss and it led to me losing my 10-plus year career at this company that I absolutely loved actions have consequences and what had happened to me is was deserved and I'm thankful for the experience and I layered up obviously because in my long time there I hadn't been written up and obviously there were things that had happened that led to me you know moving on to this next bit of my career but I took two years off with the money that I got so I took about two years off of work because I was so hurt and betrayed and that led me to amusement insiders and I'm now a store manager again while also running amusement insiders but there's a lot of things that have happened in my life that have led me to be afraid of people terrified of people there's people that all have close to me and sometimes they do do things that warrant me to not trust them and sometimes there's things that they don't do and I still don't trust them and that's on me but I struggle with trust I struggle with confidence I struggle with believing in myself and I really just wanted to share that with you guys as an audience I mean you've been a part of my life for four years now like five years I don't even know it's been a while and I'm gonna be honest like you're a big reason as to why I've grown so much a lot to be honest like why I've grown a lot I've met a lot of really good people this season really good people this season our discord is like my family people that I hang out with are so uplifting like I literally I remember in discord two weeks ago I think it was two weeks ago I like I don't know what was but I just like I was like I don't like my content my I don't like my content seems like subpar now and a bunch of people were just like you're too hard on yourself like it's good like it's and they were all just like listing off reasons as to why I should like you know why it's great and like how because of it there's like a big group of like people that we you know we all hang out we have the discord and these are all things like you don't think about as like a person or something someone running a channel and it's just like this channel seems to always catch me when I'm at my lowest like I'll be falling down a cliff falling down a hill and you guys and my friends in this channel literally are a safety net in my life because I'm held accountable for things that I do whether it be times that I misspeak times where I'm out of line or times where I'm not feeling my best like you guys are always there my friends are always there Craig is always there discord's always there I have something to look forward to and it's like honestly like I don't even know what to say I think I'm losing myself right now not literally like that I just mean like I think I've rambled too much I wanted to explain myself because I don't want anyone feeling like they're not good enough to hang out with me or they're not good enough to come up to me to speak to me or that I don't like you or that I think I'm too cool for you that that's not the case it never was the case it never will be the case I'm literally some overweight dude that makes videos about roller coasters and Canada's Wonderland I will never be too good for you so please don't ever think that and at any time that you see me at Canada's Wonderland or anywhere feel free to come up and say hi to like hang out with us trust me I'm more afraid of you than you are of me and I am not thinking anything negative about you it is literally me struggling to find some courage to to speak to open up and to overcome the social anxiety and mistrust that I have again I really just wanted to explain myself and I hope you guys understand I hope that like there's no one out there that you know thinks that I'm a horrible person because I wasn't super energetic when you met me I haven't received any complaints by the way that's not why I'm making this video anyone that hangs out at me at the park knows that every time someone comes up and says hi and then they walk away I shut down like I literally am like oh my god I wish I handled that better or I wish I could have said more like why did I ask that stupid question like it's just it's such a mess anyone that struggles with anxiety and depression probably can totally relate to what I'm saying right now and the beautiful thing is like it's getting better like it'll get better and life will always continue to improve just take those little steps and you're gonna take bunches of steps backwards sometimes you're gonna fall all the way down a cliff that you just climbed you just got to reclimat this time with like the lessons you've learned with the experiences that you learned it's okay to spend a whole day crying in your bed it's okay to not to want to go hang out with your friends for a day or two just don't let yourself slip and stay there don't stay stuck get up and try again I promise you if I could make it you can too and I'm like I know I don't sound confident right now that's just because this is a lot but I am confident I know I'm gonna make it through life I know you're gonna make it through life you guys are so important to me if you're struggling to find importance in your life or like that life just isn't as amazing as you expected just know that like I rely on you like I do I'm not saying that I know that's like the cheesiest thing anyone can possibly say I get that it is cheesy but I do rely on you anyone in my discord server who has been in that discord server since the channel has started can vouch that there have been moments where I'm literally shutting down or wanting to give up delete the channel and everything and it's always like you guys the viewers the people that like you know thank me like the amazing people like that you guys are it's you that literally like save are my safety net so thank you like truthfully I know I probably don't show enough I probably don't say thank you enough I wish I could thank everyone but yeah I promise I'll get better continue to come say hi don't be afraid I hope this video didn't do the opposite of what I wanted it to do I want I wanted it to explain I feel like I'm the worst person explaining emotion I bet you there's someone watching this video right now being like are you serious I get it I just want to explain myself I guess like you know five six years doing this YouTube channel maybe it's about time I've come forward and opened up a little more and maybe I'll continue to open up but yeah trust and social environments are my weakness I'm not a leader I'm a follower and as of this season it's been placing me in like a leader position the channel is a lot more popular than it's ever been like we go to Wonderland we get recognized beyond belief and it's it's a super young audience I've we've had people come up and say that they loved like certain things about my video there's these two girls like I think in 2019 that told me that my videos were inspiring because they were bullied in school and it's stuff like that that like made me panic but then I realized that like there are people that look up to me as crazy as that is making videos about roller coasters and I'm gonna own that I'm going to be a better mentor I'm going to talk and be open about my problems and how I've overcome them and how life has changed since I was bullied and beat up and backstabbed and betrayed and life does get better it really does and there are ways to help make it better quicker and again if you take anything from this video speak up tell a friend tell a family member tell anyone call a 1-800 number any of them near you kids help phone call someone speak to someone let someone know you're not okay or what's going on in your life it helps again recently when I had that chance to speak to someone about what had happened to me throughout my life it helped I don't know what it was it was like the floodgates had opened up and like there was this huge weight lifted off my my chest and that was when I realized that what had happened to me with my dad's belongings had probably taken a bigger toll on me than I ever wanted to realize and then the events after that and just never fitting in is a constant theme in my life never fitting in never feeling good enough never feeling feeling cool enough and you just got to find your crowd my biggest advice for anyone struggling out there feeling alone or like they don't have friends or they're not a part of like a crowd or anything find your people what are your hobbies what are your interests go join those groups on Instagram Facebook anywhere join the clubs join the groups if you're a coaster nerd and you feel alone like join our discord server we are trying to make it as safe of a place as it possibly can and obviously it's not perfect but we are working on it if you ever don't feel respected by anyone on the amusement insiders team we're in discord just let us know let any mod know we will take care of it join us don't be alone I chose to be alone for most of my life and I wish I could go back and open up to even just a family member of mine yeah I hope this helped even half a person I hope this gives a more clarity as to why I'm so dull and shy and anxious and why I don't handle people well but I know I want to do good and I know I want to do better and I want to lead better and I owe that to you guys I really do again not trying to be cheesy I owe it to you guys you guys are amazing like really amazing and this channel and you are honestly the most important thing in my life now literally so yeah thank you so much for anyone that's made it this far I think we're literally at the 34-minute mark that's embarrassing yeah thank you honestly thank you thank you thank you and feel free to reach out to me yeah I promise I'm good this isn't like a cry for help by the way like I'm fine I I have a great group of friends I have you guys I'm fine when I mean like life gets better I do mean that I will really be speaking out on this a lot more in terms of helping anyone that needs a voice to help guide them through any tough experience like I promise I will get better and be able to lead in that I am seeking help and it has done wonders already and I know that it will only get better from here so thanks again thank you so much there'll be another video coming out around the same time as this an update on Wonderland I just wanted to get this out here I did record this I don't know when this is going up I recorded this like a couple days before haunt so I don't know if this is going up the day before haunt the day day before haunt or the first day of haunt whenever it goes up yeah again thank you thank you thank you thank you see you at the park feel free to hang out with us and thanks for getting to know me a little more in depth have a good one guys bye