 all the things in life are not great and I'm aware of that and I express that and it's okay to say to someone you're going for a really tough time it's awful and I'm sorry there's nothing wrong with that you don't have to say ignore it you know carry on be positive and all of that that's just a way to end up deluding yourself to what's happening and have fallen into that trap a few times over these these past months. Good afternoon and welcome back to the new and improved Asperd Discover channel. How are you doing? God it's been a while it's been a long time since I've sat down and done a video usually I sort of do a few and then sort of release them and edit them over so it's probably been about three to four months since I actually filmed a video for YouTube. Today I'm going to be talking about some of the recent upgrades that I've made to my channel and also some of the events that have transpired in the past month or so. If you are up to date with the social media platforms that I'm on you will know that I've been taking a break. I started off by taking a break from YouTube and eventually I'd had to step back from my regular two week uploading schedule that I had for my podcast so things have been very very different recently. If you've been following the channel for a while now or you've come across some of my older videos you'll know that I used to be in quite a dark place. Life in general isn't particularly calm and enjoyable not because of the contents of it just because of the nature of the conditions that I have. In my life I have very much an up and down mood it's not bipolar it's not anything like that it's just sometimes for a large period of a year I get significantly depressed and with the depression I get a lot of functioning issues I struggle to stay positive I struggle to go on YouTube and record myself and do podcasts just because of the amount of anxiety and panic that I have. I don't feel safe in myself to put myself out on the internet when I'm in these situations although I am doing that to some degree and it doesn't feel right to project that positive persona when in reality if I was going to do these videos my regular old videos where I talk about subjects I would have to to some degree or it would just be a mess and it would just be a bit depressing which I'm sure you can understand it's it's nice to have that genuine honest attitude in videos. So about three months ago just amidst a normal day normal normal time regular occurrences I started to notice a decline overall in my mood in terms of the amount of anxiety that I was feeling on a day-to-day basis the amount of negative thoughts that I had towards myself and life in general a lot of the severe symptoms of depression started to come in very very slowly and it seemed to just progress constantly over the course of about three months. At the time I was you know back back in work I I really enjoyed the work that I did I worked in a as a special needs TA so I'd worked one-to-one with children who were struggling particularly in mainstream schools who didn't have the provisions in place as you know the special needs sector is is quite a sparse one in terms of money so it's quite difficult to get the support that children need in a mainstream school and so that's where I came in and I was introduced to a few different children that I worked with I thought they were great they were lovely they had a lot of difficulties of course but at the time that I was there I could see and sort of pinpoint improvements in their mood they're a bit they're socializing their ability to self-regulate their ability to use the resources that were allowed it was overall quite a positive and experience for me it was nice to give back to my local community but as I've mentioned my mental health was declining I was struggling to keep up with the workload and eventually I had to sort of step down from my position for the time being for me I want to you know create a positive environment around these these kids and I don't didn't feel comfortable going into that environment when I knew that I was declining I wanted them to have a stable timetable I wanted them to be feeling stable in general emotionally able to cope with the stressors in life and I couldn't provide that at the time a couple of weeks before I stepped down from my position I developed shingles you may know as shingles it's sort of like the chicken pox that everyone gets but it's sort of uh researchers in in later life but for me just happened to come come up out at the age of 23 which I've heard a few testimonials about on the internet very strange coincidence it wasn't particularly bad it did hurt and it caused me a lot of discomfort I couldn't do things that I needed to do couldn't do other things that maintain my mood like exercise and all of that stuff really it's very difficult to shoot youtube videos and do podcasts when there's that uh pain that you have I believe that the shingles was as a result of stress and anxiety when you have such an intense long-term anxiety disorder it's it's very much the case that little things little stresses that you get throughout the day add and amplify that existing anxiety that you have and one of the risk factors for shingles and developing shingles is a lowered immune system and sometimes that can be caused by stress that's one of the possibilities maybe it's just I've got a weak immune system I don't know but anyways that whole charade was a complete roadblock for me it wasn't really a sense of oh I'm sick of it or horrible I never want to do anything again it was more just my routine it messed my routine up it wasn't as as a reiterate it wasn't like this intense deal or anything but it definitely did mess up a lot of the plans that for example me and my girlfriend had we were going away for a one-year anniversary probably not not the best idea it was nice of course after that as I said I ended my teaching for the time being I got myself back into gear I started trying to work on my mental health trying to work on you know exercising on trying to eat a little bit better but my mental health just seemed to be going downhill no matter what I did about it and that has been a trend for the most part of my life it's never been these circumstances they may have not helped in that situation but it's always just been that decline maybe it was the winter months maybe it was you know the shorter days I get a bit weird about short days nobody likes them in general of course but for me it was it's quite panicking juicing to know that the sun's going down I mean it's just going down as it is right now like no it was sunny a few minutes ago come out from under the clouds it's the sun it's the sun where are you going things started to get a little bit too intense I started to go downhill a lot in terms of my general health I started binging again I used to have a binging disorder when I was younger and it's made a few recurrences throughout my life typically in those times that I'm feeling particularly bad the sleep schedule was off I couldn't sleep I couldn't get up in the morning my tablets that was on for for my mental health and anxiety were just making me so drowsy and it just made things really hard to get out of that hole I got a lot of the the very intense hallmarks of depression suicidal thoughts suicidal ideation feeling like everyone hates me feeling like I'm not a good person I'm not right and I don't deserve the things I have in my life a lot of things like that the isolation had been reinstated by then I couldn't go to the gym I couldn't exercise which is quite integral for for me as a person to function day today helps a lot of my anxiety and my mood I eventually declined enough that I just couldn't function couldn't make myself food couldn't get out of bed at a reasonable time and when I say reasonable time I mean at any time before 1 p.m. I'd stay up very late I couldn't sleep I ate a lot I like ate a lot of junk food I put on a lot of weight but I did have some things to keep me going my girlfriend and my mom and my dad have all been really important pillars in me staying stable and you know keeping myself safe you know the the act of ending one's life is is not something that I take seriously anymore it's something that that I feel like I want to do but it's not something that I want to do in terms of my cognitive thought and my desires for my life it's it's very much conflicting and it's always a constant one upon on trying to to combat these feelings that I have trying to reason with them trying to frame them trying to use my research to to show myself that these feelings are not warranted or are not logical at least my girlfriend and my mom helped me a lot with going places now that the gym's open they've been taking me to the gym with being working on getting personal independence payments because of my functioning levels which I think to many of you might be a strange thing but yeah my my level of functioning is just just so low I just couldn't do do anything I've also been going quite regularly to the GP we've managed to sort out some form of psychotherapy and I've been going to that psychotherapy once a week for think about four five weeks now we're not making incredible progress but it is giving me a space to talk about my feelings and thoughts and it's something new and usually when I go into these things I do a lot of research and I try and understand the approach and in the past it just hasn't worked I decided to go into it with a fresh slate as it were now for for about a couple of weeks now I've been making a steady uphill thing seem a little bit brighter not in the sense that I'm happy but it's getting a lot easier to deal with it's getting easier to do more productive things like me this video and do podcasts and try and plan and work on my channel I've been going to the gym at least three or four times a week in between I'm doing boxing sessions on my boxing bag outside I'm losing weight slowly which obviously made me feel a lot better because I did have like a proper gut like a proper like a beer belly gut was not good it's given me something to strive for you know making those small increments at the gym mean a lot in the in the long run because at the moment I'm not able to be as productive as I would want myself to be if you follow my social medias you'll know about all this stuff and I've been posting about it but I know there is a significant portion of people on YouTube who don't and I only follow the videos that I put out on here I guess from from your perspective it just seemed a bit weird that I just randomly stopped filming videos and putting them out and more or less just went off the grid to be honest so I apologize for that I just wasn't or haven't been in a state to to be putting out videos I know it's not required for me to make this this kind of video I could just go on and start making videos and and all that and sort myself out get back to regular or creating but I feel for a channel that that values that honesty that emotional honesty I want to make a video just to address it so for anyone who is watching this thank you for sticking by the channel and not unsubscribing because I'm not making any videos because you got the podcasts and stuff but even that has been a bit lackluster at the moment so that's the depression saga just growth depression saga it does happen at least once a year and it's not fun it's not fun so for anybody who has eyes who's watching this video you'll notice that there are some massive changes to the the channel overview overview I think one of the last videos I made was was not even in this house it was uh somewhere else and um this is my my room I've got my own setup now I don't have to go downstairs don't have to make shabby recordings with very low lighting and resolution the lighting the the lighting that's lighting on my face is um provided by these very nice softbox lights pretty sure that for Christmas my uh my dad's going to get like a ring light so that I've got a three-point lighting system so it's going to be as high quality as I can get it and of course the desk this lovely thing spent ages trying to look and find a desk find something that works I really like it you know I think it I think it is my style it's it's black it's carbon fiber I've sorted out my room my girlfriend's been a massive contributor in that fashion energy levels and motivation has been very low at the moment so that added help has allowed me to try and craft an environment more healthy piece of mind environment if that if that makes sense and of course the the microphone this is the new microphone and I've got this specifically for the podcast with the podcast that I'm doing the 4080 I am getting some ad revenue I've got some people sponsoring me Teemo they've been a great contributor in that sense they've allowed me to get a microphone that is of broadcast quality this is the first video that I'm doing with all this setup of course it's going to be fine tuned and tweaked in the new year but for now you know I think it's just a massive upgrade to the the entire feel of the channel and it definitely does make me feel more like a creator of course if there are any things that you think I can improve on like I know that this this little boom can be a little bit intrusive it does make me feel like one of those like music producing youtubers and I don't know if it's good or not I may have to go back to using my snowball microphone if you guys don't like it I'm very happy to do that and maybe in the future I might be able to invest in a better microphone for you tubing of course I completely forgot to mention with the most important thing you know the people who are supporting my work who have been continually supporting my work even though I've been in this this complete productive shutdown at the moment these these past few months specifically Mr Patrick Betty and a couple of others they have been such a massive motivation poofs for me not just in terms of money to to spend on equipment and to try and upgrade my channel but in terms of support as well it really means a lot that that people value my work enough to to to give me a monthly sum of their their income it's it's absolutely amazing to me I didn't when I set up the patreon I wasn't expecting anybody I was expecting like maybe two dollars a month or something along those lines but yeah the the response to has been amazing um and also I'm just so grateful to be in the position that I am at the moment sure maybe I am a little bit of a small youtuber small podcaster whatever but we are making slow and steady progress I think once we can reach around 10 000 subscribers on youtube the ability for me to collaborate and the ability for my videos to be seen is going to increase and hopefully that could bring in more people and it could get the things that I talk about more noticed objectively everything is going the direction that I want it to it's just a little bit of a roadblock and it's just one of those things that happens when when you're living with um severe mental health conditions it's some people may look at this video and you know say that I'm putting the emphasis on severe I'm not trying to garner anyone's sympathy in that session in the in in this but um it's just been just been awful and I I want you to know that I'm not exaggerating when I when I say that I'm struggling to that extent um it may seem a bit surreal someone someone being on youtube and going and doing all of these various media things and suffering to that extent but I guess that's what gives my channel meaning you know I'm not coming from a place of superior mental health I'm not talking down on people and telling them how it is and saying be positive and be happy and all of these things are great all the things in life are not great and I'm aware of that and I and express that and it's it's okay to say to someone you're going for a really tough time it's awful and I'm sorry there's nothing wrong with that you don't have to say ignore it you know carry on be positive and and all of that that's just a way to end up deluding yourself to what's happening and I've fallen into that trap a few times over these these these past months I could go on talking about it for ages and you know obviously it's very fresh for me to be back on the camera um but yeah just just thank you for everybody who's is sticking by me and commenting I've seen a lot of comments recently you know on all the videos on newer videos it generally does just help me feel like I'm making an impact and I'm just happy that you guys are here not very good at rounding up videos as usual and this chair is very creaky oh yeah I've got to tell you about the chair as well look at its blue and the blue t-shirt and that sort of blew the background I don't know why I've got that on sorry um I'm recording a separate audiophile on this microphone I've got yeah you over there yeah you're on the uh the little the video the camera right thank you very much for watching thank you very much for supporting me if you want to stay updated with things the best way to do that is on the social media I just want you to stay up to date with things and not feel like I'm just leaving you stranded or or just not appreciating the the subscribers I have at the at the moment stay fresh stay cool and I'll see you in the next video