So this video of mine, can't really see it too well,
but in this video, I'm under the influence of several substances. And this
one, this one right here is the first video that I filmed sober, which is kind
of crazy to look at. I look at this picture a lot. It's really out of focus for y'all,
but this is a picture of me and my mom right before we left to go to the first
VidCon that I ever went to which was in 2012, and I wasn't clean yet. And I
didn't get clean until like a month and a half after that event. But as of this
video being uploaded I have now been clean for six years, which is insane
to me. For those who have been around for a while, you'll be aware of this, but I am a
recovering drug addict. It's not something I hide in my day-to-day life,
but it's also not something that I go into egregious detail about, because why
would I? Getting into specifics is nothing short of just self-serving pity
generation, which is not something that I am about. But I think I think this year
in particular for me is uh it's hitting me heavier than years past. And I
say heavier but I mean that in nothing but a good way. Nothing but a good way. I
think the word to describe all of this is perspective. It's one of the
reasons why I leave videos like that up, public for anyone to view and watch. It's
powerful for me to be able to see the changes that I've made in my life and
the direction that my life has taken. It's really powerful for me individually
to see that ,and I think like first and foremost that's why it's there. It's like
a me thing. It's a reference for what I've done and it's like a
checkpoint that I can look back on my life, all these videos that I've made. Six
years ago I could not have predicted that I would still be here, which is
really intense of course. All of this is intense. This is gonna be an intense
video, because this is intense stuff. But um yeah. When I first moved to Los
Angeles three years ago, I was packing all of my things together, kind of going
the entirety of my life's build up, because I'm not really one to clean
regularly. And the thing that really hit me the most was this moment. I was
going through a some old things and I found a lot of materials from when I
was in rehab. And one of the things that I found was a poster. I am
really unskilled in the visual arts. I'm not a good at drawing or like
designing. I think I've gotten better, but I am historically terrible at
this thing. And this was an activity that we did. And on this activity we were like
making a diagram of our past and how it led to our present and then what we saw
for our future. I remember being really like sort of depressed
about the future, just sort of like thinking about things and goals and
honestly putting things down just because I wanted them, but I didn't see
them realistically happening. And I'm reminded of a post that I've seen that I'm
sure has been stolen and reposted by various basic people all over the place,
but it's so good. To paraphrase because I don't have like a specific
reference of the post, it says something along the lines of "remember when you
wanted what you have now." The life that I have right now is like everything I
could have dreamed of six years ago. It's not glamorous or pretty or whatever but
it's mine. And I think more than anything that is
like the most incredible thing to me. I would love to meet myself
six years ago. I would love to have that kind of sit-down conversation of just
this person who I was six years ago and who I am now and just like see what that
would be like. I didn't know myself at all. I had no knowledge of self. I was
just completely a facade. I was everything that I thought I was supposed
to be and that wasn't even working. And it was just like a costume of an
identity. I knew two things, though. I knew number one that I wanted to make things,
and number two I wanted to feel significant. Maybe back then my ideas of
significance were like much grander and and honestly more superficial in
regards to just number of people involved in the things that I'm doing.
But I feel like I've achieved that and it's really cool. Being and staying clean
is something that I deal with every single day of my life, and I don't think
many people know that. Why would they know that? They're not in my head. They're
not living my life. And on the surface, for all intents and purposes, I've done
it. I've beaten it. I've overcome it. There are scars that will never fully heal
over. There are experiences that I had that still haunt me often and I have
to live with those. And I do live with those, yeah. But I'm here though. I'm here,
not doing everything that I would have dreamed of, you know. But there's still
time. I'm doing it. I'm doing any of it and that for me is like crazy.
Some of you may be asking, "why make this video? Why share this part
of myself? Why talk about this thing that I do and why talk about it in such broad
strokes?" I talk about it because being visible both to myself and the world
around me I think is incredibly important. Oftentimes when I refer to
myself as a drug addict people kind of wince at it or they don't see it or they
just they look confused by it, because I don't look like a drug addict.
There's so much stigma and stereotypes as to what that actually means that the
humanity of it gets lost. Chances are in your life, you are involved with or know
somebody who is involved with someone who is living through or with addiction.
It is such a a quiet and shameful epidemic that kills so many people every
single year, and we don't talk about it. I think we have a tendency to kind of
focus on, and I have this tendency too, the before and after pictures. The
transformation aspect of it all like the point A, the point B, and the cool
checkpoints along the way. But I think we do ourselves a disservice there because
we miss the the in-between times. And progress is absolutely not a
straight line. And it's not been a straight line for me. I don't think it's
been a straight line for anyone in this life. I still feel very lost and very
broken ,which are a lot of the reasons why
I got so bad in the first place. But that's part of it. Like, that's part of
the general experience. It doesn't isolate me from
humanity. That kind of connects me to it in a very intrinsic way. I don't talk
about mental illness or queer issues, I don't talk about any of those things
to single myself out and make me feel special. I don't do any of that. I do it
to relate you know because this is my experience and if I'm not being honest
with that, if I'm not allowing that to inform the way that I live my life, then
I'm being dishonest to myself. And it's when I'm being dishonest that I
disconnect from the very humanity that connects me to the world. I want anyone
out there who feels so lost that they can't see it tomorrow, I want them to
know that there is one, and I don't just say that. I really don't just say that.
One of the reasons I got this tattoo that says trust the process right here
is to remind myself of that exact thing. And I haven't said this in a while,
but I'm gonna say a methodology of thinking that has literally kept me
alive. Regardless of what happens today, regardless of what has happened in the
past, the world is going to keep on spinning. Tomorrow in the morning the Sun
is going to come up. There is a point B to all of this. There is something in the
future. There is a future. None of us can possibly know what that future is. And
for anyone out there who can't see it, or doesn't want to see it, or feels like
they just want to opt out of it, I implore you please don't. Tt's not all
fluffy rainbows sunshine "it gets better" noise. No. It's none of that.
I don't think it's ever gonna be that. I don't think it should be that. Happiness
for me is not the goal, you know, because emotions are temporary.
All emotions are temporary. I'm more intrinsically linked to growth and to
answering honest questions that I ask myself in the world around me. Some of
the people in my life, they kind of view some of the things that I've talked
about or experience as kind of separate issues. They look at bisexuality,
they look at me being me non-binary, they look at mental health, the drug addiction,
all that. They look at those things as separate issues, but they're not.
They're all the same. Six years ago today, I started a process that I have stayed
on and stayed true to, and that's the process of asking
myself sometimes really difficult questions and attempting to answer them
honestly. And six years on from that I am still alive. I am, you know, a work in
progress, but things are okay and that's more than I could have ever dreamed of. I
want to thank each and every one of you who have watched any of my videos over
the past six years, because you have contributed to the saving of my life in
ways that you can't even possibly know. I can't really express it. My family,
my friends, my support networks, the various jobs that I've had, my cat, it's
amazing. It's compelling to me to keep going and for me that is such a gift
because I've not always felt that. This isn't entirely about me, because y'all's
stories have fueled me. They've made me feel connected to a humanity that I
honestly never felt I could feel connected to, and that's something that I
will always be grateful for as well. Six years is a long time but I still feel
like this is just the beginning and that's exciting. And it's exciting that
I'm excited about it, and I hope that you guys on your various journeys, on
your individual paths, can find something similar to that because I I feel like
that's all we can do and it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. Before I start
sobbing, I'm gonna get off of here. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thanks
for sharing your stories in the comments. Thanks for supporting me in whatever way
that you do. I love you guys a lot and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.
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