 Well I asked you all over on Twitter as well as my community tab which video you wanted me to make first either what Empire Records taught me about love or my strange obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a child and an overwhelming majority of you wanted me to talk about my strange obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer so let's do this thing. 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 and what I like to do sometimes is not only pull different topics from movies TV shows pop culture and things like that but I try to use my own personal experience of my own mental health recovery journey to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being so for any of that stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and like I mentioned I put up a poll over on my community tab as well as over on Twitter so make sure you're following me on social media at the Rewired Soul over on Twitter as well as Instagram because I like to get feedback from all of you on what types of videos you want me to make all right but anyways let's jump into this thing this idea kind of came up some of you know that I've been talking about making videos about TV shows and movies and things like that and I was actually sharing a story with my beautiful girlfriend Tristan the other day about my obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a kid and for a lot of us just through my experience of working in a treatment center as well as talking with a lot of other people who have had mental health issues a lot of them stem from childhood all right so a little bit about me for those of you who don't know I'm the son of an alcoholic mother she's been sober over 13 years now but she didn't get sober until I was 20 so not only was I being neglected by my mother but my father raised me and he was constantly working so I was often raised by movies and TV shows and for a lot of us when we're neglected as children from what I've learned through my experience is that we latch on really hard not just to other people right like friends or someone we might have a crush on but also like fictional characters right so I was obsessed as a child growing up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer just absolutely loved it like I actually uh wanted to name my son Xander because I just always loved that name and it stems from Buffy the Vampire Slayer so yeah wasn't allowed to name him Xander but hey I don't know anyways but I absolutely love this show and I could really just I loved it and like just this idea um when you're a kid and you feel neglected you just want attention you want to be heard and things like that like I was so in love with this show that I wanted to reach out to the cast members like maybe I don't I don't know what it was maybe just to get some attention and looking back at this like this was in the day 90s maybe nah it must have been the 90s so I don't even know I don't remember how I got their contact information um it was like for the studio or something like you know you send my fan mail when you're a kid so I have two stories one of them's a little bit brutal but the other one kind of has a happy ending I guess so anyways you obviously had Sarah Michelle Geller and I had the fattest crush on Sarah Michelle Geller when I was a kid her being uh Buffy and just being a badass and then that movie Cruel Intentions came out and she was looking good and that anyways so I wrote her a fan letter and I can't remember what the fan letter said there's something about you know how much I loved her and loved the show and that you know all these things writing this out I must have been maybe I think I was like maybe 10 11 12 something somewhere around that age I know it was before like more maybe during middle school and I wrote her this fan letter and to my surprise one day I get home from school because I always check the mail I open it up and I got a letter from Sarah Michelle Geller herself and I'm like oh oh oh oh oh my god right so excited this this uh celebrity who I have a massive crush on you know wrote me a letter back so I open it up and it's a picture it's a picture of her like posing like as Buffy and it's signed like you know Sarah Michelle Geller and uh XOXO something like that I wish I still had that picture right so as a thank you because I was a polite child I decided to write her another letter back thanking her and then next thing you know within a week or two I got another letter from Sarah Michelle Geller and I open it up and all it is is another signed picture that says Sarah Michelle Geller XOXO and I'm sitting there and I'm looking at these two pictures right and it's like clearly a stamp right so I'm sitting there and I'm like okay so she's got like an assistant or something like that that is just sending out these these fake autograph pictures whenever she gets fan mail she's not even doing me the courtesy of reading the letter I have sent her and I have poured my heart out to this woman right and that was the other thing like I growing up I had a lot of problems with emotional regulation and black and white thinking and things like that black and white thinking if somebody is all good and then they could go all bad real quick so once I saw that I was furious I was absolutely furious all right so I decided I decided to write her another letter just saying how upset I was that she wouldn't even do me the courtesy of sending me a real autograph picture because it was clearly just stamped right or B like sending me an actual letter an actual response and it's interesting now because you see that in the influencer world today like um YouTubers you know influencers and things like that they they try to communicate with the audience when they can and it means a lot to them you know but back in the day I guess they didn't know about that courtesy so anyways I sent her this angry angry letter about how upset I am at her and then a week or two goes by and I get a letter from Sarah Michelle Geller and I open it up and it's a signed photo of her that says Sarah Michelle Geller XOXO so I'm sitting there with three photos of Sarah Michelle Geller all with fake signatures and I was just really upset all right hold up hold up hold up so real quick real quick while I was editing this video I was like hmm I wonder if anybody else received this exact same photo of Sarah Michelle Geller and I found it I found it in the google search here it is here's the exact photo that she sent me three copies of so it looks like Sarah Michelle Geller was cheating on me and sending this photo to other people best of everything and I completely changed my opinion of her as a person and I was very upset about this thing all right but anyways the other character that I had a big crush on was Willow played by none other than Allison Hannigan who got a little bit more fame when she was in the American Pie series and then she grew up and she was on How I Met Your Mother and I had a really big crush on the character Willow for a different reason because like Buffy was like you know the main character she was out there you know everything like that but I remember growing up I would get really attracted to women who were a little bit more shy and introverted they I don't know if it just seemed kind of like they were a little bit more obtainable right so I had a whole different reason for having a crush on Willow played by Allison Hannigan so that that summer vacation like I can't remember like I remember writing um I can't even remember his name the guy who plays Xander as well because I could really relate to him as well um but I I wrote a letter to Allison Hannigan and I wanted to like I don't know I wanted to like meet up with them like I had this I remember having this idea in my head like I could meet up with these people and they'll like be my friends and they'll be so cool and I remember like wanting to meet up with them like just like at a restaurant is having lunch with them right and anyways I wrote a letter to Allison Hannigan just asked me her to like I don't know just like please like you know write me back or call me I can't remember this was before or after the Sarah Michelle Geller incident but anyways I wrote Allison Hannigan a letter just saying like you know at least like if you can call me and I could talk to you like that would be awesome right so I ended up writing her that letter and then I filled up pages with the word please one thousand times all right one thousand times like as a child I had this obsessive thinking you know so I spent hours upon hours upon hours and I'm left-handed and I'm writing in a pencil so I'm like smearing it as I'm writing it just please please please please please please please please please for pages and pages until I got to a thousand all right so I wrote that letter put it in my little envelope send it off and I was at some I was on summer vacation during summer vacation I was visiting my mom and uh yeah I ended up getting a phone call and like I forgot like my mom brought me the phone she's like hey it's for you it's some woman named Allison I'm like what like by this time I totally forgot and I'm like hello and remember I'm like 10 11 12 something like that and she's like hey Chris it's Allison Hannigan I got your letter it was so nice and I just absolutely froze I totally froze like this whole thing of like wanting to meet up with them wanting to talk wanting to do whatever like Allison Hannigan actually called me and I totally froze I didn't know what to say I didn't know what to do um she thought it was funny how awkward I was the call maybe lasted like three minutes and basically I just blew it and I stuttered like an idiot like just said yeah I'm doing good summer vacation all right and we got off the phone and that that was my experience with that so I think she kind of balanced out the situation that happened with Sarah Michelle Geller but anyways what's the moral of this story um throughout life like until I really started working on my mental health that's just the way my brain worked and it could still work like that today like I I can get obsessive thinking where when an idea pops into my head or I really like something and this is something that a lot of people um in recovery from addiction or even in active addiction struggle with like they lock on the things just absolutely lock onto it and they you know just obsess over it and that's one of the reasons I want to do videos about movies and tv shows because I would watch the same movie 50 times right I would binge watch you know the same show over and over and over again and and it created like almost like an unhealthy obsession and we even see it in the world today like this this type of mental health issue didn't just go away you know now that we're geared more towards like some of us are geared more towards youtube than we are tv shows and you know famous actors and actresses and I think in my opinion it's almost worse too now with um youtube creators because it feels as though you know there's less of a middleman you can get you can get to them easier right because back in my day I was handwriting letters you know stamping an envelope like when was the last time you sent out a letter unless it was like something to do with like bills or something like that you know but like now we have social media we have you know youtube comments we have instagram we have facebook we have twitter you know what I mean and I think you know when I look at the world today and people's like defense of you know or their stand relationships with youtubers they feel even closer to people than ever before right but what's interesting about what I was going through was like these were fictional characters it wasn't even like the real you know actual person and as I grew older and I can make more videos about this but I had obsessive thinking about a lot of different things about other shows but then it even happened with people and this is something that I talk about you know with just some of that emotional dysregulation I struggled with for most of my teenage years as well as my early 20s and it could be very very damaging the relationships I think a lot of it comes from a combination of this intense fear of abandonment as well as this intense like wanting to be loved or cared about or even noticed you know what I mean and it took me a lot of work and a lot of effort to get out of that way of thinking and find this kind of balance with it right and I know a lot of you watching my videos you struggle with that intense emotional dysregulation where you just you know it's it's one of two extremes like you just absolutely love and obsess over somebody or you just hate them and you want nothing to do with them even more right anymore right it's like these two extremes and what we got to find is that equanimity and that kind of balance in between but anyways thought I'd share that story thanks for voting again go follow me on instagram and twitter at the rewind soul I like putting up polls to see what you guys uh want to talk about I am still going to make the video about what empire records taught me about love Tristan and I just watched it again last night I'm like oh god right because like I can really relate to that and growing up so um but yeah if there was any like tv shows or characters or if you can relate to anything I'm talking about let me know down in the comments below all right but anyways that's all I got for this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you are all amazing and if you would like to become a patreon get some exclusive content get involved in our q&a you can click the top right there all right thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time