 What's shaking, Booktube? So I know draw my live videos, they aren't really a thing anymore, but I've always really liked them. I've always felt that they give you a bit more of an intimate feeling with the creator themselves. And what you might not know is that a very long time ago, I think around the time of my 100 or maybe 200 milestone, subscriber milestone on YouTube, I said that if I ever hit 10,000 subscribers, I would probably make one myself. And I completely forgot about that, obviously, because 10,000 subscribers, I mean, it didn't feel impossible, but it just seemed so far away. And then all of a sudden, here we are. But anyway, consider this my celebration video of 10,000 subscribers. And I hope it gives you that personal intimate connection with me that I always felt when I watched them be warned. It is literally my life story. So if that's not your thing. Yeah, this video is probably not for you. So my name is Cam, and I'm 26, which is both crazy and scary. I mean, what have I actually done with myself since I turned 21? Who knows? I like stories more than anything else in the world, be that books, games, films, television, whatever. What I want more than anything else in the world, though, is to one day be a dad and to be a writer who is just successful enough to write at least one story that has some people fall in love with it. My mom's name is Sharon, of course, because she's a middle-aged Australian woman. And my dad's name is Bob. With names like that, you'd be forgiven for wondering why I myself wasn't named Eski or Baza or something like that, thus creating a trifecta of true blue Aussie names. My mom's an introvert who likes to spend most of her time reading books. And my dad was an extrovert who preferred fishing, darts, or catching up with anyone and everyone down at the local pub. All of those activities for him had to go hand-in-hand with a forex beer though, of course, because this is Queensland, mate. I'd like to think that I inherited most of the interests and hobbies from both my folks, especially when it comes to music. I mean, I'll dad shuffle to ACDC just as much as I'll Bob to Abba. I don't have any full blood siblings. I only have half siblings, but to be honest, I don't really see the difference. I just, I don't get it. I have two older brothers and a sister on my mom's side and a little sister on my dad's. I'm still close with all of them, except one older brother who just couldn't stop letting me down. I don't really want to go into that, but what I will say is that I learned the hard way that the whole blood is thicker than water expression is a load of bullshit. So there's my oldest brother, Brett, who can be a bit dopey, but has a heart of gold. Then there's my older sister, Simone, who in a way is the oldest of all of us. She's definitely the most responsible and she's easily the most inspiring woman I know. And then there's my youngest sister, Rosie, who is an absolute animal in the nicest way. She is more of our dad than she could ever know. So when I was a little kid, I was one of your classic book nerd types. I had friends and everything. So we were always having just enough fun that any of the schoolyard teasing never really got to us too much. My mom and dad were separated as long as I can remember. So that was never something that actually bummed me out, although it was a bit of a bummer how far apart they lived. It was kind of like a parent trap situation, you know, the Lindsay Lohan movie, just without a twin. I lived in the city with my mom, my older siblings, and my wealthy stepdad, and my dad lived in the country with my stepmom, who, well, she wasn't the nicest person, but I'll get to that. On the holidays, they would have to drive a few hours each to meet in the middle and pass me over like the world's least satisfying drug deal. I loved my dad more than I can ever say. He was, by every ounce of the corny cliché, my best friend. He really was. He was cool, and he made me feel like I was cool too. He made me feel like I could grow up to be like him and be cool and be loved by everyone. I loved him, and I always missed him, but I hated staying with him. And the only reason I say that is because the house was always a mess. There was regularly animals walking. It was a bit of a farm area, and there was regularly, you know, chickens and stuff walking through, so sometimes there would be animal shit around the place, and it literally made me ill a lot of the times I visited. But much worse than that was that my stepmom was hella abusive. As an adult, looking back on it, I think what was happening was that she resented how much my dad liked spending time solo with me when I'd visit. She was feeling a bit neglected when I was around, so what she would do is she would take that out on me physically when my dad wasn't around. She would grab my arms way too tight and like scream in my face all the time. Sometimes she would accidentally, quotation around, accidentally, sometimes she would bump me with her cigarettes. I actually still have some scars from from the cigarettes going out on my skin. I never wanted to tell my dad about that because I was worried that he would leave her and then resent me for it because I know he really loved her. He was just oblivious to what she was doing. But I think what I was most scared of was the possibility in my mind that maybe he would think I did something wrong to deserve what what she was doing, and then he wouldn't want me around anymore, and he wouldn't like me anymore. And in retrospect, I know how dumb that was. But it was a genuine fear of mine. On the other side, my stepdad was actually pretty damn cool for a while. He would always hang out with us and he liked building things so he would build stuff with us all the time, and then unfortunately he joined a certain intense church group and he just transformed completely from that point on. And I was too young to know at the time, but looking back on it, I can see he became a really cold, methodical man. He started to despise having us kids around entirely. More than anything though, he kind of developed this sense of authority through his visits with the church and the people he was hanging out with there. And if there was one thing he hated, it was having his authority questioned. My oldest sister Simone, she was the loudest and most rebellious of all of us and definitely the most stubborn. She still is a little bit, and he definitely hated that the most. I was young so I saw it happening at the time, but I never really understood how bad it actually was, but he actually ended up physically hitting her when she would get out of line and eventually my sister left for a while, just like that she was gone. My life kind of went on. I was wrapped up in my fantasy worlds and my books and hanging out with my friends and playing Yu-Gi-Oh and all that kind of stuff. I would just kind of let life drift past without knowing what was happening behind the scenes or the seriousness of it. And ultimately my stepdad ended up cheating on my mom so they got a divorce and she leaned pretty hard into keeping shitty people around her bad company and drinking a lot. We've never really talked about it as a family, but I think she might have actually been an alcoholic at that time. It was pretty damn bad. It was a really rough time for everyone actually, so I did what I thought I had to. I did what I thought was best for everyone and I got away as far away as I could. I ended up moving to the small country town with my dad which was both awesome and well you know. And hey I know this video has been a bit of a bummer so far, but dudes my high school experience was actually pretty damn great. Don't get me wrong I was still a dork going in the high school but through a twist of what I can only call destiny I ended up rehearsing for a drama class performance where I played a skater boy. To play the part I had to practice skateboarding and next thing I know I was hanging out with actual skaters. Most of these guys are still my best friends today, more than 10 years later. I still copped a beating here and there for being a skater rat, but it didn't matter because I had friends to look out for me now. I also did quite a bit of dating in high school, with girls that were for the most part way out of my league. Honestly looking back on it, it's kind of crazy. My mom ended up moving to the small town as well which I know stung for her, but not as much as staying in that house in the city would have. And on one particular night, probably one of the worst nights of my life and a night I'll never forget, she got really drunk and I think the weight of what was happening in her life in such a short space of time finally broke her and she started looking for a place to direct her anger. Her first target was my stepmom and when my dad who knew little to nothing of the abuse stepped in, he copped the full load of her anger. I know my mom said a lot of stuff that night that she regrets to this day and a lot of stuff that she definitely didn't mean, but in particular I remember my mom saying that she wouldn't let me go back to my dad's house and I think those words really hurt him. In fact, that was actually the last time I saw my dad. After a few weeks, Bob was officially a missing person. I think that whole situation pushed my mom into even more of a downward spiral because one thing that had never been a secret was that she actually really did like my dad and he liked her. They were always split as long as I can remember, but they never had anything bad to say about each other and I think there was a lot of respect that went both ways. So eventually my mom ended up dating this real piece of shit dude that looked like a warress and liked to call himself mad dog. I was having an argument with my mom one day, you know just as teenage kids do, it was nothing crazy. I was having an argument with her and he actually intervened and tried to choke me out. Luckily my big sister Simone was there and she'd experienced this first hand, so she definitely wasn't going to let that happen to me. She just wasn't having that shit. So butter bing butter boom, mom and mad dog moved out and us kids were on our own. I spent quite a long while during high school technically homeless. I was living I guess on my friend's couches just from night to night and it wasn't so bad that my friends families knew me already for quite a long time at that point so they were very very nice to me and they always looked after me and I very rarely had nowhere to go. I ended up finishing school with super average grades and moved back to the city in hopes of being a screenwriter. I did a diploma of film and television and realized screenplays weren't for me. Then I was an intern at a media company getting flown around Australia to help film commercials and conferences. The pay was rubbish but the perks were the tits my guy. That company ended up getting liquidated and I was once again stuck on my ass. Luckily I had a great girlfriend at the time let's just call her R. We were two peas in a pod for a whole year. When I met her actually I was sitting at a party on my own and she was the only one that came over to talk to me. Ironically she was dressed as a mime. She took good care of me and made me happy as frick. I wish I could say I did the same for her but I think eventually she got sick of babysitting a grown ass dude and I know I didn't make out relationship nearly as exciting as I should have. I got lazy and self pitting. I just got too comfortable I guess. Naturally she broke up with me and I should say she did it in a really nice and polite way. Now dealing with a breakup was a total bummer of course. I really did love her but the worst part was and I shit you not. Barely a day or two later after the breakup I got a big yellow envelope in the mail containing an official police report that was closing the investigation on my dad's whereabouts. They had found his bones in the bush with a noose. That was without a doubt the darkest time of my life. It's kind of weird looking back on because it just doesn't feel like it was me that experienced it. I just started finally trying to actually write around that time like seriously write but obviously with this stuff happening it just fell apart immediately so I had nothing positive to fall back on aside from my friends although I assumed I was such a drag that I didn't really hang out with them much either. I've never actually tried to end my life but I think at around that time I was really trying to destroy myself like break myself down to the point of being just nothing so that I didn't feel. I was drinking all the time like you know morning tonight and I smoked a lot of weed mainly so that I could get to sleep. Basically I just wanted to be as numb as possible all the time and it's weird looking back on it because it's not just that I was stuck in a dark place it's that I didn't want to get out. I liked it there. I just want to take a moment to talk about my dad. He was a remarkably optimistic person. He was that small town guy that would wave at everyone and land their names. Everyone knew Bob. He wasn't much of a book guy but he really really loved telling stories. He would act it out. He would wave his arms around. He would put on voices. If he told you a story about going down to the shop to get some milk you would feel like you'd went there with him and you would feel like it had been the best time of your life. I'm nowhere near the extrovert he is although I wish I was a lot more like him. I'd like to think I have a generally laid back attitude that I can thank him for. I only wish my little sister Rosie had gotten to know him. All this happened while she was pretty young and she didn't really get to know him as the person he was properly but those two were cut from the same cloth. They would have been an absolute riot together. I did end up reconnecting with my mum and were close again. I really do love my mum and I know she has made a lot of mistakes that she feels bad about but she's still been there for me a lot of times that I needed a mum. She still had my back. Mad dog ended up scampering off thank god. I did blame her for what happened with dad for a really long time but eventually I realized that suicide just doesn't work like that. It can't have just been that one night that pushed my dad over the edge. I know she still carries a lot of guilt around for what happened but I've forgiven her and I know Anyway first forward a bit and I was blessed enough to have a bunch of friends, my skater, rat mate to pull me out of my rut and get me back on track. I got an entry level job at a tech company and I busted my ass until I could get a better job and I did the same thing until I got a better one than that and now I have a job that pays me well that I love with awesome people. I also got back into writing in a really big way. I finished a lot of stories, I even finished some books and I decided that to marker those books I would need to create a writing youtube channel and that's when I discovered Booktube. Booktube which like an aesthetically pleasing virus attached itself to my life in a really big way. Now it's one of the most fulfilling hobbies I have or have ever had in my whole life. That hobby being filming myself being crunchy as hell and posting it online for people to laugh at. I love it, I really do. I also adopted a cat named Bonnie who is a total bitch but not to me so that's okay. That's pretty much my life story and I know most of the stuff that I talked about in this video was a downer but I don't want you to think that I'm trying to tell you how sad my life was or get sympathy or pity or anything like that. That's really not what this is. It's just that all of those things I talked about they were truly the most defining moments of my life. Those are the things that I can honestly say have made me the person I am today. All of these events and even a couple that I didn't have time to talk about today were the important moments that set the dominoes in place for who I am and where I am today. Because at the end of the day the truth is I'm actually super lucky. I'm really lucky. I'm lucky to have my job, I'm lucky to have my home, my friends, my family, my platform here even. Looking back on everything I have had a pretty damn good life so far. I have lots and lots of good memories to go with the bad. I'm really thankful that things got better and I couldn't have got out of that you know dark place if it weren't for my friends and family and hopefully this video can give some hope for anyone that needs it that things can get better for them too but also don't feel bad about the fact that that may take time and you're not obligated to rush through that. So there you go you now quite literally know my life story. How's that for intimate? I hope this does for you what Draw My Life videos did for me and other creators where it made me feel a bit closer with them. It helped me feel like I knew them on a more personal level. I hope that's what this does and if you've watched the whole thing thank you I guess I really appreciate you showing that much of an interest and hey thanks for being part of the 10,000 subscribers it's just it's crazy to think about. I really didn't expect to have this platform at this time it's just it's part of why I feel so blessed. Anyway thanks for watching catch ya