My Story | Battling Mental Illness

hello everybody i am call me chris and you can call me chris and today we're talking about some more serious stuff um since it is mental health awareness month i and because i've gotten so many requests to talk about my mental health journey and stuff that i've gone through that has gotten me here um i thought it would be a good time uh to talk about this stuff and i've been holding off doing this because it's just a it's a very touchy subject for me but i think it's really important to talk about this stuff because so many people are going through it but i also want to start this off by with a with the trigger warning i will be talking about not only depression anxiety other mental health issues i will be talking about eating disorders and suicide and suicidal thoughts um so if if any of that will be remotely triggering to you feel free to skip this video completely and go watch one of me one of my more funny or lighthearted videos okay i don't even know where to start to be honest i guess i will start in middle school because that's kind of when everything started um i was diagnosed pretty young with depression my mom had and still suffers with depression um but she knew a lot about it and she could see the signs in me uh when i was younger um i just would isolate myself i was not very social outside of school and sports and stuff that kind of forced me to be social and i just was not ever happy um i pretended to be happy a lot uh something i got really really good at so nobody outside of my family knew about anything that was going on because it was just kind of stigmatized when i was in middle school and even in high school it was just like something was wrong with you and i also just never wanted to be like a burden on anybody like let alone my parents but like my friends and that kind of thing so i would just always um put on this happy mask and tell jokes and make everybody smile which did make me feel better and it still does make me feel better um anyway it's so that's it started in middle school with depression and soon followed anxiety panic attacks a lot of hyperventilating getting into high school i moved from a middle school uh where i had a you know a few good friends and i actually moved to a high school where the people from my middle school went to a different high school like it was in the same catchment so i went to a different catchment so i was kind of like the new girl in my high school um luckily i had some some girlfriends that i played sports with and everything that were in that high school and everything but um yeah started off as the new girl uh always was known as like the innocent girl i didn't really party i didn't do anything with drugs or alcohol or anything like that i mean until later years in high school but um yeah and i think one of the worst years in high school was um grade 10 and if you don't know which one is grade 10 i'm not sure which country you're in or whatever uh 16 15 15 to 16 years old um i had a friend um uh commit suicide um and it was just a really awesome guy and that was at a time where i was feeling the same way and i saw everybody's reaction to that and that's what prevented me from ever taking it that far because i saw how many how much people were affected and how much people were hurt and how much and he was so young and i know so many people that were super close to him and just wish he was still here and that he had so many like good years ahead of him but when you're in that moment of darkness i understand you feel like there's no escape but there is so grade 10 goes by really just a somber year for the whole for the whole school and then um i started going to therapy i was kind of forced to go into therapy uh and i i did not want to go to therapy at all i wanted to pretend that i didn't have depression any sort of anything like that so i i went through the therapy i was i was i had so much pushback i feel so bad for any therapist that had to deal with me as a teenager i had so much pushback when in reality it was really i really just should have talked to this person because they've dealt with so many people that are going through the same thing as me and for some reason i felt like i was the only person going through this and i was some something special when i absolutely was not um and then good going into grade um still struggling a lot with depression mostly depression i had a little bit of anxiety on medication for depression and everything uh and it was starting to get better it was starting to get good i was starting to level out a little bit enjoy myself go out with friends a little bit more um i felt like i wasn't faking it as much in grade 11. up until i uh um up until i got raped um that was that that was probably the lowest i had been ever since since i had experienced any kind of um depression i after after that i am completely shut shut down completely i was on autopilot for the next year at least nobody knew i didn't tell anyone i was embarrassed and shaped and i don't think anybody would believe me and that's not how it should be if you're put in that situation you always and you always should tell somebody come forward go to the authorities it just it's hard when you're younger and especially since i came i came from a really conservative family and they didn't even know that i was remotely sexually active and at that point i hadn't been really and um around that time and that was coming into my graduation year my grade 12 year and i coasted through grade 12 and talking to the couple friends that i still have now from high school they didn't like i was a pro i was pro at acting like nothing was wrong with me and they're just finding out now after me doing interviews about mental health and and it's not remotely their fault i was just a very good actor in school and at sports and i really my parents really had to force me to be social and to go out with friends and to do stuff because i didn't want to i didn't care as soon as i got my license um it [ __ ] sucks my first thoughts while driving i just wanted to drive off a cliff or into a pool i was so done obviously i did not and the thought of my family um just having to go through that is what stopped me and i know and it's so awful that that is often the case but it is what saved me and i'm so happy for that and they're they've always been so supportive through everything even if they don't understand completely after i graduated i went into post-secondary i went into university i wanted at the time to be a teacher and i had just gotten out of a uh kind of shorter relationship i had a boyfriend for a year kind of like my first boyfriend for a year and it was fine it was it was a totally fine relationship it was just my first relationship and i just realized that it we just weren't like i didn't i didn't see myself with them for the rest of my life so after that um started school and i started going back to therapy i started my medication again and things actually got it started to get better um i got a scholarship for soccer um and then all the pressures of school and being on a university soccer team and all of this stuff started to come up and then my anxiety really ramped up like i experienced anxiety before in high school but not like when i got into university um i had gotten into a new relationship the relationship i'm currently in with uh with with aaron um that was on my 19th birthday actually it was our first date um and i was okay for a couple years i was okay i was taking my medication i was doing any therapy if i needed therapy um being with aaron really helped he had gone through some horrible injuries he broke his back and um had to get he had to get like a whole reconstruction surgery down on his shoulder because of a ski accident and he was going through a lot so i was able to help him through that and he was going through a depressive episode as of course like he was bedridden for a while and he was so used to being active and all that kind of stuff so i think looking back at it i was distracted i guess good distraction like i was able to care for somebody else and try to make him as happy as possible and make him okay as you should as a partner um and then in 2018 in uh the winter i got sick i got um nothing serious it was just like a flu times 10 and i lost weight i well i think i lost like 10 10 pounds or something like that and i i've always been just average i've always just been average and this is kind of segwaying into the eating disorder um so again if you if you are watching and you have any sort of triggers with eating disorders please uh you can feel free to leave the video um always going through high school i was and many other girls always crash dieting always trying to look a certain way and all that stuff i never really took it too seriously i was always very very active i was always in like four sports at a time and all that kind of stuff ate whatever i want but since i was in so many sports it didn't really matter but i had this moment in december of 2018 where i had lost that weight and i was also back in a darker place and i definitely suffer from seasonal depression it gets really really bad in the winter um and i decided that i wanted to start working out and i thought that would help i hadn't played sports in a while because i i left university and decided to pursue hairdressing so i wasn't playing any sports i wasn't really working out much i was just just working really so i decided i wanted to work out and me and my sister made this workout plan um in the beginning of the year january of 2019 and we were gonna go every other day of the week and like bust our asses and get in really good shape and i was all for it and i was like you know what this will be really good for my mental health even my doctor was like yeah this is a great idea losing that just random 10 pounds and i looked weird losing that those 10 pounds i don't know why it just like people noticed and i got that feeling like oh i'm supposed to look like this like i was not pretty before but now i'm pretty because people are like oh did you lose weight but then my family was like why did you lose weight like we're concerned about you kind of thing and i was just like i was just sick and then after i started working out and becoming healthy and only eating clean never eating sugar never doing anything like this and i continually lost weight and i didn't need to lose weight i was at a healthy weight it was completely fine it started to become a way of hurting myself and i was fully aware of that i was fully aware of how what i looked like and that i shouldn't be doing that to myself and that maybe this is the way that could justify me not being here anymore because it's not outright hurting myself it's it's really hard to explain and it's really [ __ ] up anybody that's ever suffered from an eating disorder understands how your brain is completely miswired like you can't think properly and for me i i was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa of july of 2019 um my family gave me no option they forced me into as they should uh into either inpatient which i was all signed up to go into or um outpatient like every day at that point i was so brainwashed and i just wanted to die i didn't care i didn't want to go to outpatient probably for the first six months of going to outpatient i didn't do anything they told me i didn't even try to eat more do any of the exercises they did i was so stubborn and i was just content with the idea of just letting go and i never looked at myself in the mirror because i i i couldn't and i'm not going to show pictures or anything like that because i know for me me watching videos when i was at that point it's a comparison thing and it's really unhealthy and i don't think it it's good for anyone to look at images of me looking like that and you don't need to look a certain way to have an eating disorder i think that's the most [ __ ] up thing about eating disorders like you think you have to weigh a certain amount or you have to look a certain way in order to have an eating disorder but that's not the case at all so i'm not going to be putting up any pictures or anything like that i saw myself in a picture that somebody else took of me and i got so scared i couldn't believe i did that to myself because i never looked in the mirror and my body dysmorphia didn't see when i looked down when i saw that picture and i kept that picture and printed it out and headed up and that's the day i started actually recovering and i wouldn't have been able to do that without aaron who's like my rock through all of that and so understanding or my family or my friends and it's not something i've talked about ever but i think it's really important because i know so many people go through that not just anorexia bulimia all that kind of stuff and recovering was hell absolute hell and i'm not going to lie to you i'm still not fully recovered but i am keeping that upward trajectory and i'm really proud of myself because i had those thoughts come back in my head all the time after i started recovering um i relapsed many many times and developed bulimia and it was all out of guilt and wanting to give up and feeling like it's never going to end the recovering period but obviously it did but it took at least six full months to get out of that cycle which i know some people go through it for years and years and at that six month point when i finally said okay i diagnosed myself as recovered very close to the time i downloaded tick tock i was still doing group therapy and regular therapy and taking medication doing regular doctor's visits um but at the time i had uh my own home business as a hairdresser and i had to close my doors because of coved so tick tock was just a pastime it was just for fun and i always ever since i was a little girl i always wanted to be a stand-up comedian or an actress or something like that but um i grew up in a really conservative family as i said and they just wanted us to have a nine to five job with a pension and all that kind of stuff so i knew that was never gonna be a thing for me and i was okay i was okay with that and then take dot came along and it i found a coping mechanism and i could make people happy and that made me really happy at times i got distracted and forgot to take care of myself at the beginning probably the first few months of tick tock um but and then i made a post the first post i ever made about mental health my mental health and i just realized that i can't i'm not gonna be a hypocrite i'm not gonna lie and say i'm okay and i'm gonna be open about how it truly is okay not to be okay and that the only way to get better is to tell people and to acknowledge it and getting messages from you guys especially after that video and a couple other videos i paid on mental health you guys don't know what you did for me it's because of you and my family and aaron that i'm still here and i think and i hope that even if none of this happened i would be okay and backtracking a little bit i forgot about the one little guy that [ __ ] saved my life was when i got a dog kevin six months the out of the week i decided i was gonna recover from my eating disorder the week i decided is when i got kevin my puppy because i knew i had to be i had to feel better i had to get better and take care of myself in order to take care of him and i knew i couldn't go anywhere or do anything bad to myself if i had him so many nights i wanted to hurt myself or end it and he would just be sitting there staring at me and it's i laugh because i it's how i deal with things it's probably not the healthiest thing but a dog has saved my life on so many occasions so let's fast forward to today i have gone through lots of therapy been on and off medication but i have found a balance and i have found what grounds me and what's important in my life and i know now what i need to feel okay and i know who i need to talk to if i don't feel okay and if i'm feeling scared and i think that's the most important part and just knowing that you're not stuck in this day in that really really [ __ ] day where you feel like you're at your darkest there's gonna be another day another day after that and it can get brighter and we don't think about that when we're in those really dark dark places all we think about is now now we don't think about next week or the month after you deserve to be here i deserve to be here it's been a long journey of loving myself and i'm definitely not finished with it and i think i'll have to work on it for a very long time but it's that i'm working on it and i really hope that if you're feeling any way that i have or you can relate to this in any way i hope this could help one person i truly do i'm sorry for crying so much i never cry and apparently i needed to cry this entire video and i'm probably gonna watch this back and see that i missed a million things um i was really nervous to talk about any of this but i just want you guys to know that i love you so much and you absolutely helped save me and i hope i can help any one of you in any way and just know that we're a family i i i just i love you guys i love you guys so much um i will see you in the next video and it will be much more upbeat than this thank you

Channel: Kallmekris

Views: 1,713,501

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Id: wgfydORhcHI

Length: 26min 47sec (1607 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2021