Alyssa's 5 Mental Health Disorders (The Truth About our Love and SBSK)

so you asked me to do this like any other spsk interview yes do you think that's possible yes yeah i believe in i believe in your capacity to treat me like anyone else and i think that um i think behind the scenes i've certainly been a learning curve for you you know i think that whether you probably realized it or not you were learning how to help people just by seeking how to help me um oh i've realized it yeah okay what are you thinking right now just trying to keep positive sometimes it's hard to keep my anxieties at bay and so i try to like think back to like a feeling or a moment when i felt really certain or sure of myself if you think i can do this like any other interview then you're greatly underestimating my love of you it's different isn't it it's a little different for me i feel like it is um i imagine that i imagine that it might be you know it's hard for me to say some of the things that i experience and how i feel it's hard for me to like it's sort of hard for me to look you in the eye and say that i i have versions of you in my head that say horrific nasty things to me before i ask this question i want to reassure you that i love you and everybody loves you but what is it like to feel like everybody constantly doesn't like you um it's really hard to put into words it's devastating and it's tiring to add a bit of context for people who don't know who you are what is your relationship to me when chris's partner obviously partner life partner um but for six years yeah first coming up on six years um we started sbsk together in our little apartment efficiency at the beach um yeah and so we've been doing it together we both transitioned out of our previous employers in the same month and both took this really big leap of faith it's so hurtful and to become so desensitized to the point that you don't realize the damage that you're inflicting on yourself with those type of negative thoughts um that realization alone is hurtful so it just feels like it's a really bad bag it's just there's it's very isolating you asked me to treat this like any other spsk interview so anytime i interview just a couple and it's two people i interview both of them together and one on one i'm not going to ask myself questions one-on-one yeah so i want you to hop on behind the camera oh gosh and ask me any questions you think people should know anything oh my gosh i feel like you could have told me i like write a list okay okay i could have written a list or something like are you feeling anxious yeah because what if i ask unhelpful questions like what a great opportunity and what if i make a wash of it and when you don't even believe yourself you know that whole sense of trust like the idea of trust is really irrevocably broken and so to build a trust with someone for me is already hard but to have that trust be something that's all-encompassing or really true um that's hard too what is it like to love someone with five mental health diagnoses amazing it's the best thing i've ever done i love every minute of it you complete me i wouldn't want to spend life with anyone else i'm bored when i'm not with you there's tough days of course there's days where i wish you could see yourself the way i see you and it can be frustrating because i just see someone who's amazing and kind and generous and you find faults in yourself that i don't think are realistic what are your diagnoses i'm diagnosed a lot i'm diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder that's labeled severe i have obsessive compulsive disorder i have trichtylammania i have adhd and then um i also am diagnosed with depression um more clinical depression what's that like it's complicated when you look at me what do you see my baby my girl someone i love dearly i think about what we're gonna look like when we're 50 and 60. i despise myself sometimes and it is um it is not healthy or right and i don't think i i don't think i deserve i deserve it i know that i'm a good person and i try um it's just a battle i haven't overcome yet but it's something that i'm uh i will never give up trying to uh be i see somebody who has struggles too i see somebody who is much more in control of herself than she was four or five years ago and i'm really proud of you and to that i think you're very strong for that but i understand that there will always be good days and there will always be bad days and i'm excited to be there for all of that like you could tell me point blank that you like me and that you love me and yet there are still times when i can't put that to the forefront and so it's it's really hard how would you describe our good days oh my gosh the best i i feel like it's braggy like i'm sitting here and i'm like blushing but i feel like it's braggy i just we have so much fun i wonder if everybody else has as much fun as we do i feel like they have to it's so odd because like on camera i am myself and i'm being who i am but also you're a really silly person i can't fully be myself always because we have to center the other person yeah like i i can't be my full goofy self because we want to allow other people the chance to tell their story how would you describe us when we're here in our home oh my gosh i feel like we have such a good tug of war like i feel like we're so silly and like we absolutely dance around the house we love music we don't just love music like we love singing and making music together we've talked quite extensively about some of the bad days but what do you say the ratio is good days the bad days i think you can get used to a lot of things and i've struggled with all of these things for the majority of my life and so for me it feels it's hard to separate the two you know my good and my my struggle is always intertwined and so i think there are moments in every day especially with the anxiety that's something that's really relentless for me it's something that's a constant voice and narrative in my head and so i don't know that i could say a ratio i think that it's actively a part of my everyday when we first started dating and we had our honeymoon phase did you hide some of your mental struggles during that first year oh i guess i i i have my mental struggles for myself i mean i'm 30 years old and i'm just starting to like own up to a lot of this so i i don't tell people about my struggles how old were you when you were diagnosed i was about 25. why'd it take that long in life i think it just gets easier the longer time goes by to do nothing or to see yourself less and less implicated and why things are happening after you were diagnosed you listed all your diagnoses and you said you didn't know all about this you didn't know all of these things about me coming into the relationship i completely understand if you want to leave now yeah i mean that's a lie i can say that i lied to myself for a very long time and that's where that forgiveness piece comes in because i lied you know how did you lie though i don't understand i didn't acknowledge that any of it was there when people would would see glimpses of it and bring it up i would deflect it all tell the audience a little bit about that first year we were together when you did have that breakdown which led to you being diagnosed with the five disorders it's hard to talk about your rock bottom um i think i felt really vulnerable in a way that i maybe hadn't before in my life because a lot of the struggles that i was going through and the dueling sort of narratives around my identity and who i was and what was happening to me that feeling of not having control that all existed internally but i think a lot of people um believed me when i said i was fine um i'm sorry i forgot the question do you forget a lot of questions i think i forget questions when i feel yes i do forget a lot of questions i i forget my train of thought quite often i think if there's an emotional aspect to it it's more likely i have a harder time like focusing because i feel vulnerable and so um like i look away a lot i have a hard time with eye contact with people even looking at the camera i have been trying to be better but i have a really hard time giving eye contact to people i feel like i can't maintain it and i'm also very uncomfortable because if people look me in the eye like they'll probably see you know what's under that what did you think when i was at my low point i was scared i had never seen somebody in that type of situation to where it was almost like you weren't in control i spiraled um really fast and i thought i like knew who i was and i thought i understood what my rock bottom felt like or what my personal worst or the severest implications of my diagnosis could be and i had no clue um the anxiety got ten times worse like there was a new added level of paranoia which i've always had that but a general paranoia about like the world and my place in it especially my experience and was any of what i said or thought real i really just kind of felt like i was floating there like everything was muffled i didn't really believe what was happening to me or almost even recognized that the world was still going on around me and i was existing in it what's it like for you to hear me talk about all of these things it's incredible i know there was a point in your life where you wouldn't be open to talking about it and i'm just super excited really stoked that you're at a place where you can talk about it because i feel like the more open somebody is about their experiences with mental health the more open they are to recovering and i've just seen you grow so much since you've been talking about it since you've been in therapy so i encourage it i really want to hear everything you have to say it's hard to talk about and then you know the day that i i felt the absolute worst when i started getting these really um pervasive thoughts around you know i was just so angry and i just felt so much i felt so much and i just i felt like i had to do something and i didn't know what to do and that's when these thoughts of just i'm gonna hurt myself like i feel like that's the only way that i can i'll be in control you know i was alone i remember like just collapsing on the floor and sobbing and i remember i called you and you're at work and um yeah i felt really vulnerable i felt really exposed i felt so much grief um i think just everything came to a head you know you just realize that you've been feeling all of that for a really long time but when you start when you get overwhelmed and you can't really control it anymore or rationally figure out ways to suppress it you know it just um it all hits you at once like a ton of bricks and that's what happened to me is it okay if i share that time from my perspective yeah i mean i'd be interested i don't think i've ever asked you because i it's one thing to tell someone you know something but then you're also opening yourself back up to their commentary and i think sometimes we're not ready to receive it so i'm not sure that i ever actually even asked you um or had any any extra brain waves to like even consider what i thought you might be thinking at that time it's actually not a time i reflect on a lot but it's something that i think would be good to hear from the audience perspective of how it looked to me when you were going through that stuff i don't remember exactly what event happened first but there are two events i really remember from that time where you were really going through it the first was when i was planning a speaking tour in australia and i was telling you about it and i thought you would be elated because this was exciting everything was brand new so as i was planning the speaking tour instead of being excited you got super anxious and depressed and you told me i don't trust myself to be alone if you go to australia for a month i don't know what i'll do it was almost like i was taking something from you and i feel that way to everyone like when i'm depressed or when i'm going through something you feel like you're taking away something from someone like they're happy and you're sucking the energy and the life out of the room and you kind of are i guess in some ways but um it it was hard that it's hard for people not to be able to separate the two you know like i'm not doing something to i'm not feeling this way to spite you or to take something from you i just feel this way and so trying to balance how do you how do you respect someone else's joy and how do you respect where they're at and not feel like a burden but also advocate for yourself like it's a really delicate tightrope and as someone personally who was always really driven to want to feel better and ignoring a lot of the other stuff in an effort to get there it's a lot of mixed signals i think that it makes it really tricky for people to know what you need um what has been really challenging for you throughout my my journey towards like self healing and recovery the challenges have been minimized as time has gone on but initially it was tough for me because it seemed like everything in life was going so well spsk was taking off we were having so much success we were able to do something we loved that brought so much purpose to the world and supported ourselves while doing it and i thought it should have been such a joyful period in our life i thought it should have been a big celebration we should have been so happy so part of me just couldn't understand how you could be depressed when everything was going so right for us yeah and that's that's a not a good mindset to have but that's where my mindset was i mean i think there's a reason that so many people with mental health struggles really are hung up on this idea of being a burden if you could go back to that first year when i was really struggling what would you tell yourself or maybe what would you do different if anything a lot i regret how i supported you back then i think the main thing i would tell myself is that i don't need to solve or understand your depression and it's difficult when you see somebody that you love so dearly going through that because you want to help them right away you want them to get in that perfect spot and you want it to happen overnight like that and for me as somebody who comes in the background in sports i mean if you want to get better at soccer if you want to get better at running you go out and you run some more you work hard so to me that's what i thought okay let's do this let's get at it and let's get to that perfect spot but now through the benefit of hindsight i understand that it's not about a huge leap making that huge leap when you're in that hole but it's about small incremental steps and making them almost every day and realizing that it won't be every day there will be days that are tough where you don't have to make progress what happened when you hit your low point what do you mean how did you get out of it i sort of forced out of it i mean that's the reality of those rock bottom moments is even if you ask for help your choices are pretty bleak in our health care system because i admitted to wanting to harm myself for having those types of thoughts the conversation like really quickly changed too either you're going to be committed in a county psych ward um you know and i was just fortunate that there happened to be like this day program like this rehabilitation center that was really close to our house and so when i wasn't really i don't remember a lot of it i don't remember being necessarily a part of some of those calls around that same time i woke up in the middle of the night and you were having a panic attack but you were like pacing back and forth and talking and up to that point i had never seen anyone have a panic attack so i saw you pacing back and forth and at first i thought oh alyssa's up and she wants to talk to me but i realized that there was something else happening and at this time i had no experience with that so at first i thought is she having a stroke do i need to call 9-1-1 and then you just started tensing up yeah and having this panic attack and you couldn't move and still at this point i am really scared because i had never seen anybody have a panic attack and i thought is she dying i couldn't even talk to the woman when she tried to console me and to help me i couldn't quit crying and shaking and i i know now that i was absolutely in a state of shock i was incredibly overwhelmed and yeah somehow i know they asked me if i wanted to do the site county psych or if i wanted to commit to doing a day program there and i was able to confirm that i would rather do the day program and so that i was required to be there the next day from 8 am to 5 pm with an hour break for lunch who i would go home and walk my dog and usually cry noodles begging to get up can you hold her of course the scribe noodle oh wait let me let me do a little noodle is one of my very best friends i'll say it noodle is one of my very best friends she um she is such a good friend like she's such a good companion and unfortunately like i know through the you know she's a rescue but we know through the vet records that there's some injuries that she sustained that are really um common with abuse and being kicked and it's hard to even say because she's so perfect but i know that she has struggled in her life and i know that i have struggled and i know when we first got her there was a learning curve with her learning to trust us and to feel safe and so i guess i just see i feel like we're in the same boat does that make sense you see a lot of yourself in noodles yeah she's licking me i feel like we have some similar things that we were working through and honestly noodle found me found us during that really low yeah point it was like all perfectly timed and so she's been a huge lifeline for me you were diagnosed with all those conditions in 2016. did you begin therapy right away no no i did not i will say i tried i had a really hard time i mean this was when we were we were still really young into spsk i went from having health insurance from my workplace to not because that just wasn't something we were able to do with sbsk at that time and we weren't even really taking a salary we were just we had your speaking engagements and that's what we lived off of for almost two years i don't regret that i i'm thankful for the choice but it did mean that there were some life-altering consequences for me i would honestly say that it's been less than a year or just around a year of really intensive work where i've actually seen this level of results in this level of self-accountability of more kindness to myself um but that imposter syndrome is a real thing and it's it's what is that for people who don't know it's just feeling like you're a fraud you know not again like trying to like just not believing yourself believing that everything you do is an exaggeration like you don't have a right to feel the way that you feel that it's not real um so i've literally seen you have multiple panic attacks where you can't move for hours and the next day you're so exhausted from that that you can't get out of bed the whole day yet even experiencing that you'd think i don't have depression it's not real no it's it's that i've learned you know i i know i've learned in therapy that's the disassociation portion of it you know those two really play into each other so to a certain extent once you go through something your brain goes back to protecting you and you sort of minimize it you know sort of you minimize it in your head you play down the severity you tell yourself oh it's an exaggeration now that we can afford insurance how has therapy helped immensely therapies taught me a lot i think language is really powerful and for me just learning the names i was always able to describe in my head the things that were happening to me and a lot of the symptoms that i was experiencing but i never knew what to call them and i think because i didn't know what to call them that perpetuated that narrative in my head that no one knows what i'm going through no one has ever felt the way that i have felt and i think one of the most freeing parts about therapy has been putting a name to these types of symptoms and these real experiences it takes away power from that voice that's telling me i'm exaggerating this isn't happening you're making this up and it says no you know these are real things here's what they're called and other people go through the exact same thing as you and not only that but there's help one of the most impactful things i've learned from therapy is definitely this understanding around disassociation and how common it is for people like me who have really compounding mental health diagnoses and who have struggled for a very long time and alone for most of it your brain does incredible things and goes to incredible lengths to protect you and it's around that idea of not having an identity like being incapable of viewing yourself as someone that exists um that's someone that takes up space that has opinions it's just you don't make any room for yourself and your brain has helped leverage a position to keep you safe if you could get rid of my diagnosis would you no never that's not something i ever even considered and the reason for that is it's kind of like the the old argument what came first the the chicken or the egg and i think it would be impossible to differentiate what is your diagnosis and what is your personality and if you were to lose your diagnoses i'm sure you would be a whole different person and i love you exactly how you are what did you learn about yourself through being diagnosed with depression i think i just learned about my depression that there is a natural flow to um to my life and my emotions and that there are definitely certain things that can help me combat you know depression this process around depression is just to have a little bit more grace with myself to be a little bit more patient and that um just acknowledging that it really is something that's happening to me um that there's some things that i can do to help but ultimately that i um i just need to be aware that it happens so that i can better catch myself when i am in sort of a downward place with that but i would never get rid of your diagnosis because i would fear that would change who you are as a person and to me in my eyes you're perfect and i mean that thank you i would never get rid of them i'm getting a lot better at taking compliments through this process what have you learned about yourself through being diagnosed with anxiety um i guess just the severity of it i always felt like even in terms of anxiety i was really you know just in a whole different realm or spectrum with my experience just because of how pervasive it was and how rooted it had become in just my general thought pattern my view of myself the way others saw me so i think with anxiety i've just learned that i really do you know i was told i have really severe anxiety i remember the the um the doctor i guess you'd call him a doctor i don't know what the actual title is but i remember when i was going in to get my diagnoses they had like a simple baseline form that you were supposed to just fill out to kind of check off you know struggles or symptoms that you maybe had and i guess it was pretty rare for someone to have erased any part of that form or to scribble over things and the fact that i had such anxiety even filling out a form to talk about my diagnosis the doctor i guess it was meaningful enough the doctor brought it up and kind of sort of a way to break the ice but just to say yeah you know you're in it like this is real and the fact that you can't even go through filling out a form without facing that level of just unsureness and uncertainty it's pretty telling so i think with anxiety i've just really learned that it is severe for me and that it's something that will take a lot of my time and energy you know specifically focused on that diagnosis to really get to a place where i and kind of add an even plateau to where i can begin to address some of the other ones so i think anxiety is where i've been focusing the most of my energy and that's um yeah i think that that's appropriate right now is it worth it someone who struggles with mental health issues i don't i never even think about it i don't know because the mental health struggles are something that's part of you so it's not that i never think about the fact that you're diagnosed with depression and the fact that you're diagnosed with anxiety i do think about all of that because it's so important to acknowledge it so i can make appropriate accommodations but i never think about is it worth it of course it's worth it i love you i mean i never would think i never thought that it's not worth it i've never considered that question to myself if i don't know yes it's incredibly worth it what was the question again i don't know either you are worth it you are worth it times a million i'm really grateful for you i tell you this story all the time but i don't think it really means anything to you but the first time that kris and i ever had an argument like i grew up if you slammed the door or yelled the loudest you know walked away like it was all dramatic that's how you won an argument and that's how you communicated what you were feeling and i remember the first time and chris and i don't really argue but i remember the first argument we ever had that's what i did i just like got the loudest and i started to storm off and i even slammed the door and again i'm still like in my mid-20s like not cool um i can laugh about it now but that was like what i that's why i thought you did that's how i thought you you handled it and chris so calmly like it's like eerie how calm he was when he walked in to our bedroom when he opened the door his voice was so leveled and every like calm syllable just pissed me off like even more i'm serious and he looked at me and he said that this is a non-negotiable for me in our relationship like when we have a disagreement we're respectful towards one another and we don't walk away we don't walk out on each other you know we sit and we talk about it and we'll come to a resolution and lo and behold that's what i need right because if we have an argument and you were to walk out like that would break me with my anxiety i'd just be thinking oh my gosh the world's ending he's going to dump me wrong so the fact that i could do that to you knowing that it would be something so detrimental to me that was the very first time i felt like someone really held me accountable where they were like no you again that that feeling of not having an identity or even realizing that you are someone in a room who can cause harm who can you know who has impacts and ripples outside of themselves like that was one of the first moments where i realized oh my gosh like i am beholden to you like i have i owe you things because i love you like to be in love with you and to have a healthy relationship i you deserve all of these things and i here i am like doing exactly the opposite of what i would ask from you so it was a real wake-up call what has therapy taught you about your diagnosis of trichotillomania you know not much i haven't really focused on on that just because you know time is really limited and so i tend to i have tended to focus more on some of the other diagnoses that are more disruptive to my daily function well let me ask you this for those who don't know what is trick it's hard to describe because it's so normal to me but trick is just this absolute compulsion to manipulate and to pull out your hair i used to have a much severe case of trick when i was younger i did bald myself a couple times it's something that i don't think i think about on a really conscious level but there is always like i'm sitting on my hands right now because i don't i just don't want to do that in an interview like i said i think it'd be hard for me to see some of those compulsive behaviors because i know they exist but i don't see them how does ocd impact you can you ask the question again how does ocd impact you my ocd is something that again is really compulsive it's very tiring for me i i don't know when it sort of developed into what it is now but it is something that i do all the time um so like anytime i see a word written somewhere or i'm reading or even captions on the tv i start trying to spell out the words on my right hand and the ultimate goal is to find words that fit five fingers perfectly you can repeat letters as long as they're the same so like purple you know p u r p e l e you know and that's a perfect five finger word um yeah i don't know how to ex it sounds really silly and it is i that's kind of my first attempt at explaining that one what does love mean to you this is a question i've asked hundreds of people from all over the world and i've gotten a hundred different answers so i think what i've learned through that is that love is almost impossible to define it can mean something different to everybody but what i do know is no matter how somebody defines it that it's effortless or it should be effortless it should be something that just comes naturally and something you don't have to work towards because you are working on it we've been working the past six years but it has never felt like work like every step of the way i've been happy to learn skills to become a better partner so i think love to me is effortless our relationship is not something i think about it doesn't feel like work even when we're talking about all this i'm like yeah all these things really happened and they took effort and they definitely took a lot of conscious or unconscious i don't know but i guess it doesn't feel like that it doesn't it doesn't feel like i sat there and was like this is a problem you know i'm gonna fix it or like anything like that it's just our relationship has always evolved along with both of our growth and i think we both have grown a lot what have you learned about adhd adhd i think i've just learned a great deal of patience guided meditation has really helped me to sort of just find a calming point i do a lot more breathing exercises i don't really think that it's something that i can control to be honest i can just be more conscious of it i've tried you know with you chris to start saying when i've zoned out like to owning up to it like saying even if you you're talking to me and then you walk away and then i have to call you back and say i'm sorry i really didn't hear or comprehend anything that you just said to me even though i was listening and so i've tried to become better able to own up to that and show you a little humility you know and just ask when i need people when i need to hear something again or be redirected and i think that helps manage the anxiety i feel from from those moments when i can't be present for people because of my adhd so yeah now that you've been on this journey of self-discovery you've been in therapy do you still think you could potentially be back in that dark spot you were five years ago yeah absolutely um that part is uh i feel like i'm gonna cry that part's really triggering for me because it's really easy to enact change in yourself to set up new rules and boundaries and non-negotiables with yourself but when you have built a world and where you are recognized to other people is this previous version of yourself it's really scary to try and figure out how to balance that with the new you how you get people up to speed how do you help them to see you how you are now and to treat you the way you need to be treated um yeah it's really hard and it's something i worry about a lot i think a lot about what is someone that's important to me doesn't like they don't respond in the way that i need to or the way they respond is hurtful you know having to take that blow and that hit when you're feeling like very vulnerable in the first place it really scares me it scares me to have to go through that it's um yeah i don't know i think it's absolutely possible and i just hope that it doesn't happen i hope that i'm able to continue to be a good advocate for myself i think one thing that my loved ones or my friends or anybody who's really important you know in my life i would hope that they can understand is that i don't i don't value myself more than other people i don't i don't feel like i'm better and i don't mean to put so much attention on myself or to be so focused on myself in my head it's my greatest goal to be able to be present for people i have a really low opinion on myself actually and i just know that i am so focused on myself a lot of the time in my head that i'm sure that comes across and when i can't be present for people and conversations or things because of my diagnoses um i just worry that people think that a lot and it couldn't be farther from the truth so i would just hope that they could understand that is there anything else that you want people to know about us or me yeah absolutely one of my fears with um doing this and i'm so happy that you wanted to open up and share i know it's going to help so many people and i know it's going to help you but one of my fears was that i wouldn't be able to portray the reality of what we have together because i knew you were going to talk about some of the tough times hmm noodle's giving me a stare down and they were tough you can see obviously they were really tough for both of us and they did exist and i want people to know that that existed but overall like our life isn't sad we are so happy together and yes there are still tough days but even in those tough days there's joy and like i don't mind the bad days it's a beautiful life that's what i would want people to know that yes their struggles but even the struggles are beautiful and the good days are better than i could ever define i didn't know i would get choked up [Music] oh you should know i get choked up sometimes by now i love you what's it like to hear some of those things yeah it's really nice it's really nice i um i think it's nice for everyone anytime to hear really lovely things um i think with mental health health it really it is easy to become ingrained in the negative and to have those emotions and feelings sort of dictate your life and how you view yourself and in it so it's really nice to have gotten to a place where it's like that stuff kind of just fades away and the you know the love is so apparent and so overwhelming when the people watching this turn off their tv or phone and go about their day what do you want them to remember just that it's okay to struggle i think i don't think i know like we're all vulnerable in our own ways we all have insecurities we all have faced you know instances in our lives that have irrevocably changed us that have created potential triggers that we all have the capacity to love one another and to do good for one another but we also have the capacity to hurt one another and that you have a responsibility to yourself to love yourself so that you can better love and support others that you are deserving of that love that none of us are perfect um i guess i just i hope people realize that we're all in this together like none of us have a leg up really you know and to realize the force for good or bad that you could be in someone's life that's i want to be a really good force of good for people i want to be the biggest source of good for myself and i couldn't say that before that i was doing that last part so now i'm trying to be my biggest i want to be my biggest cheerleader like i want to be the person whose pride i'm aspiring to achieve because um i deserve that okay i love you i'm proud of you you did amazing i love you too i love you so much thank you for all the really kind things we should talk about some of that stuff more i agree i like hearing about your daydreams i didn't know you did that as much as i did wait what did i say just about how you dream of us being old and having adventures i like hearing that i think about it too i don't think i've ever told you oh so i feel like i learned something about you too and yeah i met it thank you for this it's a real gift i know when i watch it i'm gonna be really i'm gonna get crying but i know when i watch it i'm gonna be really proud and it will be something that i have to hold on to for my entire life and that it'll be about me and in my words um and have that separated from everything else i just feel like that's a real it is a real good grateful

Channel: Special Books by Special Kids

Views: 4,543,410

Keywords: Chris Ulmer, Alyssa Porter, SBSK

Id: gKC_N_9aJ8o

Length: 45min 10sec (2710 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Interphantom]

They're actually friends of a friend and he really is that genuine and she's super sweet and absolutely brilliant. They're two of the nicest people you can know and I'm glad people enjoy his videos. Honestly, if more people were like this, the world would be a better place.

[u/mega512]

I've watched a number of his videos. He is a compassionate person. Some of the people he interviews are incredibly fascinating.

[u/Sivianes]

This man is a real hero. I have seen many of his videos and Im always surprised the way he talks to the people, the kids... This man is gold.

[u/thedudeabides-12]

Damn that was uplifting, crushing, wholesome, sad, happy, just a whole bunch of mixed emotions watching that... Very very interesting....

[u/[deleted]]

I hate that comments are disabled on all of his videos. Is that because people are just assholes?

[u/Unfrozen__Caveman]

I couldn't make it through the first question where he asked her how it feels to think that nobody likes you... Saw a lot of my old self in her and it was tough to watch.

I don't feel like that anymore but it took a long time to get out of that state of mind. At least in my case, the main root of that was in my own low self-esteem. It had me constantly judging myself and putting myself down. When I started working on myself (by exercising daily, eating healthy, and cutting out alcohol) I began to feel better.

There was also a moment where I realized that I don't need anyone's approval and it's pointless to care about what people think about me 24/7. That's not to say you should be an asshole to people, but I found that I would analyze my own behavior and project my feelings into other people, then treat them with resentment because of those made up feelings I thought they were having. When I realized nobody really cares that much about me a lot of my anxiety went away. When I would find myself slipping back into that anxious mindset I would tell myself - "Get over yourself man, nobody really cares that much about you to judge you like that. People have their own problems in life and they're not spending their day thinking bad stuff about you."

For me the treatment didn't lie in therapy and medication, but in making myself feel better about who I was. That's just my own experience though... some people definitely need therapy (I've done my fair share) and medication (done that too).

[u/[deleted]]

This dude is legendary.

I wish I had a fraction of the compassion he has for his fellow human beings.

[u/iamamuttonhead]

Looks very sweet but I'm far too impatient to watch 45 minutes of it. Anyone have a TLDW?

[u/mainiacmainer]

"Even on the tough days there's joy" Wow that right there will keep them both going. After over 30 years of marriage I have a hard time living that...good for them.