 Six and a half years ago, I was more depressed than I've ever been in my entire life. I was legitimately at my rock bottom. And today, I'm here to tell you that life will not suck forever. 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. So if you're into that kind of stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So, yeah, I just wanted to make this video. It is Thanksgiving morning, but I hope you guys save this video and come back to it when you need to. If you are in a rough spot of your life, this is something that I've been wanting to make for a few weeks now. But before I jump into this, everybody who is on the mailing list, go check it out. I made an email about Don't Be Fooled by Black Friday, and I talk about just buying stuff, spending money, stressing yourself out, Christmas, all that kind of stuff. So make sure you go check that email. And if you're not signed up for the mailing list, go check out the description down below as well as the comments. I'll link to that email and everything like that. All right, but yeah, I wanted to just talk about this stuff, like something that keeps me in check, it keeps me grateful. And this actually is something that's been brought up a few times in the Markiplier video I just made, where people talk about humbling themselves and bringing themselves back. You know, life is going great for me now, but one way that I stay grateful and I don't fall back into these certain depressive cycles is to remember how far I've come, all right? So I just want to touch on different topics and how they've changed over the years, because I know when we're stuck in it, it seems like it's going to be like that forever. And it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be. And like, here's something else too, as I go through these different examples, I want you to realize like, I'm not lucky, and I'm nothing special. Like everything I'm about to talk about, this is something that you can do too, all right? And it's not based on luck either. Like I have put in a lot, a lot of work, and a lot of it has just been my mental health. Like this is why I'm so passionate about this channel, I just want to give just a little sprinkle of that to you so you can start making these tiny little changes. But you know, I started out, you know, my life with divorced parents, an alcoholic mom who I hated visiting because she was drunk. When she got drunk, she was homicidal and suicidal. You know, seeing my mom threatened to, you know, commit suicide and locking herself in the bathroom and just insanity and you know, holidays like this were just the worst for me. Like I remember my mom just getting blackout drunk on Thanksgiving when I would go to visit her and her just getting into these fights and my stepdad having to carry her to the car and we had a terrible relationship. There was years I would go, you know, as I got a little bit older, middle school, high school, where I just didn't want to talk to her, you know, I was sick and tired of everything that she put me through and I didn't understand why I couldn't have a better family and all of that. But, you know, today my mom's sober and she's one of my best friends. Some of you have been around for a little while, you saw that she did some guest videos for me. Like my mom and I, we talk all the time and she, she's actually, you know, the one who inspired me to get into the field of mental health and addiction treatment. She has a PhD in psychology and, you know, I share parts of her story sometimes because I know a lot of you have family members out there struggling with addictions and I want to give you hope, you know, like my mom got better and not only that, but six and a half years ago, my mom almost lost her son. You know what I mean? But, you know, most of my life because of just my childhood and the way my brain worked and my depression and anxiety starting in high school, like life, life was rough. Life was really, really rough and this thing was my worst enemy most of my life until I found, you know, drugs and alcohol. And then, you know, it got better for like five seconds and then it got a whole lot worse and things got awful. I was losing jobs left and right. I was getting into toxic relationships over and over and over again when my son, you know, was conceived. I was unemployed and an alcoholic and everything was just bad. Me and his mom split up a few, no, about two years after he was born because she couldn't deal with my addiction anymore and she left and I was a single father and everything was awful and I felt terrible. I felt like crap and I couldn't stay clean. I kept relapsing and I wasn't even allowed to see my son. But six and a half years ago, like I lost everything. I lost everything. I lost, you know, my son's mom. I lost my son. I lost the job, the car, the apartment, all of my friends, all of my family members. Nobody wanted anything to do with me. And I had congestive heart failure and I was in the hospital dying and when my family wanted me to get better and my friends, I talked about this the other day in my Eugenia Cooney video, like I just, I wanted them to give up on me. I wanted them to leave me alone. Like I was perfectly content with just leaving this world at 26 years old and that's why mental illness and addiction is so rough because something in my crazy brain told me that my son would be better off without me, right? I didn't see my son in four months because I couldn't get my act together. And, you know, luckily they help, my mom helped me and I went to Fresno, California to get clean and shout out to daily, my girlfriend Fresno, but anyways, I went out there and you guys, I had an oxygen tank because my heart was messed up. I couldn't breathe. I had no money. I had three pairs of clothes. I had to go into a sober living house with like 18 other drug addicts and alcoholics and I was miserable. I was absolutely miserable. Like I didn't see a point in doing this. Like I lost everything. Why am I gonna do this when I have lost absolutely everything? And I got clean on my 27th birthday and let's talk real quick. Let's talk, because I know I got a lot of, a lot of you folks out there in your 20s, some of you in your early 30s, hell, even if you're older, right? Even if you're older than me, like it just, it makes me chuckle, but I feel bad too. Like when I see young people and watch my videos and you think your life is over at 21, 22, because I don't know, maybe you did bad in a semester in college or maybe you don't know what you wanna do with your lives. You guys, I screwed up my life until I was 27 years old, okay? And I didn't even start making things better for myself until I was like 30 or 31 years old. All right, I'm only 33 now. So, you know, I just want you guys to all keep that in perspective. Like it's never too late to start getting better. It's never too late to start putting in the work. It is never too late, especially, especially all of you in your early 20s. You guys, like half of my 20s, I don't even remember because I was in and out of blackouts. You know what I'm saying? But here's the thing, like things just gradually got better. One of our biggest issues is impatience, right? We're just so impatient. We don't want things to get better over time. We want things better right now, right? We want our family to be better. We want our friends to be better. We want our finances to be better. We want our, you know, we don't wanna be single right now. We want a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a husband or a wife. We want the kids. These are all things that we want right now. But you guys, life is amazing and it's gonna be here for you, all right? Take your time. Work on things. Work on things one step at a time. Like when I was in California, I was, you guys, I was getting, you know, I had no clothes, no money. I was getting a $40 a week allowance from my mom, all right? And as a smoker that pretty much just afforded my cigarettes. That was it. And, you know, like that's what it was. And I was humbled. I had no car, no license. I had to ride the bus. And I did that for 15 months. For 15 months I stayed in California just living and sober living. Then I moved in with my mom as a 27 year old man. Lived with her when I was 28 because I was there for my birthday. And I moved back to Las Vegas back in 2013. To try to get my life back on track, to be a father to my son, to start working again, to make money and being self-supporting. And I got back and I crapped, I went back to Las Vegas with $200 in my pocket and I crashed on my friend's couch. My best friend Alex who I've known since I was a kid. And he was still in his active alcoholism. That's another thing. Alex is now over three years sober. You know what I mean? Like, so I hope that gives you hope too if you have somebody out there. But I had to crash on his couch and he was an alcoholic. And I had to watch my best friend drinking himself. But like, that was the only place I could stay because people still hated me even though I was over a year sober. You know? And I slept on his couch. And then my first apartment, my first apartment was with my son's mom's mom. That was the only place I could move in. That was the only place I was affordable. That was the only place. So like think about that for a second. I had to live with my baby mama's mama. All right? And yeah, she's great. She's a sweet lady. And but it was years before I met Tristan. But yeah, dating was hard. It was hard to date when you're living with your ex's mom. But you know, back then too, the other thing was, even though I was over a year sober, my kid's mom still hated me. She didn't trust me. She was still waiting for me to relapse or waiting for me to drop the ball or whatever. She didn't trust me to keep Dylan by myself. And that's the other thing. Her and I have an amazing relationship today. And it's something that I know a lot of exes don't have. Like, you know, they have baby mama drama or baby daddy drama or whatever. And she's one of my best friends today. And because of the work I've put in to become a better person and work on myself and start being reliable and a better father and better friend and whatever. Like I always bring this up when I talk about just the leaps and bounds our relationship has taken. Like back in the day, she used to call me and just say, hey, here's what we're doing with Dylan, bye. And I'm like, okay, right? Because I was useless. But now today, if there's anything going on with Dylan, she'll call me and ask for my advice. You know, sometimes I go drop Dylan off and we'll sit there and we'll just talk about things that our son's going through and, you know, parenting struggles and we have conversations. And I'm also very, very fortunate that her new husband, like she started dating him when I first got clean. And that guy has been nothing. But nice and respectful to me. And Dylan has an amazing stepdad and I'm so, so grateful for that. But, you know, that apartment that I had when I was living with my son's grandma. And this is one of the reasons I want to make this video because a lot of you know that I, Tristan and I just moved to this new apartment. Like, I just want to let you know, like the baby steps I took when I first moved into that apartment, all I had was a mattress. Like a card table, like a folding table from like the 1970s and a laptop. And when Dylan would come over and stay with me on the weekends, when his mom finally trusted me again, there was nothing in that apartment for him to do. I had no toys. I had nothing except for a laptop and a mattress. And we would sit there and him and I would watch Adventure Time and Regular Show all day long, all weekend long. And I could barely afford food. I was so broke, so broke. You know, we were eating ramen and like, thank God, there was a 99 cent store right next to the apartment. But, you know, and I just kept going. And I was riding on the bus. I had to ride on the bus an hour and a half each way to work every day. I was waking up at 4.30 in the morning to get on the bus at 5.30 in the morning. Now I'm sounding like an old guy. I'm like, I had to walk through the snow. I'm kidding, there's no snow here in Las Vegas. But I had to ride the bus an hour and a half each way because I lost my driver's license because of my addiction. And I had warrants out for my arrest because of my addiction. I had tickets, everything, you know? And that first Christmas, that first Christmas, I had to pay off my warrants and everything. And I couldn't even afford to buy Dylan anything for Christmas and his birthday's New Year's Eve. I couldn't afford to buy anything for him on New Year's Eve. And I felt awful. I felt like a Tobel parent. I was like, I don't know, two years sober. I couldn't even buy anything for my son. And I'm living in this apartment and just everything. And I look back on it because, especially when we moved, it was just little things over time. There were so many things in that apartment by the end of it. I was like, wow, I've just accumulated things. I eventually got a better bed. I eventually got a better computer. Dylan had an Xbox. I had couches. I had furniture. I had stuff. I didn't have to shop at the $0.99 store anymore. I have a car now. And the car I have is the first new car I've ever had in my life that I got a couple of years ago because I fixed my credit. Before that, I was just going on Craigslist and buying $500 like hoopties and would just drive them until they exploded. You know what I mean? And just again, things won't suck forever, but it takes work. It takes work. And it takes time. It was just a really humbling and grateful experience moving to this new place. Our apartment isn't fancy. It's in a much better part of town. But you guys, I was living in the hood. Tristan didn't feel safe there. She didn't want to move in with me. Tristan was joking. Sometimes, if we're back in that neighborhood, I'll record what it looked like. But I'm talking like I had a homeless guy who was living right outside of my apartment where the dumpster is. I did into like a little shack. And we talked. I gave him water and stuff like that. And living in that area, I love living in that area because it kept me humble. It kept me really humble and reminded me where I could be if I didn't get my act together. You know? There was also, I don't know, boyfriend and girlfriend or husband and wife for a few months. They really freaked Tristan out. They're broken down car. They were living in it. It just showed up out of nowhere and they were living in it. I'd go out to go to my car to go to work. And they'd be like, hey, and I'm like, OK, what's going on? But yeah, that's the kind of neighborhood I was in. And I was in that neighborhood for five years. But part of it is something I tried to teach you guys. I realized that stuff wasn't going to make me happy. And I had to learn how to be happy in that area and in that situation in order to find the true happiness. So now, yeah, this apartment's nice. The stuff I have is nice. This camera is nice. The computer, the Xbox. But I knew I couldn't be reliant on those things because those things can leave at any moment. You know what I mean? I had to learn how to find my happiness when I had nothing. I had to learn how to find my happiness when I had no girlfriend. I had to learn how to find my happiness when I wasn't allowed to see my son. I had to learn how to find my happiness when I didn't have a job. I had to learn how to find my happiness through all those things because now all these other things, they're just icing on the cake, all right? But I know I do a lot of videos. I cover YouTubers, and I share some of my experience. But on a day like today where I know a lot of people are bummed out and I know a lot of people who come to my channel, you're in a rough spot, I just want to remind you, things aren't going to suck forever. They aren't. I know it can feel like that. But something I've always tried to teach you guys is it's not about fixing everything today. It's not about fixing everything tomorrow. Just every day, try to make one thing a little bit better. Maybe that one thing is your mental health. Maybe that one thing is your relationships with your family, with your friends. Maybe that one thing is your relationship with yourself. You know what I mean? Maybe that one thing is looking for a job. Maybe that one thing is just overcoming like a little bit of your anxiety and your fears. Just that's all I did. I made baby steps over the last six and a half years. And here I am. I still got a lot further to go. So again, you young people out there, like get some perspective, get some perspective. I'll screw it up until I was 27 years old, all right? But anyways, I just wanted to get this stuff off my head. And I also want to remind you, it's not luck. It's work, all right? That's where that's tough love, Chris, coming out, OK? So anyways, that's all I got. Again, if you're on the email list, go check out the email because there's a lot of important information in there about stuff and happiness and the holidays. And if you're not on the email list, it'll be linked down below. All right, but anyways, if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe, ring that notification bell, and a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. Here are all your names. We got some new names on the list. You're all amazing. And if you would like to get exclusive content and extra perks and all that kind of stuff, click or tap on the Patreon icon, all right? All right, thanks so much for watching. Things aren't going to suck forever. And I'll see you next time.