 It feels very very strange going through my day to day life when so much of my energy in my daily life for the past like four months has just been trying to be stable and be happy and like not succumb to my mental illness like trying to attack my brain. Pixie Locke's just opened up about self-harm and her disordered eating relapse but in this video I'm gonna talk about why she's an amazing amazing mental health recovery role model. 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 and what I like to do is pull different topics from the YouTube community to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being so if you're into that kind of stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell before I jump into why Pixie Locke's is amazing two quick announcements all of you who are over on Patreon in the five dollar tier and up I just uploaded a brand new video go check it out I got some backlash on a video yesterday and I just made a video talking about my thoughts on it second announcement why aren't you following me on Instagram why are you not following me on Instagram so real quick story I was live streaming on Thanksgiving and then I saw Rachel Oates was live streaming so I hopped in over on her live stream and yeah it was just hilarious and I had to clip it and I put it up on my Instagram and here it is basically he talks about a bunch of really really important topics and he tends to relate it to a lot of kind of like relevant stuff on YouTube as well which I think is really cool and I've been watching his channel for quite a while I had no idea he watched my videos as well until he like mentioned me in one of his videos the day and I was like that's me it was really odd for me and but he's a really great guy and I think one of the probably best things that he does is talking about like mental health issues in everyone including men and like raising awareness of that and helping people understand how to get help and why they need to get help and why that isn't a bad thing you know and I just I think he's a really cool guy who does some really good stuff you know like oh my god you're right here oh sorry hello hi thank you I didn't realize you were watching I'm really embarrassed now no I'm I'm up for a collab anytime seriously promise I wasn't just saying all this nice stuff because you're here so yeah Rachel's awesome and I hope her and I can collab soon she's an amazing amazing woman if you haven't checked her channel out go check it out she's awesome but anyways um so pixie locks how do I even know who pixie locks is um well I just stumbled across her channel and her most recent video was talking about her relapse with self-harm and her disordered eating and there's so much that we could take from this and I especially want to make this video especially coming off the video I made yesterday like it's just so inspiring so like I just want to talk about a few clips from pixie locks video and I highly suggest you go check out the full video after this so pixie locks is a DIY youtuber and she does a bunch of cool stuff I haven't gone through her whole catalog but anyways I saw this video and her channel trailer is actually about her getting a tattoo to cover up some of her self-harm scars and she was actually in recovery but anyways she just opened up about you know a relapse that she had so this first clip right here is really really cool I love that I love that like those of you who have been subscribed to my channel like I keep talking about this over and over and over again like I don't care where you get help just go get help and I wish more youtubers were like pixie locks where they say go get professional help just go go to the doctor go to your therapist join a support group do something support groups aren't professional help unless well some of them are run by therapists but I'm glad that she's encouraging people to go seek professional help I was okay for a really long time and so I like stopped going to therapy I kept taking my meds but I kind of like since I was so happy and okay I didn't need my coping mechanisms anymore and then whenever it hit me like a train I was extremely unprepared for how to deal with these feelings again oh my god oh my god I can relate to this so so so much so I'm going to recovery myself from drug addiction alcoholism but also you know my anxiety and my depression and you know some of the other symptoms of emotional dysregulation that I've struggled with but anyways like this is just so common and a lot of you watching this can probably relate like things are going good like things are going good and you just stop doing what you're supposed to do we'll stop taking our medications or we'll stop going to therapy like why am I doing this if I'm feeling good like I do this I used to do this all the time and it is such a crazy thing because it sneaks up on you the brain tricks us like for example with my anxiety medications I've talked about in another video about how I lost my mind at work because I had a panic attack because things were going good I'm like I don't need these medications anymore right and then I lost I lost it right and the main thing I want to just talk about for all of you is learn from this like be proactive about your mental health like one of the biggest mistakes a lot of us make is that we only we only treat our mental health when things are going bad right like imagine if you only practiced a fire drill when there was a fire right that wouldn't be too good okay so when it comes to our mental health this is why you know you don't just meditate when things are going bad like set up the habit you know what I'm saying I kind of forgot that I was diagnosed with MDD because it went away but the thing with depression especially if you are diagnosed with major depressive disorder is that it comes back because it's in your brain so she's talking about like it comes back it comes back and that's something that I always try to remember so like I mentioned in a video I did yesterday like this is not our identity right our mental illness is not our identity but we have to keep it in the forefront of our mind because if I forget about my mental illnesses I can relapse right I make the analogy that it's kind of like being a diabetic right so my dad he's a diabetic and if he forgets that he's a diabetic he can he can do something that really screws him up right by eating the wrong foods so I always try to keep my recovery in the forefront of my mind but the beautiful thing the beautiful thing about all this and I don't know if pixie locks will oversee this video but for all of you like here is the trick here's the key to recovery is like I love how pixie locks is very self-aware of what happened like in addiction recovery we often talk about how the relapse happens weeks or months before you know you actually relapse right so my tip and suggestion to everybody is to learn from it look back at it see what you did what you did not do so that way we don't make those same mistakes again like there are there are no losses there are only learning experiences okay the relapsing has been the hardest part especially with the fact that I got my magical girl tattoo and it was such a celebration and it was so emotional and I was so proud to have overcome all these things and I don't want to say that I haven't overcome them but I'm going through them again and here's the other thing like she talks about feeling down and I get it I get it I get it so so much like when I went through my relapses I felt down I felt terrible but here's the thing don't think about what you lost think about what you gained like two years is a long time two years for self-harm recovery two years for eating disorder recovery is a very very long time like if you have any type of these like compulsive addiction type of mental illnesses like if you even make it through a day that is a long time so don't think about what you lost think about what you gained right because if you did it once you know you know you can do it again but I felt like when I made that video so many people were like thank you this is inspiring this is helping me realize that I can get through this too and that like I can also friggin get through the other end and like thank you for showing me that people can heal and I feel like I feel like I'm a bad example now I feel like I'm not a good role model anymore right here right here this this kind of bumps me out so she she was talking about how she you know she put herself in a place to be a role model model about this stuff and she feels like she let people down no no no no no no no so there's this excellent song by Macklemore Macklemore for those of you who don't know he's a rapper he's in recovery he's had some relapses and he has a song called starting over and one of the the main lines in it is if I can be an example of getting sober then I can be an example of starting over and like absolutely absolutely so to relate this to you guys like and this is why pixie locks is a great role model for mental health recovery like me when I went into like meetings for my addiction recovery right I would meet people who are like oh you know I got sober my first time right I got sober 10 years ago and I just never picked up again right like that's cool that's great like you seem like you're like just some random freak of nature right but the the stories that inspired me more than anything and the reason like pixie locks story inspires me more than anything is because I'm somebody who's relapsed I had countless relapses so when I see somebody like pixie locks I've seen somebody who's relapsed and by the way relapsed doesn't have to be a part of your story but there's guys like me there's women out there too who get inspired by it because people like pixie locks show me they show a guy like me that even if you go down you can get back up and do this thing again right I have seen countless people countless people who have relapsed and they came back stronger than ever and that is what inspires me okay what doesn't inspire me is when people fall down and they don't have the ability to get back up and I hope that they find that way and are able to share that experience but this is why pixie locks is such an awesome role model because she is not she is not giving up but anyways there there's another part in her video where she talked about I think it was this video about you know one thing that she doesn't like about the influencer culture is that people are always just posting all the good things and and you know everybody has you know the right to you know share what they want to share and everything but you know I I love people like pixie locks who are willing to open up and get vulnerable with their audience like you guys it helps so many people it helps so so many people and I know so many of you who are subscribed to me you've started your own blogs you've started your own channels and I love that I love that so much and it's so refreshing to see a big YouTuber like pixie locks like open up about this like not just her successes not just her recovery successes but also her relapse like that's huge that's huge because like we're all human we're all going through this thing our mental illness is nothing that defines us is nothing that we should be ashamed of right we're not perfect people we're gonna have our ups we're gonna have our downs but what are we gonna do about it what's the solution that we're gonna get into so what she talks about like girl hmm she's like pixie locks if you're watching this like that's what I'm talking about she talked about the problem but she talked about the solution too she recognized all the things that went wrong that led to this relapse and then she talks about how she's going to start going back to treatment going back to therapy and I hope I hope that inspires some of you out there all right but anyways I did not show anywhere near the entire video it's in a very it's a very powerful video I'm gonna link it down in the description as well as up in the info cards please go check it out go show her some love on that video tell her that you're proud of her whatever you got to do if you're into the type of stuff she does on her channel go subscribe like like real quick just real quick like there's so much on that channel that she does that is not in my realm of things but like when I was just checking through some of her like more vlog style videos like she has a very very awesome personality like so I subscribe to her and like I'm just gonna watch and just you know just for some personality and some uplifting stuff and maybe we'll hear about her recovery journey this time and everything so go check her out go subscribe and all that anyways let me know down in the comments below let me know down in the comments below like either A are you somebody who's relapsed in whatever realm it is and you've gotten back up let me know about it in the comments or are you somebody like me um who gets inspired by stories of people who have gotten knocked down and got back up again like what pixie locks is doing all right let's have a conversation down in the comments below but anyways that's all I got for you with 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 because I make a ton of videos and a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you are all amazing and everybody remember at the five dollar tiering up there was a brand new exclusive never before seen video over on patreon go check it out and if you would like to sign up for patreon and click or tap right there all right thanks so much for watching be inspired today and I'll see you next time