Visiting My Schizoaffective Friend After His Forced Psychiatric Stay

what brings you the most joy these days and that's what but i don't i know what joy is but i haven't i haven't felt it and like i don't feel happy ever and that is that is really hard to live with is never having anything to look forward to you wake up exhausted and then when you're awake you're like i can't wait for night time to come and then you can't wait for day time to come you just want to pass the time and just get it over with it there's a lot of people who live like that and who do it in silence and i understand and it's really hard to remind your brain what happiness is when you haven't felt it in years i just don't remember what it's like i mean i have abstract memories of happy events where i know i was happy but that the actual feeling i haven't felt that in a really long time i used to love life absolutely loved it every day was a a joy and i had no idea that the kind of darkness that i live with now even existed but i i spent too long ignoring my mental health and everything kind of caught up to me and so now i'm in a crossroads trying i guess trying to find myself trying to find a direction again because i don't know i don't know what's happening and that that could be the scariest thing sometimes it's i i lie awake when you're in bed you're sitting or sweating and you're thinking is every day going to be like this every single day going to be just like this and it's really hard to get out of those dark spots but that's what i'm trying to learn to do this year is not allow myself to fall down those really deep holes so i'm sitting in a park in the middle of texas after traveling 900 miles i thought this video was going to be more like a typical sbsk interview where we're in somebody's living room we're hearing their thoughts their goals their dreams their fears everything about them getting to know them together but that's not going to be the case and i want to explain to you with a hundred percent transparency why that is god it's hard to describe i i miss not being aware of the time i miss just forgetting that time has passed instead of being aware of every second of every minute of every hour that just drags and i i i miss being carefree um just hanging out and doing things with people and that is probably one of my greatest fears is that i'll never get that back and no matter how hard i try it'll remain elusive to the end of my days and that makes it very difficult to get up the next morning when those are the kind of thoughts you're having sorry my brain gets scrambled many of you remember our friend daniel who i interviewed last year i can have what what you would call voices in your head um it's not my voice but it's not some personality is just a different voice but it's in my head after that video was published daniel and i kept in touch we would email each other several times a month and also daniel has a youtube channel he often makes videos about what he's experiencing sometimes the tougher part of living with schizoaffective disorder hello again video diary and people um so i apologize for my absence i was committed to a mental hospital for 10 days and the emergency room for three days waiting for an opening i had a bit of a very rough two weeks after that video where he talked about being forced to commit to a psychiatric stay i emailed him and said hey i'm thinking about you what's going on and typically when i would email him it would just be pleasantries back and forth miss you what's going on what's new with you but this time it was a different reply and i'm not gonna try to sum it up for you i'm just gonna read it to you is it okay if i ask you questions about that email you initially sent me yes absolutely i'm not even sure what what was in it but i'll answer the questions honestly it was the email where you said that it felt like the world was closing in around you things were getting tough the first thing i want to ask you and we discussed this before you said it was okay for me to share that email absolutely why is it okay because it's really difficult to try and describe to people just what that feels like and if it always feels like it's hidden whether you're hiding it from your family members or your best friends everyone feels like they're suffering in silence and everyone feels like they're suffering alone and the sad truth of the matter is we don't have to be and i i do it to myself as well i do it a lot i'm always on my own i don't have to be but it's a decision that i think for some reason i can't share that stuff with people and so sharing that part of the email or anything i've written personal to you is basically the same idea that we shouldn't have to hide that kind of stuff it should be okay to be open about it dear mr chris first off i wanted to thank you again for everything you've done and are doing for so many people it is a beautiful important work it is so hot out here mr chris why do you like to call me mr chris i don't know that's just the name that kind of stuck with me i could call you just call you chris but even in high school i think i used mam on the girls in my um class same age and yes sir the people my same age is just the way i was raised i'm writing this letter to you because i wanted to be certain that you knew just how much i have appreciated your amazing kindness and compassion you showed me that i had worth and that i was deserving of love and friendship just like anybody else it was a very powerful moment that left a huge impact and i will always be grateful to you for that like i was fine this morning getting ready to meet you and then when you said you were here it's like my heart's been on my throat it's just because the last interview did impact me uh very heavily in my life in a in some really positive ways but it's changed it for sure so i think that's like in the back of my mind i don't know what will come from this so thank you a million times thank you recently i found myself caught and trapped in a vicious and horrible cycle of overwhelming fear and uncertainty every day finds a way to be worse and even when it seems impossible to get harder it undeniably does i feel trapped holding on to the tightrope with nowhere to go but down and i am scared of what will happen next and i want you to know just how much you and your community have helped and that it was a tremendous honor to meet you and everyone you've inspired god i still can't seem to do it even when it shouldn't matter i can't seem to open up all the way just remember please that i'm trying i really am but since waking up in that hospital and every day since has been a steady descent in different levels of hell and i want to get better that's what my last poem was about but i have some innate inability to willingly give up my freedom even if it means saving my life i can't do it i could for a while but now it's physically impossible the thought of death or freedom i seem to choose death good lord i am all over the place they want me to quit they whisper it all day every day i guess i'm sorry i'm sure that it is a huge annoyance i guess i wanted to just be honest to someone other than myself i can scream clues and hints to the heavens for eternity but i shouldn't expect others to be able to read my mind please don't think less of me mister please don't think less of me thank you mr chris do you remember what you were thinking when you sent that email it was a bad night um i wrote it actually when i was here at the park that side where the my little secret meadow is i was lost that evening it was i'd probably sat in the car for like a good six hours or so and i just wanted someone to know that sort of what was going on in my head and i thought of you and i wrote you after reading that email i wrote back to daniel right away i told him i want to come and see him and help him formulate a game plan to tackle his mental health to see if we can get him in a better place we originally planned to meet at his home yesterday at noon but noon turned to 1 30 1 30 turned to 4 p.m 4 p.m turned to 8 p.m 8 p.m turned to 10 a.m today 10 a.m today turned to 10 30. and then daniel asked if instead of meeting at his home we could meet at this park is it sometimes hard to follow through with commitments definitely definitely that's it's you'll you'll latch onto any little problem but try and protect yourself i guess isolate yourself even when you don't again you don't have to but it's sometimes it's an overwhelming urge and it takes a lot of fight to get back into it and still do what you said you're gonna do if somebody who cares about you like me wants to support you when you are in one of those dark holes what can they do um especially if i write write to you reach out to you if you can resp respond and just let me know that you got my message and maybe be a little more aggressive in not allowing me to isolate myself uh it's not just me a lot of us do that when we get in those positions where everything feels so much more difficult than it should be again we suffer alone in silence we don't have to so you riding back and then you know makes a huge difference and you coming all the way down here to see me makes a huge difference sorry about meeting outside that was fine we found this nice little shady dugout right by a baseball field yes and there's a little breeze coming through it feels quite nice i'm glad i get to experience this date with you thank you and i think that's a good way to start our conversation is to thank you for reaching out to me i feel nothing but grateful that you sent me that email really thank you because uh you drove across a few states to get here so that means a lot it does i used to do a lot of driving and so i'm i i know that drive it can be it can be long so it means it means a lot to me mr chris thank you you're worth it i'm not sure about that why aren't you sure of your worth i just don't feel worthy i i feel like i'm wasting people's time by being alive um like i'm eating food that someone else could eat or taking up someone else's space like that someone else is supposed to be here i know that sounds ridiculous but that's what it feels like a lot of the time sorry i laugh like in inappropriate times that is just something i do i am sorry what are you thinking when you laugh that i can't believe i just said that in fact that's what i was thinking it was like wow you just slapped them over the head with some really dark stuff there daniel congratulations you just sucked the joy from mr chris i i i don't know how to say this but i'll just say it bluntly nobody has the ability to take my joy okay good that actually does make me feel better because i i don't like hiding those parts of myself they are just part of me you know i have i have a lot of life left to me but there's there's a lot of darkness there too and to deny one is to lie to yourself so i don't like having to hide that so thank you for not making me try and hide that no you never have to hide any part of you of course there's moments like when i filmed the intro before we came out here i got choked up discussing the email just because i don't want you to have a negative experience on this world but that's not something that is permanent in me i feel my joy right again afterwards and i'd rather have a friendship with you where you can express anything to me and know that it's not going to negatively impact me that's a huge deal that i can be completely honest about answering your questions because you don't get that a lot people will say you know they won't they want to hear the honest answer but they get really frustrated really quickly when you don't turn things around very quickly that's one reason why i very much enjoy speaking with you because i can just be as blunt as possible you're not going to judge me for it in fact you'll probably understand do you feel like you're hiding yourself for most people yes yes even though i know i'm failing at it like keeping everything and i'm constantly putting forth a lot of energy at hiding the worst parts of me and not being honest about it because i don't i don't want to worry everybody all the time you know they'll come out and ask me if i'm doing okay and inside i have a hurricane going on on the outside i'll say i'm fine it's because i don't i don't think they want to hear that while they're talking to me the ground is on fire i i don't think they want me to try and explain what that's like i sometimes just don't know how to move forward and i'd you feel like you're stuck in this never-ending nightmare that follows you day in and day out and that night when i wrote you that email i have a lot of confusing feelings that night but i did feel my shamefully like a a release that evening where i was like well maybe it's just better this way and people say they're they that they that they care but it's really hard for people to get their love through to you because you've blocked yourself off so much because everything hurts all the time and so even though people will say that they love me it rarely gets through and so that that night i just i couldn't i couldn't reconcile that people actually cared about me it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't feel good when you look up eventually and you see that you've alienated yourself to where you're almost completely on your own and you have to try and rebuild friendships and relationships and it's all out of fear it's all out of a fear that you're not good enough for them and they don't want to be friends with you anyways so why waste their time well i hope you know the act of me coming here is an act of love yes and that's just a way for me to show you your importance to not only me but our entire community and since you are being 100 transparent about everything you're experiencing i think it's only fair if i return that so can i share with you a concern i have yes you may one of the things that i greatly reflected on before not coming here i didn't reflect on that at all but before bringing my camera is if i should i don't want to exploit you in your time of pain in your suffering so i had these contradictory thoughts of this is something that should be done in private but then i also know this is the type of advocacy we need in the world and so often mental health disorders are hidden away yes so i have these alternating forces of just do it in private nobody needs to know and what are you talking about the world needs to see the stuff like this happens and i don't have a solution these are i just want you to know that these are thoughts in my mind and i would love to hear what you think when you hear that i don't think there's a right answer i think you do the best you can and i think we we're both making the choice that if it helps it's worth it and it should be done i mean they they brought me back to life and i spent something like 10 days in one of the mental hospitals there's just no funding there there's it's just tv on all day and maybe one or two group sessions but other than that you're just there's nothing there's no and no one knows you're there you're just kind of buried in the darkness is this when you were forcefully committed tell me about that why were you forcefully committed what happened i was having a um kind of a break that evening and i was hearing a lot of commanding voices and was uh seeing some of my recurring horrors and so i decided that i was just gonna leap from the bridge and i got up there and i had a note that i threw to the police officer and i let go just as one of the police officers i didn't see it snuck around to the other side grabbed me as i was falling over and uh then it was a body slam time where they slammed me on the ground and handcuffed me and another ambulance ride and three days in the emergency room where you just and that's it there's got to be better ways of dealing with us when we're having these issues because i i was the only reason i didn't call for help because i was afraid of exactly what would happen and what happened was days of sitting in a bare room no stimulation and someone watching you 24 7. three days of that and you're not allowed anything if you don't mind me asking did you accrue a lot of medical debt through being forcefully committed um i'm still getting those bills um i also got airlifted from a separate time um i get that bill and then the bills from the um physical illness so it's all just stacked up and i love people who don't quite understand the va i like what the va should pay for it like that's the way it's supposed to work but the va they sent me a letter saying that they wouldn't pay for the life flight because i did not give them enough warning i was like i was almost dead and they were saving my life what kind of warning am i supposed to give you i know the u.s health care system will just say it's less than ideal and you've accrued quite a bit of medical debt this year yes so any ad revenue that this video makes will be putting towards your gofundme for your medical debt and also if anybody's interested i'll put your gofundme in the description below and just to be clear that's money that doesn't go through me and then to you that's directly to you thank you so much i'm i am awful putting that out there myself awful with it that means a lot you know that a lot of people care about you so why do you have a hard time asking for help it goes back to that whether i'm worthy of it or not it goes back to that feeling of surely there's someone else that could be using the help or sure there's someone else that you could support that's better or more well-spoken or has their stuff together just you never feel good enough something we didn't discuss in depth last year is that you're a veteran and you live with ptsd yes can you explain what that's like night terrors um i also have sleep paralysis during those night terrors and it's a constant source of anxiety it's it's difficult to explain uh i kind of related to restless leg syndrome where your body is so coiled up on the inside to where you have to spastically just reach out and kick or flail your arm out because your whole insides have become condensed into a stressed ball that needs to be released and that can happen just by being in public people i don't know being getting too close to me is your ptsd directly connected to your service in the military yes along with lots of head injuries like i laugh about them now but they were pretty serious um i skipped on the outside the plane at a paratrooper school jumping out like a rock skipping on a lake because my pull cord got caught and luckily the pull cord does it pulls the chute all on its own so i didn't have to do anything but i was unconscious for the whole trip down um another time i hit the ground at a public jump it was an air show and i just wasn't prepared for it when i landed i went feet and then head and then the chute wrapped around my neck and re-inflated on the ground and so it dragged my unconscious body in front of hundreds of spectators while an ambulance tried to catch up to put the shoot out um [Music] and more so my head's been through a lot i want you to know that this question doesn't come from a place of judgment or i don't care at all that you delayed i'm happy to be here and support you as you need but i want other people to understand what you why you delete definitely don't take it as offensive um it's more it's it's an emotional battle within the cells has nothing to do with you i i bet it feels personal um anyone who knows me knows that i'm flaking with the phone because i'll start believing that the phone's listening in on me and it becomes very difficult to use the phone to communicate and i'll just it'll become overwhelming and i won't trust it anymore and i'll put it down for like an hour when i was supposed to respond within like 10 minutes and then i'll trust it enough to check it it's it really just patience patience that's all i could beg of people is have patience with me and have patience with others around you who are going through difficult times because that's that's the best thing you can give them is patience and understanding i just want to really hit home the point that i have nothing but joy and gratitude that we're sitting here together today and the reason i ask that question is that so that people who have humans with mental disorders in their life i want them to understand that sometimes that person cancelling planes or ghosting don't take that offensive i have lost a lot of friends people close people in my life because of my actions and it can get to feel really alone just work with them you know love them care for them don't abandon them just because they made you angry or they let you down so there's a screen there i see it there we are why don't you look up why do you constantly look down uh it's just more comfortable the camera's not so bad but sometimes during my worst dates it'll feel like someone's trying to this sounds insane um that someone's trying to take my soul by looking at you yeah i know how silly that sounds but it's very strong and it's something that just takes a while to get over would you be more comfortable if i didn't look at you if i looked at the ground or whatever oh no it's fine as long as it's mainly like if i hold eye contact for too long then then it starts to get really uncomfortable and like something horrible is about to happen all right it's been a really rough year um i'm trying to keep my head above water that's that's that's mainly what this year has been been about and sharing the experience of trying to keep your head above water and i have messed up a lot and i've learned a lot i i have i've had some good experiences where i've learned some stuff i didn't know before but i've also suffered and i don't know if it ends like i wanna there's part of me that wants to say you know the positive message of well there's always hope and fifty percent of the time i believe that myself but the other fifty percent of the time i don't because you know i'm gonna go back to being by myself for hours at a time trying to figure out ways to engage my mind and not let the darkness take over so i would say actually in the past year a little darker view a little darker view but it hasn't been a worthless trip because i've learned a lot from psychiatrists and trying to get meds right and it is an ongoing process so going into this video i knew that i didn't have the expertise to help daniel to make everything better it's not like i'm gonna come we're gonna share a laugh have some good vibes and he'll be okay so what i did was reach out to several programs in the area where he lives that serve veterans and serve veterans with mental health disorders you mentioned that you don't feel like you're good enough and that's something that you mentioned to me when i told you i was researching programs that help with the mental health of veterans and you said that i would rather reserve those slots for people who have a physical injury and you don't feel worthy yes first i want to say that i've reached out to those programs people high up in each of those programs that are local to here and they said that's absolutely not the case i sent them your first video they said that you would be a great candidate they would love to work with you you're worthy of it mental health disorders are very real and you're deserving to be part of those programs but i also know that there's many veterans out there with mental health disorders from what they've experienced who feel the same way as you why don't you feel worthy yeah because you're not you there's no visual scars for it you know it's not like you want visual scars but you feel like well i gotta i got my both hands i got both feet my i'm i'm can stand up i can walk on my own surely i shouldn't have the problems that i have and you feel incredibly weak and that you're just you failed you've failed in every way imaginable that you can't take care of yourself the way you're supposed to and it's it it's very depressing and it makes you just it makes you feel like that why why why why why do i deserve any of that help because yeah man i have a real hard time feeling positive about myself i can tell you that one of the people i reached out to who's high up within one of these organizations that works with veterans they told me that one of the first things they would do with you is help you see that you are deserving of getting help the mental health disorders are real and you're just as worthy of anyone else as of receiving these services i have the intake forms on my computer it'll be hard to fill about at the park right what i would like to do if you're cool with it is i'll take your call i am so sorry you're fine trust oh i'm so sorry hello hi daniel yes ma'am who was that what's going on um i get services here where i live through mhmr for psychiatric services and therapist services and that was my psychiatrist doing a medication update check-in where she does she calls in and checks with my symptoms based on the medications i'm taking to see if they're being effective at all and if not she'll throw in a new one like today she's throwing in a new medication and other than that she'll up the dosage and so that's what that phone call is about because it's i'm learning it's it's it's a long process trying to find the right meds that are going to really help and make a difference do the match help it's like you don't know if they help until you don't have them it's because it is very subtle changes like for me not hearing voices for 48 hours is a big deal and it's been about 48 hours so is the medicine working i don't know maybe it is hopefully it is maybe that'll start making a difference for me i'm scared to find out if it's not the medicine so i'm just going to keep taking the medicine because i i'm going to assume it is medicine helping thank you for sharing that so we were talking about the intake forms yes and how it would be hard to fill them out here what i would like to do is schedule a time with you where we could zoom over the computer and i think the forums each one might take 10 minutes okay i'd love for you to do it and i could just you know talk to you send you the links i would absolutely be go for that just kind of be your cheerleader if you have any questions i i mean you're more than capable i think of doing it all yourself let's do that let's zoom that and do some paperwork i'm i'm terrible at doing it for myself so yes we'll figure out that date sometime in the next week we'll talk off camera but before we do turn off the camera is there anything else you'd like to say thank you for coming down and for answering my emails and responding to me when i write you it it means the world and as anyone knows it gets really exhausting doing this by yourself and feeling completely alone all the time and that's not a way to live man it's not a way to live so thank you [Laughter] we each deserve to be alive and we each deserve to have someone there for us when we doubt that and so i would just plead with people not to give up to fight and grasp and claw and mud their way to the top the best that they can i'm still doing it and i still feel like i'm at the bottom of a well half the time but it's a disservice to ourselves to give up without a fight thank you that breeze feels so good oh we are now recording yes i see it it says that yay so how do you feel now that you filled out the intake forms i am excited because one of those two if not both might be a really big help for me especially camp hope which is a six month long program in page but you get to go outside all the time they do camp out since four veterans only so i'm really excited about both of them and thank you so much for helping me set that up daniel it was great to see you i'm gonna be of course in contact with you all the time and i'm excited to see what happens next for you thank you so much mr chris what are you most proud of yourself for that i am still standing i'm being quite honest with that i i try and say good job on that because really i feel like i should be lying on my back at all times but i'm standing and i'm still here and i'll be here tomorrow and as hard it is that that is to be grateful for at times i'm trying to remind myself to be grateful for the fact that i am still here because there's in the last year there's been two very close calls where i could have died one was uh the illness the other was self-inflicted but i think something has some job or something for me because i can't i keep coming back

Channel: Special Books by Special Kids

Views: 2,868,809

Keywords: Daniel Nepveux, SBSK, Schizoaffective, Borderline Personality Disorder, C-PTSD, Chris Ulmer, Psychosis

Id: xc1tbETJpX4

Length: 38min 13sec (2293 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Man, I really feel for brother Daniel. I'm really rooting for him, it makes me so happy SBSK keeps tabs on everyone and reaches out to help a friend in need. We all love you Daniel, stay strong buddy.

[u/Sufficient_Babe]

Yes, I just bawled my eyes out. This hit me hard, maybe because I've been feeling a lot of the same things lately. I really wish him the best. It just hurts.

[u/Miramosa]

Daniel is such a sympathetic guy. I'm really happy he gets some help, and hopefully, Camp Hope will help him out, get him in touch with others in a similar situation to him.

[u/elcocotero]

Wow, dude has a way with words, and a very strong, touching way of communicating. His eyes in the thumbnail are expressing so much stuff. Hope he can get a little bit of something nice in his life, at least once in a while.

[u/puppers13]

How they didn’t treat him at the hospital makes me angry cause this sweet person deserves help he wants and needs. But anyways if you see this Daniel you deserve the world, to feel loved, and be heard. And I am so proud of you. 💕

[u/zfreakazoidz]

Been watching his videos on Youtube, he talked about his stay a few days ago. But he also seemed happy, or at least better. He was really thankful for all the people who leave comments on his videos and show love and support for him. He realized he's not alone in this battle he has. If you happen to see this, we will always love and support you friend!

[u/CertifiedLuckyGinger]

His way of speaking is like poetry to me! Daniel, you seem like a really sympathetic and honest guy. I think you are very brave, sharing the way you experience the world. I wish you nothing but the best!

[u/LifeIsMyDepressant]

I dunno if Daniel would ever read this but I can't thank him enough for sharing all that he has, my girlfriend shares in Schizoaffective and has had some very serious lows. Sometimes its really hard for her to explain whats happening and how she feels which can really cause us to fall apart when she needs me most. The feelings and emotions Daniel has shared has really helped me understand more when she feels she can't explain because no one will understand. I've been with her through the lowest lows and the highest highs in the last three years and she always tells me that she feels shes suffering alone, I don't want her to ever feel like that and I don't Daniel to feel that either. If Daniel ever has the chance to read this I want him to know that he's not the only one who feels like this and that there will always be people who care about him. Everyone deserves to know that they're not alone.

[u/PTfan]

I cant imagine life being this hard