 I often tell people that maintaining good mental health is more about what you need to do and not what you want to do but that does not change the fact that my brain is chemically imbalanced and that really really upsets me. What is up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and right now when you're watching this like today is a day when I'm doing an all-day mental health twitch live stream so I don't know what you're doing you should be over there right now but if you're watching this later go follow me on twitch because I love getting to talk to all of you in a one-on-one type of setting and we have a great community already on twitch we're like people are like helping each other out and supporting each other it is uh such a beautiful thing anyways go follow me on twitch it's down in the description below like watch me on your computer or your tablet or your phone or whatever it is because I'm doing a lot more live streams like whether I'm editing content or I'm just playing video games and talking to all of you as well but anyways so those of you who have been following my channel I just made a video the other day about how I ran out of my anxiety meds and the things I was gonna do over the weekend and like this is something that you know I want to update you guys on but I also want to talk to you about something I know a lot of people experience like a lot of people do not want to take their mental health medications I get that I am in your boat so basically going into this weekend like I was prepared for the anxiety to come all right I was prepared but I wasn't prepared for the depression so about six years ago when I first got sober I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder but I was also diagnosed with like minor depression so my main issue was anxiety but I also experienced depression all right depression for me is a lot of feelings of like numbness not feeling emotions not feeling joy and everything and that's one of the reasons why I turned to substances which only made things worse but anyways like I said I was totally prepared for the anxiety to come over the weekend and like I had everything planned out I was gonna you know I was gonna be meditating I was gonna be very mindful I was gonna communicate with my girlfriend and my son and all sorts of stuff but I wasn't prepared for the depression and first and foremost I want to thank you the viewer out there like um like you guys helped me you guys helped me with my mental health like sometimes like my ego wants to come into play like when you guys give me suggestions in the comments I'm like yo how about you wait a second I'm the guy who's supposed to be helping you but uh you know I got a combat ego that voice in my head down because one of you actually gave me an amazing suggestion I'm gonna talk more in depth about this in a second you said like why don't you call your pharmacy my pharmacy will give me some emergency meds you know if I ran out so I'm like okay cool and like I took their advice I called and they were able to restock them um well basically they gave me three until I could follow up with my doctor today and man like so Saturday I go to pick up my girlfriend and like everything was going great in the morning um I was fine I was totally good like no anxiety no depression or anything like that and I don't know what it was like I just I started feeling depressed I started feeling numb I started feeling meh I started feeling like no emotion like I love picking up my girlfriend she lives across town and we have great conversations like when we pick up because we're texting all the time but it's great to be in the car with her and talk I'm like I just noticed like just the depression setting in and it was bugging me I'm like oh my god and that's actually when I got home and like I actually recorded some videos and like I felt I felt like I wasn't giving my all in the videos just because I felt depressed like I made a video about ace three ace three doing an update about his depression like I get it I didn't want to create because I just I make these videos when I'm feeling passionate and a lot of times I feel really passionate I'm like you know my emotion my character can come into these videos and like I forgot which video was I recorded the other day but I was just feeling like uh like off and um you know afterwards I called up the pharmacy based on your lovely suggestions and I called them up and I said yeah we can you know give you some until you can call your doctor and so I go down to the pharmacy and I go and pick up my medications and I take it and after you know whatever the pill you know I'm on lexapro um I take the generic it's called acetalopram and like after it did whatever it does in my body metabolizes and all that I just felt so much better I felt so much better and I was talking to my girlfriend I'm like man I hate my medications I hate it like I hate it because and here's the thing like and this is again this is ego this is all ego like I know my ego is coming into play when words like should come into my mind a lot should or shouldn't right because these are based on expectations I correlate my my expectations with my ego and like my brain is telling me like Chris you do all these things for your mental health you shouldn't need these medications you should not need these medications like like you exercise you meditate you live like a very good life you set boundaries with people you don't keep talks to people like I do pretty much all of the right things but I still need these medications or I get depressed and I get anxious and that bugs me it bugs me and like I wanted to make this video because I know so many people don't like taking their medications but like I mentioned at the beginning of this video mental health maintaining our mental health is about doing what we need to do and not what we want to do so I get it I get it like I don't like taking my medications either like I you know I'm one of those people where you know maybe and that's that's partially pride right I want to be the guy I want to be the guy who doesn't need to take any medications to feel well but the reality is is that man like I I need them I need them or my brain gets out of whack I am somebody who has you know these these mental health issues and thank God for medical science and it can help it can help me out like I've done a ton of research and stuff and anti-anxiety and anti-medicine depression medications they don't actually do that much but for most of us they get us to this baseline like they're not a happy pill but they get you to this baseline and it's like you know I get these fears in my mind like am I just gonna be this way forever but like I gotta balance it out I gotta balance it out like what's the worst what's the worst oh no I gotta take a medication for the rest of my life you know what I mean so like if you can relate to this like like just take some of my suggestions like things that I do like I have to recognize my egos coming out to play like for me my mental health is extremely important because I am an addict and alcoholic in recovery right I am I'm a drug addict I'm an alcoholic who is in recovery from addiction and if I don't keep this thing on straight I might relapse and that's a that's a big problem you know what I mean so it's easier for me to say all right Chris shut up and just take a lexapro you know I can do that because if not I get all out of whack you know and I'm one step closer to relapse so like that's that's how I make sure that I stay on it so like if any of you can relate to this like just man take your medications I beat into the heads of my clients all the time like my girlfriend while I was telling her like she was laughing you know because I was explaining this to her you know and she's like yeah but you tell everybody else to take their medications I'm like I know I know but I can relate to the reasons why they don't want to but anyways I want to touch on uh calling the the the pharmacy to see if they can give me some of my medications so like I felt dumb I felt dumb like when when uh when it was suggested to me that I call them like it never even crossed my mind but I think it's you know it shows how far along I've come in my recovery because my substance of choice was prescription drugs so I was always trying to do shady stuff and call pharmacies and doctors to get my medications you know what I mean because I was a drug addict you know so it didn't even cross my mind to call these people I'm like you know what Chris you're doing good in your recovery because I'm afraid of like when I if I call if I call they're gonna be like oh this is some drug addict just seeking medications and you know whatever but like I just called up the pharmacy and they had no problem they had no problem at all they're like yeah we'll we'll give you three and then call your doctor and you know do your thing I'm like oh you know I'm like getting all paranoid like are they gonna flag me in the system am I gonna go to the pharmacy and they're gonna have like cops waiting for me but the medication I'm on is a non-narcotics so it's like it wasn't even a big deal so um today on my live stream like I have a ton of stuff to do so I wrote down a to-do list and one of them was to call my doctor so an update on my medications um I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning and maybe I'll do an update on that this too but I'm going to see my doctor tomorrow because the lexapro it helps me immensely but there's some side effects and things like that that I'm not cool with I've been on this medication off and on for six years and basically I'm gonna have a conversation with my doctor I have an amazing amazing doctor and I'm gonna see if I can maybe try out a different medication and talk to her and have a conversation like I don't know I might talk to her about like maybe still having the lexapro but also trying something else so that way and here's something for all of you out there who struggle with mental illness like I do like I try to set up safeguards so like let's say she prescribes me a new medication but it doesn't work at least I have my old medication still so I can turn back to that so I don't freak out and lose my mind and run into a situation like I did over the weekend you know what I mean so I'm gonna have an open conversation with her um I as an addict and recovery I have to you know remind her and tell her like hey we got to make sure it's a non-narcotic and things like that so I can try something new something different um but anyways I might do some updates I don't know what she'll prescribe for me or what I can take and things like that but uh but yeah like mainly with uh the lexapro side effects I don't know it's weird because I was talking to my friend on my live stream today and I don't know sometimes I feel like I don't have emotions but maybe it's just it's hard to explain I could do a whole nother video on this do I not have emotions or am I just more sane now so things don't get me as emotionally charged anymore like they used to like I talk about how I can relate to a lot of symptoms of like things like borderline personality disorder um from back in the day because I used to just have extreme emotions but that doesn't really happen anymore so I don't know if that's the medications or if it's because I'm more mentally stable I don't know I'm a weirdo like sometimes I ask myself like do you just want to go crazy again Chris like do you like being in that chaos because that's something else we struggle with anyways anyways that's all I got that's all I got so yeah if you can relate to that like let me know down in the comments if you can relate to not wanting to take medications like is it your pride is it your ego is it I shouldn't have to do this like let me know down in the comments partially so I know that I'm not alone in feeling like this all right but that's all I got for you with this video come over join me over on Twitch in the live stream it's it's linked down in the description below all right come keep me company I'm gonna be on there for the rest of this evening and I stream like pretty much once a day all right but if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new here I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental and emotional well-being click that subscribe button and ring that notification bell and a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon you are all amazing and for all of you watching if you want to get yourself some sweet rewired soul merge click or tap on that icon right there all right thanks so much for watching take your meds and I'll see you next time