Something that never ceases to amaze me is the fact that we are all born with brains, that we can spend the rest of our lives getting to know. We’re born with a brain that we don’t know or understand, so we have to put in the work to become self-aware and get to know ourselves and what makes us tick.

To explain further, when you’re a child, so much is instilled into you:

• survival mechanisms, or
• responses to trauma, or
• problems, or hardships.

Traumatic events like losses, but everything that you’re going through in your developmental ages is affecting how you’re going to respond to things for the rest of your life, unless you can become aware of it and work to change it.

The coolest thing is that you can use your prefrontal cortex, you can use the conscious part of your brain, the thinking, conscious part of your brain, to gradually and slowly look at all the other parts of your brain, or to figure out your behaviors and your motivations for things.

Backtracking thoughts and feelings

To constantly ask yourself daily:

“Why did I just say that? Why did I just respond that way? Am I feeling triggered right now? Is my nervous system super, super dysregulated right now?”

Like, what was the motivation behind why I said it in that specific way, and how does it tie to my childhood? And I’m pretty sure you can just tie most things to your childhood. But daily, daily asking yourselves these things, asking yourselves, like, asking yourself why you’re continuing to make the same decisions or, or just decisions, why are you, like, what is making you operate the way that you are operating right now? Are you operating in survival mode? Are you, like, I don’t know, there’s so many examples. I think my brain is kind of going a million miles an hour right now. This is something that just never ceases to, like, completely mystify me and amaze me and make me extremely excited. I think about it a lot.

It’s also super cool how you can go deeper and deeper and deeper with one, like, tracing it back. Like, imagine you’re tracing something back. You’re like,

“Okay, I just said this. Why did I say that?”

Well, I was feeling angry. You’re like,

“Well, why was I feeling angry?”

Well, they said something here, and it completely, like, triggered, like, an extremely sensitive area in me. And you’re like,

“Well, okay, so you’re probably more hurt than angry.”

And also,

“What did they trigger in you? Where did that come from?”

And then you trace that back to childhood. And then you’re like,

“Well, where in childhood specifically did that happen?”

And then you can trace it to a specific memory of somebody who hurt you or said something extremely damaging that stuck with you. And then, like, you’re like,

“Well, how did I feel then when I was a child when that happened?”

I don’t know, you just totally trace it back farther and farther and deeper and deeper, and you can work through it.

Thinking mode

So what I do now, is not only do I constantly question why I say the things I say, why I react the way I react, how I’m operating, what my motivations are, what is the driving force behind the way that I operate in the world. I do all of that, and then in addition to that, I’m constantly challenging it and rewriting it in my head. And a lot of that you can do, like, with your thoughts, like, talking to yourself in your head with your conscious mind.

The other way you can do it is, which is probably more, more effective, is putting into practice doing the opposite or the healthier thing. And often, if you’re generally unhealthy, doing the healthy thing can often feel extremely uncomfortable, extremely unnatural to you, extremely vulnerable, and it feels like you’re forcing yourself.

Caveat

I have to say right now, now this is not, like, advice coming from a therapist or a trained person, because I’m not sure what a therapist or a psychologist would say about that. I’ve done a lot of my own research, but I think, therapy would have a more gentle approach, whereas I’m like constantly forcing myself into discomfort, but the rewards have been insane. Like, so much change has happened since I’ve put into practice, responding to things differently, being vulnerable when I want to go on the attack or the defense. Usually, I’m on the defense. Be more open about my feelings when the desire is to be as closed off as possible.

I think all of this is not news to a lot of you. I think this is just kind of like a, “Duh, no Sherlock” kind of thing, but I think for other people, it is kind of like a, it’s kind of a push, like, something, a nudge to consider something, because I think a lot of us, and the thing that bothers me is that a lot of people are operating.

Operating mode

A lot of people are operating from all of those instincts, those initial impulsive gut reactions to things, like,

“Oh, you said that. I’m going to respond this way,”

They don’t question it. And they think, like, that is them. That’s not really you. I mean, it is, but like, if you took the time, if you take the time to start looking inwards and questioning all of those reactions and instincts and gut impulses to, like, just act, and all of those things are, like, code that’s been written into your brain when you were a child.

All of these things are learned things, usually to protect yourself. And a lot of the things that you learn to protect yourself as a child are harming you actively in adulthood. You might think that you’re protecting yourself as an adult, and if you actually look at your life, it’s probably often harming you.

For example, if you’re choosing not to be vulnerable with people out of self-protection and fear of rejection, you won’t have close people in your life. That’s harming you.

It is the more scary and vulnerable thing to open up, but at the same time, it’s worth it, because then you have close connections with other people, and they do make you feel safe. And yeah, you’re taking the risk, but, like, you also have to choose that, to see that taking the risk is better than living your life in survival mode.

Again, there’s so many cases where this might not apply, like, for example, if you experience, like, massive, massive trauma, I encourage you a million times to go to actual therapy with, like, a trauma-informed therapist, instead of trying to, like, force yourself through, like, immense discomfort. But for those of us who are, like, functioning, unhealthy people, I think this message is kind of for you.

I think just start questioning and getting to know why you are the way you are, and don’t just believe that, don’t act out of the most impulsive places in your mind. And I’m not really saying that you’re impulsive. I’m just saying that every reaction you have that’s, like, the immediate first reaction, it’s often coming from a specific place from childhood that you learned in childhood.

Subconscious

Anyway, I think I’m kicking a dead horse or whatever that phrase is. And I think, I said what I wanted to say, that a lot of people are not aware of the fact that their subconscious is impacting them every day and controlling them, and they’re not aware of it. Or things like self-protection is controlling them, and they’re not aware of it. Or overriding things like shame and fear, those things are controlling them, and they’re not aware of it.

Our brain #2

It’s so fascinating. And let’s see if I can go all the way back to the first thing I said, like, the most amazing thought is that you are born with a brain, that you have to get to know. You cannot just operate using the brain that you have. You have to, like, dig through it, dig through it, do the questioning, like, do the soul-searching, do the journaling, go to therapy, talk with people, and most of all, introspect and try to just be introspective versus casting blame on everyone around you, saying, like,

“Oh, this person triggered me. You did this, like, you’re triggering this in me, like, you’re making me angry.”

A lot of the time, it’s just a reaction that’s within you from a trigger. Okay, kicking the dead horse. All right, I’m going to be done. I’ve wanted to share that one for a long time.

Concussion

Other news, I have a concussion. I got a concussion, like, September 15th, and it’s been two months now, past two months of concussion symptoms, and these concussion symptoms have gotten very, very, very, very, very bad at times where I can’t function at all.

Then it lifts and gets a little better, and then it goes down again, and then it lifts. It’s kind of like two steps backward, one step forward, honestly. But, I’m making progress, but I guess that’s important to know because I’ve been wanting to get YouTube videos out really badly. I really want to do, like, my year recap, and I’ve wanted to post videos about my trip to Europe. And I’m not able to edit videos or do screen time, which is really sad.

So hopefully I can start uploading more in the next month.

“I was 20 when I first saw this, and now I’m 23 and still have no friends, so all the more reason to give up.”

And I want to address that quickly. I just felt a burst of passion. I want to share some things that I learned on my journey of having no friends or growing up and struggling to make friendships.

You can choose to start on a journey of self-discovery and healing and figuring out your issues, and you can start right now. And if you make that decision to get to know yourself and understand why you are the way you are, and why you’re having the issues that you’re having, and you look at it with curiosity and optimism, you will just naturally make the steps needed to progress in a positive direction over years.

And I know that because that’s what happened. I, for the last like three or four years, I’ve been on that journey of figuring myself out and figuring out why I was struggling so hard to form connections. Because you have to think, if you have no friends, you have to accept that you’re the common denominator. It doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you, per se, but it does mean that there’s something about you, that you have to figure out and change, even if that means just, “Oh, you’re not taking enough action.”

Attachment disorder

So the most important thing I learned over these years is that I have something called disorganized attachment. And yes, I’ve totally self-diagnosed, but it is just so accurate.

I’m sure that somebody else would diagnose me with this. I feel excited about it, because it explains absolutely everything about my struggle. And I feel like if you could relate to the video that I shared, maybe, maybe you have it as well. At least look up attachment styles, and look and try to figure out which one you have because it’s going to explain so much about who you are and how you attach to people, and it gives you a starting point that you can work off of. So that was extremely helpful to me.

Authenticity

The other thing that is equally as helpful, the, the thing that it all came down to is you have to learn how to be authentic. I know for a fact that I was not authentic, and I still struggle. When I try to make friends, I always put on, it’s just a natural, persona of myself, which is a very agreeable, nice, goody-two-shoes, doesn’t swear, person, just a total people-pleaser with almost no personality, a very good listener, as I described. So I was not being me, and to be honest, I didn’t know how to be me, because I had learned to be that way growing up, because that’s what was expected and accepted and, and loved, especially with a Christian background.

You’re trained to be agreeable and nice, and people love you for that. So it took me a lot of time, and I’m still on the journey of getting to know who I am and what I stand for. And this last year, I have learned so much about what my actual opinions are. So if I can give you a first step, it is to start figuring out what you actually think about things, what you actually believe, who you are. Think about every single topic you can, and figure out where you stand on those topics. And it’s totally okay if you change your mind in the future. That’s part of life. That’s good.

But you do need to figure out if you have opinions and start to even communicate your opinions, or at least not be afraid to say something that you think others will disagree with. Because the best thing that I learned is that the more you share of your opinions and your thoughts, the real you, and the more you offend people, the more you’re going to get rid of all of the people in your life that you never should have had in your life in the first place. The people who don’t actually like you, and then you will attract people who are like-minded and who actually love and embrace who you are. I made such a mistake making friends or trying to make friends with people who I did not align with in any way, and I faked myself and pretended to be something I was not, and that was just awful for all of us.

So be yourself, but even deeper than that, start today on a journey of figuring out who you actually are, and then begin to communicate that to the world. Express yourself. There’s kind of an awesome byproduct of this, which is the more you express yourself and the more you embrace the most authentic version of yourself, the more confidence you’re going to feel. You’re going to feel self-confident and self-accepting, and you’ll be like,

“Wow, I’m actually, like, a self-actualized human being, and I know what I stand for, and I have self-respect.”

And that’s going to give you more confidence to actually pursue friendships with the people that you think are so cool. Because I said in my video, the initial one, that I thought I would see people, like, far away and be like,

“That person is so cool. I want to be their friend, but I’m not good enough. I can’t. There’s no way that they would like me.”

And I mean, I, some people misunderstood what I meant when I said “cool,” but what I meant, when I said “cool” is, that it was somebody who I felt like I actually aligned with, somebody who I thought was authentically themselves, and somebody who was exactly how I wanted to be, but I was always intimidated by that kind of person. So the more you are that kind of person, the more you feel confident to actually pursue friendships with the people that you should be friends with.

That’s all I’m going to say for now because I’m out of space, and I’m for sure going to record a new video on this topic because there’s so much to say, but I had to share some of that.

Start on a journey today, and I swear to you that you will get to a better place in a few years. It takes day-by-day action, and you don’t have to fix all of your problems right now. If you just make the decision, that’s all you have to do is make the decision that you’re going to start on a journey of figuring yourself out and working on your issues and, um, going on a journey of self-love and self-acceptance. As long as you make that decision, you’re going to make progress. I promise.

My brother's funeral

It was my brother's burial and funeral, and the day was so much harder than it had to be, because my family is not a safe place. But the brother, who died, was a good brother. He was my closest sibling for most of childhood, and he was always a good brother. He was my partner growing up, and we did most things together. So here I am, grieving him, a good brother, in the presence of another brother, who is and was my abuser for 10 years.

I say that no one can understand what it feels like to be abused and targeted every single day by someone unless you've experienced it. So I finally broke down at the end of this, this dynamic, this family dynamic, that has followed me my entire life, where they're aware of the abuse. They know that it happened, and they expect, they expect me to just forget about it, just move on, just let it go, just forgive him for 10 years of daily abuse.

My brother Josh

I want to say his name because he deserves to have his name spoken and for me to tell you publicly, to tell everyone what he did. His name is Josh. He's my older brother, and from about 8 to 17, when he moved out, 8 to 17 of my life, he bullied me. He was cruel and violent and sadistic. And sadistic is the perfect word because he took great pleasure. He was gleeful, filled with power, when he would violently dominate me and violently exert his control over me. When he would shove me to the ground or kick me, or punch me, or elbow me, when he would drag me across the floor, when he held a knife over my face, he relished this power. He loved it. He loved to abuse.

I remember myself being those ages now. I'm 26 now, and to imagine, to imagine what he put me through when I was just a little girl, like to imagine how much abuse he put through, put a little girl through who did nothing. He, now that I see him as an adult, I can tell that he's pathetic. I can tell that he has no concept, no sense of self. He gains all of his power and all of his sense of self and all of his self-worth from how much control he can exert over others or how much approval he can gain from others through manipulation, because that's what he does to other people. He manipulates other people into liking him. But nothing about him is genuine or good. Nothing about him is real. It's all either an act of manipulation or behind the scenes, straight-up abuse. He was weak. He, a weak man, and because of it, he bullied. He had to bully and abuse a young girl just to get his fix for the day.

All right, this brother, Josh, first when I was about seven, he started sexually abusing me. My brother, and he sexually abused me for two or three years until I was finally able to talk about it. And even when I brought it up to my dad, I was punished as well. I was always disgusted by him. I can't remember a single moment of my life where I liked him. I was disgusted by him through all these years. And when I finally spoke up about it and was able to get that to stop, that's when his physical and verbal abuse began, and that abuse stayed for about the next 10 years. He would target me when we were alone and no one was there to witness it, which was a lot because my mother was absent, and my father was absent. My brother would take my things to exert dominance. He would drag me out of rooms that I was in. He would take pleasure in controlling me in any way that he could, forcing me to leave rooms or kicking me out of the car that he was told to take us to school in. He had no problem being physically violent, yanking me, punching me, kicking me, dragging me. He would chase me, and if he caught me, beat me up. He chased me once for almost a mile in the middle of the night, and I had to sprint into the woods to get away from him. And then found out later that he had locked me out of the house. And he locked me out of the house at night for a good few hours, and it was cold, and I didn't have any warm clothes.

He would steal my things. He was selfish. The verbal abuse, he would call me a bitch. He would tell me daily to go kill myself. He would say everyone would be happier if you killed yourself. He would say nobody likes you, nobody cares about you. He call, he would call me ugly. He would make fun of me for having a period. He would call me like every derogatory word you can think of. But daily, every single minute of being near him, he would target me with either physical control, physical abuse, verbal abuse, verbal humiliation. He wanted to humiliate me in front of others, and that was his fix.

I honestly, I can't really say much else. There's so many stories, but another one was, when he was mad at me once. I was in bed, like almost asleep, and he came into my room in the pitch black and held a huge pocket knife over my face and just held it there for about 10 seconds. And I didn't know what he was going to do. I thought that he might actually do something, and then he left. That's what he liked to do.

But I'd say proof, the only proof that you need of his abuse is that it's been 9 years since I've seen him or spoken to him. He's been dead to me, and I'm literally shaking, shivering, and shaking and quivering, because of being in his presence, because of how much fury and anger I have towards him and how he affects my body because my body knows that anytime he's near, I'm in danger, physical danger. Like to imagine when I was a teenager, I was in constant daily fear of my safety, physical safety. I was being physically, violently attacked on the daily, and nobody stopped it. Nobody stopped it. My mom did not stop it. When when she found out about the sexual abuse, she said boys have urges and he couldn't help himself, and I need to be more understanding and learn to forgive him. I am reminded today that as much as I've tried with my family, with certain members of my family, to be good to them and to pour into them and to develop our relationship, I remember now, why there's this massive, massive, massive wall between us, and it's the fact that they support the man who abused a little innocent girl.

I did nothing to deserve any of what he put me through. He did it because he was weak and pathetic and needed his fix. And the entire family gives him so much love. And just watching, like today, burying the brother that was good to me, burying the one brother, saying goodbye to the brother who is kind and good, and to be left with the abuser and to try to hold it together, to not show any weakness in front of my abuser, to try to keep it together in front of my family who felt like enemies because they all support my abuser. And they judge the way that I act around my abuser. And then because of how much I hate him and the fact that I have not spoken to him in 9 years, more than 9 years, I have not spoken to him. Maybe 10 or 11 years, I stopped speaking to him. I won't look at him, and I won't allow him to look at me. I don't stay in the same room with him. I turn away from him because he doesn't have any right to look at me or be in my presence.

I get judged by my family for how I react around him, and they all think that I'm somehow a bad person because of how I ignore him. So yeah, that dynamic, I couldn't do it anymore. I just left.

He, he gave me panic attacks when I was around him. My nervous system is all out of whack, and I broke down. I was sobbing in the car, and I just remember, I remember that this is how I felt. This is how I felt every single day. This is how I felt every day growing up. I was being abused by him every day and crying and having these breakdowns every day, and no one was there. Nobody cared, and that's how it is today as well. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about what he did to me. Nobody cares, and that's the cruel joke is that abusers get to be happy. Watching him be so happy, watching him joking around and laughing and enjoying himself, and people, everyone surrounding him, laughing at his jokes. Watching everyone, who says that they love me, support and love the person who made my life hell for 10 years.

I can't. I can't be close to any of them. His abuse has affected my entire life. His abuse has gotten in the way of all of my family relationships because if people can support someone who did that to me, I can't be close to them. I can't, and that's something that you only understand if you've been abused like this.

He's now in the military. He's in the military, and I think that he chose the military because he needed another fix of power. He needed to be in a place of power. He needed to be in a place where people would honor him. That's all he seeks is power, control, and validation and honor from others, and he gets it. And that's what grinds my gears. That's what makes me so furious is that such a bad, horrible person can live a successful, happy life and be surrounded by people who laugh at his jokes, and he gets to spend today laughing and enjoying himself and enjoying his family relationships, and everyone believing that he's a good person, because he pretends to be one, and them looking at me like,

"What's your problem? What's wrong with you? You, why can't you just be normal? It's in the past."

Panic attacks

If it was in the past, why am I having a panic attack and a meltdown just because he's here? Why is my body tense and ready to fight him? Why am I ready to literally physically fight him because my body and nervous system remembered everything that he did to me? And there's so much more, so much more, and no one understands except for those who have been abused by a sibling, maybe even just those who have been abused by a brother. And thank God I joined those support groups because now I know that I'm not alone, and this happens. Abusers often get the support of the family. The family supports the abuser, and the victim of the abuse is cast out and treated as the problem. Anyway, his name is Josh, and I can't say enough bad about him.

I can't say enough bad about him. I can't wait to not see him again. I only am forced to see him at family gatherings once a year, once every couple of years, things like this, like funerals. I can't be away from him or weddings. When he's near, I can't smile. I can't laugh. I can't show any emotion. I'm emotionless in his presence, like a robot. I was completely, I was completely outside of myself. It just brings back so many memories of how I existed as a teenager. It brings back, it makes me understand so much of why I am the way I am. He, being with him daily, forced me to, to live outside of myself, to not even be present in my own body. That's the only way that I survived. And for the most part, I just took it. I just took his abuse. I just took it.

There was one time I did fight back when I was young, and I'm proud of myself for doing it. I'm proud, and I can tell, maybe this is the tiny glimmer, I can tell that I have outgrown him. I can tell that he is intimidated by me, and I can see that he is weak. I can see that he's a weak man, and that's why he did it. When you're young and when you're being abused, you kind of feel like they are powerful. You think that they have control over you, but when you grow up, you can see that they're so weak, and that's why they had to target you when you were a child. That's all. I wish there was justice. It's not true that bad people come to bad ends. Often, bad people thrive, and good people, like my brother, good people, like my good, kind brother, they have a bad end, and a hard life. Sometimes good people have a hard life, and bad people have a great life, and there's literally nothing that makes me more angry than that.

Bullying people

Now, whenever I see any bullying happen, I always stand up for the person. If I ever see a child being bullied or abused by a person who reminds me of my brother, I stand up for them and stop it. There's nothing that I hate more than bullies and weak people who target the truly vulnerable. I truly believe that there's nothing good in this person. I think he is bad through and through. I think he takes pleasure in pain. He took pleasure in my pain. He took pleasure when he would break me. He took pleasure in it. That's not just me assuming it. It's me knowing it because of how he reacted. He wanted me to suffer. He wanted me to cry. He wanted to break me. And guess what? I'm not broken. Apart from my family, I am thriving. Apart from this horrible family situation, I have a good life, despite my background, and I'm stronger, and I have a sense of self, and I know who I am, and I know that I'm a good person. I have an identity. I have integrity. I am a good person, and I have always, my entire life, treated other people well. I take care of bugs. If I see a bug that is suffering, I try to save the bug's life because that's how much I care about living beings. And my brother threw a nest of baby birds into a fire. That also says a lot about who he is. All right, somehow talking it out calmed me down, but I had a full-blown breakdown. And again, I had breakdowns like this every day of my teenage life because of him. And every day, the last 9 years of being away from him and not seeing him every day, I am grateful to be away from his abuse. And every day, I try to calm my nervous system from the havoc that he caused me, the absolute havoc of a nervous system constantly on alert of the next attack, the next actual violent physical attack.

It's still 9 years later. Still trying to calm my nervous system and let my nervous system know that it's safe. But being near him retraumatizes me, and it brings me back to where I was. And not only did I feel unsafe, like my body was prepared to be attacked, but I felt so much rage. And I can't, I can't tell you how much rage I feel. So much rage. It's this deep, deep rage because can you imagine the helplessness that you have when someone who's twice as big and twice as heavy and twice as strong is abusing you, and you're just taking it?

Fighting back

One time he shoved me to the floor, and I got up again because I'm strong. And then he shoved me to the floor, and then I got up again, and then he shoved me to the floor, and then I got up again. And this happened a few times, at least five times. Every time I would get up, he would shove me down. Then I finally attacked him, and I'm proud of that story. The only time that I ever fought back.

Honestly, that's another thing, is I'm proud of myself. I'm proud of myself for enduring it, just getting through it. I'm proud of myself for getting through it and being completely and totally alone with someone who didn't care. Like my mother knew of some of the abuse, and she did nothing, nothing, nothing. Because she's a mother, and she remembers when this person was her baby, and she views him as her baby. She didn't do anything for me. She didn't stand up for me. She didn't stop it. She didn't do anything. No one stood up for me, and I just took it.

I'm proud of myself that I was able to endure it for 10 years of my life, being targeted by my own personal bully who completely destroyed me for years, a lot of years. And he is the reason for most of the issues that I still struggle with because, of course, I struggle with a sense of worthlessness and unworthiness when that was happening and nobody stood up. But yeah, and I'm also proud of myself for how far I've come despite it. And even though today felt horrible, at least I can be away from him. I'm an adult, and I've created my own life and my own friendships, and I have a good life, and it's all in spite of him.

All right, that's it. That's it. There's something I just needed to say it. I just needed to get it out. This is the story that I've wanted to tell for my entire life, and one of the biggest reasons I haven't said it is because my mom and my family could disown me for this. Can you believe it? My family could disown me for saying that my brother abused me because they don't want me to tell anyone what happened. They want me to keep it quiet. They want me to shut up and move on and forgive him and be a happy little family where everyone is happy except for me.

All right, I'm not doing that, though. I'm speaking it. I'm speaking it, and I am posting this because this is exactly what they have stopped me from doing and forced me to do my, my entire life. This is exactly what this is, why abusers thrive. It's because people shove it under the rug, and nobody speaks it, and victims who do speak it are punished.

All right, that's it. I'm ending it here.

I'm going to tell you a little bit more about me because, even though I've been on YouTube for something like five or six years, maybe five, I am so frustrated with how videos are very one-dimensional. I've thought about it a lot the last few months as I've noticed most of my viewers make assumptions and fill in the blanks to try to make sense of me, my values, my beliefs, my background, everything. I'm going to try not to make this video about those people, but it made me realize that, as much as I've tried, the platform of YouTube, just how it works, it's almost impossible to try to show your viewers who you are unless you put in a lot of work to show the complexities of a human being.

For example, when I would post sad videos, a bunch of comments are saying, "Oh, she's always sad, she's always miserable, this is why she's always sad and always miserable, let's diagnose her," when what they're missing is me being happy half or most of the time. YouTube doesn't show the range of emotion that you're capable of, and I've also noticed that you can misspeak on YouTube. I've misspoken quite a lot and been embarrassed by some things I've said in the past, and it comes back to haunt you. You can re-watch old videos of yourself and be like, "I don't believe that anymore, I actually disagree with that version of me." But anyway, it all comes to, I would like to share a little bit more of me and help you fill in some of the blanks that you've probably just been filling in on your own incorrectly, and also just in an effort to be more authentic and to show who I am.

It's part of the mission of my channel. The mission of my channel is to share my story, to share everything about my story as much as I can, and to show the hopeful side.

Childhood: my father

So, as with all my stories that I share, I'm going to start at the very beginning because that's just easiest for me, and I'm going to try to share the important things.

I grew up in the middle of the countryside, very secluded from everyone, in a huge family, and I'm the second to youngest. The family was very heavily Christian, very, very, very conservative, pretty much the most conservative you can imagine. My dad was the patriarch, or I could say dictator. He made all the rules and expected full submission, and he got it from everyone. We, as children, feared him. I feared him. I was terrified of him. So, yeah, I have a lot of positive memories of growing up in the country. I basically have spent every day of my childhood, I was going to say life, but I spent every day of my childhood in the forest or in nature, walking around. Everything I did for fun and to play was outside in nature, so I feel very connected to nature, and it's just my happy place. I'm very much still like a country girl on the inside, even though I feel like I've grown in different ways. I can't say I'm like a wholehearted country girl anymore.

Let's see, I'm trying to think about more childhood stuff. The thing that I feel like I want to share, and I'm going to do a video on this at some point in the future, so I'll try not to talk about it too much, is the Christian upbringing. That's been a huge instrumental part of who I am and what makes me me, and my struggles and trauma and positives and negatives, and a lot of my mental framework, even though I have changed so much. I don't know where to begin. We weren't allowed to watch TV or movies. We weren't allowed to listen to any modern music apart from classical. Well, that's not modern, but yeah, we could only listen to classical or bluegrass music, not even Christian rock. I grew up wearing skirts and dresses, usually to my ankle, and loose shirts. I was tiny, and I would wear large or extra-large shirts. My sister and my mom wore head coverings because that's how conservative we were.

I grew up in the IBLP, which is the Institute of Basic Life Principles, and it was led by Bill Gothard. There's a documentary about it called "Shiny Happy People" that you should check out if you want to learn about my background, or just go on YouTube and do some research. I have found that to be mostly traumatizing. There's way too much in that, actually, but I think you should just do some research if you're curious. Do some research and learn about how people become messed up for life from it. It messed up my view of the world, my understanding of the world. It messed up my understanding of men, women, relationships, and dynamics. I was raised to be a good, submissive, meek, quiet wife and was told that that's what men want. There's so much to this, I'm not going to do it justice, but basically, growing up out of it after moving out at 19, I had to unlearn everything and then relearn it again, mostly as a young adult.

The point of sharing this is to share a little more of the darker parts of my story so that the lighter parts are hopeful, because I know that I'm not the only one who has had the same struggles and gone through the same things. I know that there are still people in the thick of it, in the thick of the struggle, who I would love to help. My mind always goes to young teenagers and especially young girls just like me.

My childhood was, all in all, pretty bad, pretty negative. It could have been worse, but it was pretty bad because my family life and family were bad. Your family is supposed to be, and your home is supposed to be, your safe place where you can escape from all the stress of the world. Your parents are supposed to be a safe place or people who you can turn to when you're struggling, ideally. I know most of us didn't have it ideal, but people also say, "Oh, it must be so nice to have so many siblings, it must have been so fun growing up, so many playmates," and all of that. In my experience, it was just a house of lots of bullies, lots of verbal and physical abuse, and more abuse. It was really dog-eat-dog and survival of the fittest. You either got stronger or you got broken. I've slowly begun to realize that it was such a harsh and horrible environment, where everybody was turned against each other and fighting like dogs, very viciously. There was no love or care or safety. Those words were not in my home.

Parent's divorce

I'm realizing as an adult that it wasn't just that my siblings were the devil and horrible, because they were all children, but that's still not an excuse. I'm never going to excuse abuse because of that. A large part of it was connected to the fact that my dad was terrifying and emotionally just completely unavailable and cold. My mom and dad's marriage was extremely volatile, fiery, and explosive, and at times abusive in front of the kids. We all witnessed lots of screaming, crying, and just this horrible environment. I remember as a child, I viewed it very numbly, and I still have a lot of work to work through it. There was just a lot of drama there, and eventually, my parents divorced when I was seven. Because of the divorce, and then as the divorce was going on throughout my entire childhood, this lasted for a good seven years. They were fighting for like seven years in courts or something, fighting over the kids, fighting over everything. It was extremely messy, dramatic, and horrible. I was about to say they hated each other, but no, it was really my dad who hated my mom deeply. Again, as an adult, I realized it was because he was hurt and didn't know what to do with it. He didn't work on himself his entire life. He had so many issues because he had a hard childhood too, but he definitely passed down the trauma that was handed to him because he didn't stop it.

Both of my parents were very distracted throughout my entire childhood, fighting, and it just felt so neglectful to me. I mean, I'm the seventh of eight kids, so at this point, who can take care of that many kids? Because of abuse mainly from my siblings and nobody stopping it, nobody standing up for me, my parents not being there at all to care, I can't remember a single time where I went to either of my parents and told them, "Oh, so and so punched me again," or "They dragged me across the floor," or did this or that. I never went to my parents because they weren't there.

I was always, as a child, seeking my dad's approval. I absolutely adored him as a child because what child doesn't? I saw him as almost a godlike figure because he came across as if he knew everything about the world, about religion. He would do Bible studies with us every single morning, seven days a week, one chapter of the Bible. So we went through the Bible a few times in my childhood. I'm very familiar with it.

Because of all of that, altogether, I grew up and didn't understand why I was this way. As a teenager, and it's followed me through my 20s but has gotten so much better, I felt so much deep self-hatred, self-loathing. I can't even explain how much I hated myself.

• I hated everything about myself.
• I hated my personality.
• I hated how I looked.
• I felt completely worthless.
• I felt like I wasn't worthy of protection.
• I wasn't worthy of being in any room that I was in. I felt so inferior to everyone around me.
• I felt invisible, and because of that, I felt so much anger, resentment, negativity, and misery.

I was so miserable.

Anxiety

Another huge part of this that I didn't even cover, which is more than half of it, I would say, was that I was struggling with anxiety, and my family didn't believe in mental health, so they never acknowledged what it was to me. They probably didn't even know. They just thought that I was weak or that I was pathetic or that I couldn't do things. That was one of the main reasons that I hated myself, because I was dealing with severe, severe, severe anxiety, like general anxiety and social anxiety that hit me like a truck and completely ruined... I mean, it just took away so many opportunities and so many chances.

I didn't know what it was. I didn't know anything about mental health at the time because, again, we didn't learn about it. I didn't have access to the internet except for at school, and that was huge. When I had anxiety, I still do, but when I was dealing with it, I thought that I was the only one. I thought it was just me. There was something wrong with me in the entire world, just me. Because of the anxiety, I felt really hopeless that my life would ever turn out well because, as I wrote in my journals, everything I wanted and everything I wanted to do, everything that was important to me, required bravery, and I wasn't brave. I was fearful and terrified, and I couldn't do anything. I felt like I was completely incapable of pursuing my dreams. When I was 18, I was completely debilitated, and I felt like I couldn't move out because I was too scared to try to get an apartment on my own. Everything was terrifying: buying a car on my own, getting a job on my own, doing interviews. All of it was just debilitating.

Understanding anxiety

Fast forward, I guess that's kind of my background. That's kind of why I made the channel, because of how deeply I was struggling with childhood wounds, anxiety, social anxiety, not knowing what anything was, negativity, self-hatred, horrible self-image, no confidence, all of that. Then to have found myself, I hate saying that, but slowly since 19 years old and gaining access to the internet is honestly a huge part of my story. Since researching anxiety and researching self-awareness and researching all the personal growth, self-awareness, all of that stuff, psychology, the more I learned about that and the more I looked inwards and tried to figure out all of my trauma and everything, the more I grew as a person. There are so many lessons that I learned along the way that I can never keep up sharing them. I've shared like two things a year here, when I'm learning things every day that are just mind-blowing, having epiphanies and connections, and things are making sense. I'm growing and blossoming and transforming as a person.

I wanted to honor that past self and to honor anybody who's where I was. I still struggle with lots of these things, so I'm still with you. I'm not saying, "Oh, I was that, I'm not anymore, I'm all great now." I'm still with you in it. I like to say, "in the trenches." I'm there with you. But to honor you and to honor me back then, I want to say that I was a very intelligent teenager, and I was extremely self-reflective and mature for my age. I was always thinking very deeply and always trying to figure out myself and the world. I was very, very, very self-reflective. So that wasn't the problem. The problem was you only know as much as you know when you are 14, 15, 16.

You only have a brain that's 14 years old. A brain that's 14 years old, it doesn't, it can't know more than it knows in those 14 years. When you're those ages, even at 20, you think, "I should have it figured out. I should know this. I should know how to solve this problem." But you don't, and that's okay. It's not shameful in the least because I believe strongly that you can be extremely intelligent and self-aware, and self-focused, not in a bad way. I'm like self-reflective, that's what I was trying to say. You can be all of those positive things, but at the same time, you can't know. Sometimes you just don't know how to solve the problems, and that's where it comes in to learn, to research, to listen to people who are older than you, to learn about psychology. It's the most important thing you can ever do. There are so many important things, there's just so much about me. To try to get people to understand where I'm coming from, there's so many things I just assumed that people would know, but there's no reason they would know that.

People-pleaser

I wanted to also say, and I'll go into this later, but because of my childhood and family, I developed this self-image because they put it on me. My self-image, I knew it was wrong and something was wrong with it, but they placed upon me that I was the black sheep. I became that way because you had to put on your armor or be destroyed. Anyone who's from an abusive, physically abusive environment or family, you know what that feels like. But I think other people don't know what this feels like, to completely build yourself into this alternate version of yourself that is not you at all. You just build these giant, giant walls, hard as stone, around you to protect yourself, but it turns you very spiky, and you don't like that person. But as I moved, like right when I moved out from my family, I didn't have to be that person anymore who was just surviving, fighting for survival. I could just try to be me. But the only problem was because of the Christian upbringing, the conservative Christian being drilled into me, spankings every night, and because of the abuse and that turning me into this hard-as-stone character, I didn't know who I was really. I had to discover it, I had to learn.

On top of it, it was so strange. I was like this hard-as-stone person with my family, but with everyone else growing up, I was a huge, massive people-pleaser and terrified of rejection. So I just gave everybody what they wanted and tried to be the version that they wanted me to be. In terms of romantic relationships, which I just had one at that time, I just gave him everything. I just tried to be the perfect woman and gave him everything that I thought a man wants. So, so many versions, so much of me just trying to survive. Each of those personas were just me trying to survive. In school, I was a people-pleaser, or sorry, not people-pleaser, sorry, like for the teachers, I was such a teacher's pet, which I don't quite regret, because I really liked the teachers and I got along with them really well. But at the same time, I was trying so hard to be a perfect, straight-A, straight-laced student. It was interesting because I grew up in a household where my dad drilled it into me to be the perfect, straight-A person, the goody two-shoes, the straight-laced, morally perfect. So I thought that that's what society wanted me to be, and that's how you're liked and accepted. In school, it made me somewhat disliked because I came across as pretentious or better than you, but really it was just me going off of what I knew at the time.

Self-protection

So yeah, all of those personas I had to break through in my 20s, starting from 19, but in my early 20s. I did that by trying to break through the impenetrable walls and coldness and self-protection that I had, where I felt like vulnerability was total and complete weakness. I started in my early 20s opening up to people very, very slowly. It's like doing the exact thing that you are terrified to do. You're most afraid of showing yourself and being rejected and told that you are what you think you are: worthless and something's wrong with you. But I knew somewhere in me, and maybe it's from what I learned, that the only way through it was to become vulnerable and put down those walls. I can get into this so much more eloquently in a different video, but that was such a huge reason why I couldn't make friends. At the time that I recorded that video and had those struggles, I really expected that if somebody cared about me, they would care enough to slowly tear down those walls and that guardedness. But that's not anyone's responsibility. That's almost as if people are rescuing you. The only person responsible for doing that work is you. If you're super avoidant and you have those walls, you need to work on learning how to become more vulnerable, even though it's terrifying.

The way that I did it was I started sharing tiny little pieces of myself with people, my true self, the things that I kept hidden. But it wasn't like these massive, huge secrets or anything mind-blowing. It was just this tiny little fragment of me. When I shared it, every time there was positive reinforcement to it. People appreciated it. People appreciate vulnerability. They appreciate seeing the authentic you. People don't appreciate perfection. They don't appreciate fakeness. They appreciate flaws. People really like when you share your flaws and your weakness. It makes people feel close to you. So yeah, throughout the years, I've worked so hard, and I still do it constantly, sharing vulnerability with people because vulnerability is powerful and it's brave. It's the most brave thing you can do.

Then, to work on my people-pleaser-personality and the goody two-shoes personality, those were just cover-ups. That wasn't who I was. Again, I've just been working so hard the past many years to become more authentic, to first of all get in touch with who I am by figuring out what my opinions are, what my beliefs are, what my values are, what I value in the world, and also learning to accept myself where I am and not compare myself to anyone else.

To embrace who I am, to embrace my personality, all of those are just choices that you make. Through that and authenticity, I've been working on just... I mean, I feel like I'm pretty much... well, maybe I haven't completely tackled it, but I'm so much better with that people-pleasing nature. I think I'm still struggling a lot, trying to put boundaries in place with dating relationships, romantic relationships, basically just learning that everything we learned to survive in childhood was wrong. What we learned to survive in childhood does not help us in adult healthy relationships. So yeah, I'll just end that. I feel like if I listen to this again, I'm going to be disappointed in myself for not saying that eloquently enough or clear enough, but that's a lot of my background in why I share things vulnerably. I think people don't realize that it's so not me to do that. It's becoming more me, but it's so out of my comfort zone and so terrifying to do. But it's a challenge to myself, and it's facing fear.

That's another thing. As far as the anxiety, another thing that really bothers me like crazy is when people say things so out of touch about me, saying that I live according to fear and I'm terrified of everything and I let my anxiety control me and I don't challenge myself, etc. When the entire point of my channel and the entire point of my life and my goals in life are to constantly face fears and challenge myself and do the thing that I'm most afraid of. That's not difficult to do because I'm scared of everything. Luckily, the more you face it, the more you can teach your brain that it's not as scary as your brain thought it was. Your brain fears the unknown, so once you make it known, it's less scary. That's a huge nugget right there, take it. So I challenge myself constantly, and I've grown as a person. I face my fears all the time. I'm a very fearful person, but at the same time, I'm a very, very, very brave person. Every day I get more in touch with strength.

Yeah, there's just so many things that I've learned that are so powerful and so helpful that I still need to share. I always think about all the YouTube videos I need to record, but there's so many, there's too many. I really want to record videos on building confidence, building self-love, building self-acceptance, building self-esteem, inferiority complex, self-hatred, misery, depression, negativity, positivity, all of that.

Self-improvement burn out

What else was I going to say? Oh yeah, in my early 20s, like at 20, 21, maybe 22, I went so hard into the self-improvement stuff. I was really into it: self-improvement, self-improvement, challenging myself, pushing myself, being productive. I got so burnt out, and I realized that it was so bad for me because it just makes you feel like crap all the time, makes you feel not good enough all the time. I realized also that it wasn't even what I wanted. I didn't want to be in a constant productivity mindset. I actually value peace more, and serenity, and slowness. So I got out of that, and actually that caused me a huge amount of depression when I was really into the self-improvement stuff. When I got out, I focused more on self-acceptance and self-love, meeting yourself where you are. You are good enough where you are. I made up this quote that I shared that I really liked, which is... sure, I'm just paraphrasing, I forgot what it was, but sure, you can become a better person using sheer self-hatred. You can use self-hatred as a motivator to improve, but if you use self-acceptance and self-love and embrace yourself where you are, you will bloom. There's such a huge difference between using negative motivators to change yourself into something that you think is worthy of love, and loving yourself as you are.

Yes, of course, there's a balance. Find the balance. Yes, self-improvement is needed, and for me, the most valuable thing for everybody, please everybody listen, the most important thing is self-awareness. Self-awareness and figuring out your trauma, your triggers, and what everything means internally. Figure out all of that internal crap. I also learned that people are not very self-aware. Lots of people, and this is constantly shocking to me, I feel like people don't know themselves. I love everybody who watches my videos and I appreciate them, but I do get comments from people in their 60s and 70s saying, "Wow, what you just said, I've never thought of that before, I've never heard that." That just makes me feel like people are not thinking enough about the important things. The important things are what's going on internally in yourself and in other people, what's going on beneath the surface of every single interaction.

Misogyny and gay people

Okay, so many little talks there, but I want to share a couple more things about me. I was very conservative growing up, and that made me just a follower, just accepting whatever was given to me, which was just complete and total indoctrination. I was very misogynistic. I hated women. I believed all women were below men and should submit to men. I was very Republican, even though I didn't know what much of it meant. Those two things slowly shifted as I got older. It's been so strange to pull out the internalized misogyny and hatred towards women, to pull that out and work through it and change. I've gotten to such a good place where I no longer hate women. I actually really love women. This is so crazy to say, but it's just been the last two years where I can genuinely, genuinely love and appreciate strong, powerful women and admire them and respect them and see them as like, "Wow, you're incredible, like goddess energy," all of that stuff. To really admire women when I was taught to look down on strong or powerful or independent women and to be disgusted by them, all of that has changed. I've worked through that.

That's kind of more of my background. Very conservative, very Republican, and then gradually shifting my thoughts and opinions and everything to be more what I consider rational and loving and normal, not to be on the fringes of craziness. I don't even associate myself with those old beliefs because I don't even think those were me. I think it was purely what was indoctrinated into me. I feel like the only thing I've done is just get in touch with who I've always been and what I've always believed. I've never really gotten into this because it's so uncomfortable for me, but I was taught to be very anti-gay.

As a teenager, I just was, but I didn't understand anything about it. People - we didn't really talk about it. Nobody explained what it was like. We were just taught to do it, and as children who love their parents and think their parents know everything, that's just how it was. But I met a few people who were gay, who were our neighbors or people who helped us out or this or that. And I remember, even though my beliefs said one thing, I was like, 'This doesn't make any sense.' Like, this person seems like a really nice person, and I think I even remember telling my dad that. I was like, 'I don't understand it - they're really, they just seem like a really good person.' So those things weren't connecting, and it was literally just exposure to people that were different that helped me to understand. Then, of course, I've done my own research on it, and now I feel really good about my understanding, and of course I can get better, but totally changed on that obviously. I feel like lots of guilt and shame for my previous perspective, but I can't be too hard on myself because I never believed it - I was just... it was just forced down my throat as a child. People believe anything that is told to them from like infancy - your brains are very malleable and you're very... like you will believe whatever is told to you when you're a baby and growing up. That's just sadly how it is.

Animals

I love animals - love animals, and animals are very close to my heart, as well as anything nature and environment related. I need to think... I'm an artist. I feel like people don't know these things, but I'm an artist. That's my biggest strength - Art. I love music; music is so powerful to me. I'm very... I was going to say emotional, but that's not the word. I am not emotional, but I do feel emotions very deeply. I also feel like I'm like the perfect mix - to me, I really do. I hate saying that, but I do think I'm like a really good mix of about 50/50, where I have like 50% really strong powerful emotion that I can experience the world through, and then another 50% I'm very very rational and logical, and that keeps my emotions in check. That's what I mean, and I really appreciate that.

Thinking

Intellectual stuff - that made me sound super intelligent, but my favorite thing to do in life, my favorite thing about life, is to think. I love thinking. I love anything that is intellectual, anything learning and thinking about anything regarding the brain, psychology, mental health, relationships, anxiety, and religion. I study religion a lot, and by study, I just mean listen to a lot of experts on it. I spend so much of my time listening to intellectuals - all different kinds, all different perspectives - just trying to make sense of the world and learning as much as I can, figuring out my own perspective on the world.

I was taught growing up to be ashamed - this is kind of interesting - like they want you to be like a traditional woman and be like 'accept that you're a woman' and 'be a woman' and be feminine and submit and blah blah blah, but Christians forget something. Conservative Christians make being a woman feel like a curse. It feels horrible because you're like, 'Why do the boys get to do everything that I want to do and everything that is fun, and why do they have so much more freedom than me, and why is the only role of mine to be this specific way?' Like, I hate being a woman, I hate being feminine - femininity is weak, that's another thing they teach you. I was bullied by my brothers and other boys for being a girl and being feminine. I was bullied and shamed and made fun of like being a girl is bad, it's weak, it's pathetic - like 'you're just a girl, you're stupid because you're a girl.' So all of that...

So I was really ashamed of femininity, and can you tell that I've learned to embrace it? I don't even know what I was showing you - I was trying to show you my room. So that's another part of my journey: it's been accepting my femininity and embracing it and feeling the strength in it and admiring the femininity in other women. And I'm not at all shaming the masculinity in women because I think all of us are a mix, and I love different masculine things. That's always going to be a part of me. But yeah, really embracing like the very girly, very feminine part of me as well - that's been huge in my growth, like accepting the color pink. I have fully accepted pink because pink has always been my favorite color, but for about 10 years, I used to say my favorite color was green because I was ashamed of pink. But now I can say that pink is my favorite color and green is my second favorite color.

Also, like I'm going to get in hot water for saying 'feminine' and 'masculine' - just take those terms lightly. I actually have a very complex understanding of it that doesn't make sense, but I understand like the nuance of like you shouldn't call anything really feminine or masculine because what do those words mean? Like you can't just associate strength with masculinity because that infers that femininity isn't strong - like women are strong as well, so it's not just a masculine trait. So obviously there's a lot of complexity, but YouTube doesn't make any room for complexity. People just fill in the blanks.

Dry humor, acting, writing

I have a kind of a dark sense of humor. I really love dry humor - I love dry humor. The drier the better, as dry as possible - like you think the person is serious, that's my favorite kind of humor, and that's my sense of humor usually. I actually have a pretty good sense of humor and I love humor, but a specific kind. I love sarcasm as well, very sarcastic. I don't know why that's important to me.

I would love to be an actress - I would love to be an actress. It's still one of my goals. Like my dreams - my other dream is to be a YouTuber.

Oh, I'm a writer as well - that's something else people don't know. I'm a writer. I love to write short stories, and I would like to write a book. I've had book ideas in my head, like the same book idea since I was a teenager, and it's stayed with me this whole time, and I've written some of it, but I would really love to do that.

What is a feminist?

I think I'll just end it there. I feel like there's other things I've missed, but I just wanted to talk a little bit about childhood and background and try to add some complexity and some nuance and some understanding to my perspectives and to like... like show that when I say I'm a feminist, like what does that mean? It means something so different than what people assume. It comes from a place where having so much internalized hatred towards women and to myself, that to be a feminist and to like embrace that - all it is is saying like women can be proud to be women. We are strong, we are brave, we are everything powerful, we can be independent, we are as good as men. We are as good as men - that's it.

Then there's other things too, there's so much, but I mean... because the other thing I didn't even touch on is that... Who's here? Who's here right now? Has anybody made it? Comment 'flower' if you made it this far of me just babbling.

I really care about men as well, and I've never talked about this really either, but hopefully you can sometimes sense this because I have a lot of male viewers. But there's so much complexity to this as well. I really care about men's rights, I care about men's mental health. I really, really, really want to see a world where men can be free to show emotion and to cry and to show weakness without being rejected, to show vulnerability. I want men to hug each other and big bear hugs, and I want men to just really embrace that fullness of being a human with no shame. I hate all of the pressures that men feel to be a man, and I do think that a lot of it is put on them by other men, but I'm learning that also I guess women do put some pressure on men as well to act a certain way - but not me, and not all women, and not most people. I think most people really want to see a world where men are safer, which is such a weird thing to say, but like where men don't have to be so afraid to show themselves and fear rejection.

My little nephew

Yeah, there's a lot to that because I mean there's so much like men struggling with mental health, depression... like a lot of suicides are men, most I think, something like that. But all those things, and I think of... whenever I think of like men that I care about, I always think of my little nephew who's very young. My little nephew is so sweet and big-hearted and just the most precious golden boy - and like golden as in like the 'stay golden, ponyboy' - but he... I just... it breaks my heart and I'm so worried for him that he will be bullied and people will hurt him because he is sweet and wonderful and has emotion and is deep and intelligent, and like I'm so worried to see him close himself off and be told that he can't be himself.

Happyness

Anyway, that's that. That's a lot of rambling. Let's see how this goes - comment the secret word if you made it, okay? Oh sorry, sorry, just one more thing I want to say really quick: People accuse me of not being happy, but I just want you guys to hear that I was struggling so much and so deeply when I was a teenager. That's when I really needed help, and I was struggling so much, but I'm so much better. And I'm still struggling in a lot of ways, but I feel so much more capable than I did, and that's been through only a lot of personal work. It doesn't just happen - there's a lot of work that you have to do, but I feel more capable and I'm very well. And I post a lot of sad things or me struggling on bad days because I think it's important to share that so other people can relate to it, but also know that when I'm having good days and happy times and good memories, I actually just forget to press record because I'm so busy living my life and experiencing those happy feelings and good days and good memories and just living life that I just forget to record it and I forget to post it.

So I'm sorry, but just know that I'm happy like 65% of the time, maybe... maybe 85% of the time I'm doing pretty well. And then there's obviously dark times and there's so many struggles behind the scenes - like just know that people are so much more than their 15-minute YouTube video. Let's try not to assume - the assumptions are killing me!

Okay, that's it, bye! I hope you have a good night - I'm recording this at night so I'm going to say night. Have a good night, thanks for listening to me ramble. Yeah, I'll see you next time and I hope you got to know me a little bit more, and I hope very much that you found some sort of nugget from this, from all of this. Did you find any nuggets? Let me know, right? Bye!

The one

Oh, it’s so annoying when people say, “Stop talking about ‘the one.’ There is no ‘the one,’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Whenever I say “the one,” I think I’ve said this before, whenever I say “the one,” I’m just saying whoever I’m going to marry in the future, whenever it happens. There’s only one person I’m going to marry. Okay, that’s what I mean. So the one I’m going to be with, the one I’m looking for, that person, whoever that is, I’m not looking for one person, like I don’t think that there’s one person in the world right now. Well, I mean, there is. I mean, if you think about it in those terms, like you are going to walk down the aisle to one person, so that person is the one that I’m looking for. That makes perfect sense to me. I understand that there are, and I agree and believe that there are several people out there who you can have, like, beautiful relationships with and who you can make it work with and who you can connect with.

I do, since we’re on the topic, I do believe that there is—I’m not sure about one person in the entire world, but I think like there are, like, there’s no chance of you finding them or there’s very little chance of you finding them, but I think there are, like, a good five or 10 or 15, like a low number of your basically perfect match, and they’re probably scattered all around the world, and you’ll probably never even meet them.

But I do know of couples, like, and it’s so rare, like this is rare, where you know of a couple who is so right for each other, so perfect together, and they’re so in love for 50, 60, 70 years, like they found that perfect match. I’m not, I don’t even really care about finding, I mean, I would ideally love to find the perfect match, but I don’t really care to find the perfect match. I think that love is a very strong, very powerful thing. So I believe that if I found someone who aligned—I’m just, I’m mostly just talking for my subconscious right now, like I need to think about this better — but I’m looking for someone who also values love more than anything else in life, and I think if I found someone else who valued love as the highest priority, then we can make it work.

Not in love

In my life, I’m not, not desperately in love with anyone, which is a very freeing feeling. And I’ve only had these moments of life, very short periods of time, because I usually have an unrequited crush for years and years and years. Right now, I’m as single as a Pringle, and it makes me hopeful and a little bit hopeless at the same time, because all my girlfriends are married now, except for one. I still have one single friend, but the rest of the girls, that I know, are married.

When I was younger, it was easier for me to hold on to hope that it would just happen. And then as I’ve gotten older, I started to be forced to see that it’s not going to happen unless I change, probably.

I think I recorded this already, when I was 23, my 23 and single video, that like I can’t expect someone to approach me when I’m so closed off, because I’m shy. And I can’t expect to meet someone, if I’m not willing to approach people in any way or put myself out there in any way and be brave.

Turning away at a gas station

Like, just today, I saw someone at a gas station, and he saw me, and he obviously thought I was pretty, and I could tell, and I thought he was cute, handsome as well, and I could tell 100% that he was wanting to talk to me and that he was going to talk to me, and he kept, like, staring at me, and, like, it just really felt like he was this close to talking to me, but because I felt that something about me is that I just feel insane amounts of fear of men, terror, terror. I’m terrified of men. So when I felt like he was going to talk to me, I was just like, “Nope, nope,” like immediately, like turned my entire body away. I was doing everything I could to hide, even though I wanted him to talk to me. I know this makes men so mad at me. You shouldn’t be mad, like, they’re like,

“What, what do you want? You want men to talk to you or you don’t?”

Well, it’s called being shy, for men and women. If you are shy or scared of the opposite gender because you have no experience with the opposite gender, then yeah, you don’t want them to talk to you, but at the same time, you desperately want them to talk to you. It’s really hard, and it’s the same for you. Like, you want to talk to them, but you can’t.

Talking to men

Every year that I get older, I’ve been working on this. I have been working so hard to stop being scared. Like, no, I’ve been fighting the fear and fighting the shyness and trying to gain experience with men in all capacities, like being, like, friendships, conversations, interacting with men in general. But even though I’m pretty good at conversing and interacting with men in a non-romantic way, I am terrified and frozen when I am in a romantic situation with a man.

I feel I’ve been learning things about the world and men and dating that I didn’t want to know or I didn’t want it to be true, and they’re all, like, unfortunate things, disappointments. But I think one of the things I learned is, that everyone is on dating apps for a different reason, and they’re in a different phase of life, and this is fine. It’s whatever. It’s really okay. Like, it’s the same as making friends. I’ve learned is that you have to be understanding that everybody’s in a different place in life.

Dating apps

But I mean, at the same time, if you’re not ready for dating, then you shouldn’t be on dating apps. I think. But I just kind of assumed, and it’s a normal assumption, I thought that anyone who is looking to date or anyone who’s on a dating app and says, “Long-term relationship” on their dating profile, that they’re looking for love and a long-term relationship and probably marriage down the road. Like, I thought that’s what everybody’s looking for, but it’s not. They, like, I guess men, a lot of them, I found, even though I tried to filter out these ones, a lot of them are just looking for, I don’t know, I was about to say something, but I don’t know, something like fun, like they’re just looking to have fun and, like, I tried to filter out everybody who was just looking for, like, casual hookups, but even in the ones that listed, like, looking for a long-term relationship, you have to be something, I don’t know what it is, but, like, I was trying to figure out what it is.

Please, help, help me. What’s wrong with the way that I’m dating and the things that I’m thinking about that make me so mad, like angry and frustrated, is that I think some, this is just a hypothesis, and I could be wrong, I think men are looking for, like, women that are super, super fun and, like, flirty. I just had, like, a really sweet interaction with ladies and a dog, so that was nice. Makes my heart full. No, honestly, sweet interactions with strangers always make me emotional, like very, very emotional, like almost crying, because it just, like, fills me with this really overwhelming positive emotion.

Men are flirty. I’m not saying this as a fact. This is just the impression I’ve gotten, and it makes me really angry and frustrated because, well, let me just say that men, I think, are, in general, looking for a girl to be extremely, like, bubbly and flirty and, especially flirty, to have some sort of, like, flirtatious energy on the first date.

I think I’ve said all this before, but I cannot do that. I will not do that. I refuse. I will talk to them. I talk to these men normally, like normal, the way that I would talk to a friend on a first meeting. Like, I mean, oh, crap, yeah.

Hike went wrong

So, an example is, I went on a first date with someone, and we actually went on a hike. Don’t yell at me. Not supposed to be alone with men. I don’t know. It just, it was fine. We went on a hike, and near the end, he lunged at me. Like, no, no. I was sitting next to him, and everything was fine. We were having a pleasant, friendly conversation, and everything was good. And then, all of a sudden, he tries to kiss me, and it’s a first date.

Which, this hasn’t actually happened a lot because I never put myself in those situations, but I have a mix of emotions, and none of them are positive about that. Like, it’s totally fine, totally, totally, totally fine, and okay if there are women who enjoy having a first kiss on a first date. That’s totally fine. No judgment. But I am not that person, and I never will be. Ever. I will never kiss someone on the first date. That is so intimate and intense and crazy to imagine kissing someone, who you’ve known for like one hour. I don’t get it. There are too many people on this path.

Another thing is, I think that men are looking to get physically intimate way, way, way, way sooner than I want to, like things like kissing and being physically intimate. I’m happy to do, and like more than happy, like I want it and love it later.

Flirting

I think, basically, I rollerbladed more and got my thoughts together. It comes down to, I think I’m not what men are expecting. I’m not what they bargained for. So when they swipe on me on a dating app, I’m aware that I look relatively pretty, and I think they’re expecting something from my face. They expect me to be a specific way, and I end up being awkward, shy, socially anxious, nervous, not flirty in the least. And I refuse to be there. I hate flirting. I hate it. I don’t know how to do it. I hate it. I don’t even know the purpose. I think flirting is so stupid. I think it’s so stupid. I really think it’s the stupidest thing. Because what’s the purpose? Like, you’re supposed to be super, like, they tell you you’re supposed to be super fun and flirty on a first date. But if you’re looking for your husband, you’re looking for that person who’s going to stick by you no matter what, and you’re going to stick by them no matter what. But you’re looking for that ride-or-die person. You’re looking for the person who’s going to see you at your worst, and the person who you are going to be committed to for the next, like, lifetime, your entire lifetime. So to me, flirting is so shallow and fake. It’s so fake. I’m really mad.

Dating

I think, a lot of people view dating as, like, just something to do for fun, and, like, they view the other person as, just like, someone to hang out with and have a fun time with. And I’m not, like, I am, I was about to say, I’m not that, but I am that. I am fun. It just doesn’t work in this kind of scenario.

I would give anything to meet my husband as a friend first. I would give anything to make it happen that way. I don’t know how to do that. Like, it is never, I don’t know if it’s ever happened, where I’ve met a potential suitor or, like, a perfect person, in any sort of friend way.

So, anyway, so about dating. Like I said a long time ago, and I meant it, that I was never going to, like, online date again, and I wasn’t going to app date. But I’m always conflicted because there’s something wrong with trying, or there’s something wrong with just sitting back and waiting for something to happen to you. Because that’s kind of what I’ve been doing overall is just, like, waiting to meet the one, which I thought was going to happen. I thought it was going to happen, like, it happens for everyone, right? Like, most people get married, and most people get married pretty young.

I realized, or I decided that it was the wrong way to do it, to just sit and wait for someone to come along, because that’s not working. And so, I decided to, like, take things into my own hands, and if I want to be in a relationship, or if I want to meet that person, I have to go and find them. So that’s what I’ve been doing, and I tried, and now I’m completely frustrated again because I’m realizing that people on dating apps, a lot of them don’t even seem to be looking for love, or they don’t want to do it in the same way.

I’m really behind on how dating works, and I don’t want to date the way that most people want to date. I think where it gets too romantic and too physical too quickly.

This was another thing that I wish I realized, that the way that I fantasize about love and about finding that person, I hate to say, could be unrealistic. But before I say unrealistic, I am out there. I always tell myself this, like, when I start to feel hopeless, I say,

“Well, I’m here, and I’m here in the world, and there’s one of me, and there has to be more than one.”

Like, just the fact that there’s me, there’s pretty much no, there’s nothing in the world where there’s just one of it. And in psychology, you learn that everything is grouped together, like there’s groups of everything, even the, the weirdest, like, fetish or something. There’s thousands of people who are in that category, even if you think that it’s just you. So anyway, that’s a weird example.

Romance

But for me, it’s that I’m romantic, and I value love more than anything in the world, and I am looking for a very specific thing, and a specific kind of relationship, and it’s not for everyone, and I’m learning that it’s not what everybody is looking for, even in, like a relationship scenario, like not everybody is looking for what I’m looking for.

So, so what was I saying from all of that? I was saying, what I’m looking for is, to me, it’s like a very innocent kind of love, like a very, very pure, innocent, child love. It’s, and I wonder if that means something’s wrong with me. I don’t think so, but this is what I mean.

That you can spend time together for weeks, not week straight, not every day, but for weeks or even months. You know this person. You get to know this person. You spend time together. You do all the cute things together, and you move incredibly slowly in the romance and physical side. This isn’t coming from a religious standpoint at all. All this is coming from me, like what I want.

I think that, like, getting sexual too soon or getting intimate, or, or not intimate, but getting physical too soon ruins love. Like, I’m so sorry. I’m not trying to offend anybody. Like, whoever wants to do it that way, like sex first, whoever wants to do it, I don’t judge at all. Like, I used to judge. I used to, but not anymore. I respect it if it works for you. Good for you.

But for me, I love, I always feel like I have to defend myself. And this is something else that I think men don’t know about me, or they assume the worst. But I love the physical side of a relationship. In fact, it’s my favorite part of a relationship, one of my favorites. It’s something that I value and that I want and that I think about. But I don’t just think about it and want it with any old Joe. And it’s extremely important to me.

What I want at, at the beginning of getting to know someone is just to get to know someone. Oh, and that’s another thing. I feel like no men, and this is jaded, and I’m sure it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong, but it feels like at this time that no men in the dating scene are interested in actually getting to know you as a person. Because everybody’s so focused on the physical side, the attraction side, the sex part, the kissing, the everything, the flirting.

All of that is a distraction from the connection and the getting to know each other deeply and the enjoying time together. And, like, people have told me,

“Oh, you’re just a lesbian. You just need a woman.”

That’s not what men are like. I can’t, no, I will not accept that, because I know it to not be true. Now, sure, there’s probably a lot of men who expect to be physical immediately or soon, and who will not put up with anything else. And whatever, I don’t want those men at all.

I am looking for a specific man. I don’t care if I don’t attract all the other men. I would like just one man, please. I’m just looking to find one. And the one that I find is someone who we, we can just enjoy each other’s company so much, and we can enjoy —I’m getting emotional— we can enjoy having conversations together. We can talk all night. We can just talk endlessly. And, like, of course, the physical attraction is there, and throughout the weeks that we get to know each other, we want to, like, kiss each other. We want to touch each other. We’re getting closer to each other. And, like, I mean, there’s not really a timeline that I’m expecting this stuff to happen at. It can happen sooner rather than later, but still, it’s supposed to be slow. It’s supposed to be slow, like the Beauty and the, like, the romance and the passion.

All of that comes from wanting something and not quite being able to have it yet, or like having to wait for it. Like, that’s the good part. And also, like, not pushing yourself past what you feel ready for. Like, I’ve been my entire life pushed beyond what I’m comfortable with and pushed beyond what I want, pushed beyond what I’m ready for. It’s always happened that way. But to get back on, like, the point that I really wanted to make, like, I think I made it, but I’m just looking for this, like, really pure, really beautiful, slow love. And no one seems interested in that. It seems that if I’m not immediately, like, in, if I don’t have this sexual allure to men, if I’m not acting in a flirtatious, fun way immediately, they’re not interested, or they lose interest.

Sexualise

And another part of me, all of this is just, like, I’ve thought about all of this, but please don’t, like, take all of this with a grain of salt, because I don’t know much right now, but I’m struggling. That’s why I’m sharing. Another part is, I wonder if I should present, like, if I should get more in touch with and express my sexual side, or sensual side. I’m not talking about, like, having casual sex at all. I’m talking about just getting in touch with it more. Because I was raised conservatively Christian. I was raised to be modest, and a lot of that was, like, sexual repression and sexual shame, and all of that. And I just, I’ve kind of gone the other way.

You know what’s funny, is that in Christianity, they actually oversexualize women because they kind of tell you that everything about you needs to be covered and held down and, like, repressed, because, like, even your hair is too sexy for a man to handle. So, to an extent, I actually have, like, rebelled. I think that’s part of why I’m so against being sexualized, and why I hate it so much, is I hate when men look at me in a sexual way.

I obviously, I’ve gone over that in the other videos, but I actually, like, don’t want to be viewed as sexy or sensual, because I’m so sick of feeling like men are viewing me in a sexual lens instead of viewing me as a person with a heart and a mind. I actually think I just made that connection that it comes from my Christian upbringing, shockingly, where that’s where I felt the most sexualized, because, like, my ankles were sexualized, and my hair was sexualized, and, like, everything was so.

Now, I like to fight against it by trying to be, I don’t want to be considered sexy. This is so weird. I actually feel like I made a breakthrough just now, that, like, I get so angry, so angry being viewed sexually, and I think it’s because I felt so helpless and angry as a child, in the same way, because they were, like, forcing something on me.

I need to think about this more, but this is really interesting, because, basically, what it comes to is, I’m wondering if I should actually be embracing my sexuality more and expressing it in a, in some way. And I’m not, not sure what way. Hi, baby, you’re so cute.

I’m not sure exactly how to express that. I don’t know. I don’t know. I, I think, like, part of me wants to, like, figure out how to be more attractive to men as a partner, or try to figure out, like, what, why are they, like, not interested? But another part of me is saying they’re not the right ones, because I’m happy with myself the way I am. They’re not the right person. And I’m just really questioning if, where I, I’m not questioning if the man that I want is out there. I’m questioning where he is. Where can I find him? Where are the romantic, sensitive, beautiful men with good hearts?

I mean it, like, I’ve gotten better in my journey because I know that they do exist. They do exist. And I’ve seen couples, where the man is exactly how I want. But I don’t know where they are. Like, there are men who enjoy watching romantic movies. They exist. There really are men like that, and I want to find one of those. And who cares if they’re more rare? That’s what I’m looking for. I don’t know where they are. And because it’s so difficult to find, I’m not sure where I’m going to find them or how.

Am I in the right place?

And, oh, this is another thing. I don’t know if I’m in the right place, like, right now I’m in the Midwest. Midwest men, oh, no offense, no offense, no offense, but they, I, mean, you would know, if you were here, they’re very, I don’t want to say the word “basic,” but, like, very simple. And that’s not a bad thing if that’s what you’re looking for as well. You, you can have a happy marriage that way.

But these people generally just, like, hunting, fishing, and beer, and sitting around the campfire or watching TV, and that’s life, or, or you know, in their boat, and that’s life, going to their job and coming home, and that’s life. And they’re happy with it, and that’s totally fine. No judgment. But that’s not what I’m looking for. When I went to France, gosh, when I went to France, that culture really called to me. And that culture has always called to me. European culture, in general, but France, I went to the parks in France, and I saw all of these people, men and women, my age, reading books, lots of books. And I would see, like, these beautiful men, beautiful men, reading books, and just that, how that feels is so different than men here. I don’t know.

I’m not explaining that, but anyone who’s been to French or France knows. French culture, there’s so something I can say is, like, in France, it feels more sophisticated. Everyone feels more sophisticated. And, yeah, I’m generalizing, but in the cities that I went to, they feel more sophisticated, more like mature, almost more intellectual, more thoughtful, more emotional, and sensitive. I don’t know. That’s just kind of what I felt. And then, like, obviously, France is known to be romantic. So what I wonder is, should I be in France? Should I be in another country? Should I be finding someone in another country? And then it just freaks me out, because I’m like, I don’t know where I’m supposed to be to find the right person. Which, I mean, people say, like, just pursue your own life and your own life goals, and you’ll meet them. But my life goal is to find the right person. And so, I don’t know where to do that.

I don’t know. I’m freaking out. Obviously, you can tell I’m freaking out. But, I mean, overall, I’m pretty happy.

I’m going to end this video. Overall, I’m relatively happy. I am living the life. Nothing bad is in my life at this point, which is great. I don’t have bad things in my life, and I have good friends.

I am single and happy

Right now, I’m pretty happy to be single, but I really would like to meet the man. And not even, like, be in a relationship right now. I actually don’t want to be in a relationship right now. I just want to meet the man and get to know him for months, like, actually just form a relationship, a real one, become friends. I would like to meet the person. And, you know, the really sad thing that I’m realizing is that this could possibly take until I’m 30, 35. It, I may not meet the person for another 5 to 10 years. Like, for someone who wanted to meet the person in high school and be high school sweethearts, and then college, and be college sweethearts, or maybe meet them at 21 and get married, no, 26.

I mean, uh, it’s partially because I’ve made bad choices in my life. And the bad choices is, I attach myself to the wrong people, to the people who I’m begging to love me, when I need to find someone who actually loves me and stop accepting crumbs and get out of relationships sooner if I’m being mistreated. But I’m such a romantic, where when I feel like I’ve met someone who I have a connection with, I just want the relationship to work.

Anyway, this is so much. But, yeah, I think I said it that, like, I realize that there’s less romance in the world than I thought. And, sure, people will rub that in my face and be like,

“What did you expect? Blah, blah, blah. You just live in romance novels and romance movies.”

And, yeah, true. I did watch a lot of romance movies growing up and read some romantic books. But why are those so unrealistic? They’re just about love. Is love unrealistic? I guess maybe, like, I actually even thought this, like, why do I even feel like I deserve in the grand scheme of things, like me as one person in 8 billion people, why do I think that I deserve to find the person for me and have that beautiful love story? Like, of course, I want it. But, but what if it just doesn’t happen for me? I don’t like saying that, like, I just thought that, like, if I wanted it bad enough, that it was going to happen at some point.

I want my partner

But there are people, sadly, people in my YouTube comments who, my heart goes out to you, you never meet the one. You’re, like, you say you’re, like, 65, and you never met the one. You never met the person that you were looking for. I can’t handle that. Sorry. I’m on roller blades on a dock, so I’m getting tripped up. But, yeah, that’s rough. I mean, I don’t know. I’m still going to want it. I’m going to want it. And I’m not going to feel guilty for wanting it. It doesn’t mean that I’m incomplete or that I’m extremely unhappy. It just means that I know what I want. I want what I want. I know what I want. I can want a man. I want a love story. I want my partner. That’s a normal thing to want.

And, yes, I’m being very defensive right now because a lot of people say bad things. It’s getting dark now. Bye.

Why can’t I just have a relationship, like, start with someone where it’s just completely factual, just, like, very open, very honest, very direct? I don’t want to play games. I don’t want someone to play games with me. I don’t want to not know whether or not they’re interested in me. I don’t want to be, like, trying to form the right sentences to get them to reply to me. I just want something that’s so, like, easy and simple, because we’re both just so open and honest with each other.

But people in this dating game, they expect you to play a certain game. Usually, often, you have to flirt the right way. You have to be fun in the right way. You have to give the right first impression. Like, where, I mean, this is, like, it sounds like my other video, but where is that authenticity in dating? Like, where is the meaningful connection? I haven’t, I haven’t found it.

Where, I mean, you know, we’re, like, why, why is it so hard to, to just be open and honest with each other, even in rejection? Like, when I dated a couple of years ago, I would give each man, like, a rejection text if I wasn’t into it after I met him. I only went on a couple of first dates, but, like, if I wasn’t into it, I would say, like, how, like, different things that I liked about him, and, you know, different ways I thought he was great. And then I would, like, let him down gently and say, like, “I’m not really feeling those romantic vibes,” just, like, just such a respectful, nice, open, and honest text. And I would try to leave them with something positive, and often they would not reply. And that was that.

But, like, basically, that I have entered dating trying to be so authentic and so intentional. And I don’t know if other people are this way. I don’t know how genuine other people are. I don’t, I don’t understand it. It’s, I mean, and I’m just doing, ab, dating.

Social anxiety

Another thing I wanted to touch on, but I didn’t touch on it, or I touched on it a little bit, but not enough, is that I’m really, really, really, really struggling with my social anxiety so much with dating. Because a, a car just honked at me, and I’m not sure why. Maybe they were saying, “Don’t rollerblade at night,” or maybe they’re saying, “Ooh, rollerblader.” I don’t know. But don’t honk at me. I don’t know what that means.

So my social anxiety has been this massive, massive hurdle, huge, massive problem in my life, and I’ve overcome it and fought it in so many ways, and it’s a constant battle, constant battle. But the one thing I cannot overcome so far at 26 is my fear of men. Fear of men. I am terrified of men. Terrified of men. Not like, “Oh, they’re going to attack me and kill me,” terrified, but a terrified as in, I’m not even sure. And I was asking myself today,

“Why am I scared? Why is it the fear of rejection?”

I think mainly it’s the way anxiety works with most things. It is simply that I don’t have experience with men, especially men, who I am attracted to. Ever since I was a child, whenever I had a crush, I would hide from the crush. I would not seek out the crush. I would hide from them. And that’s not good. Like, that’s not going to get me into a relationship. And I just had such limited interactions with men in romantic ways because dating was forbidden. And, like, nothing ever happened between me and boys. Ever. I, I just never gained experience.

I made a comparison the other day. You know how nervous you were for your middle school dance, and you danced with your crush, or maybe you had your first kiss in middle school or high school or something. Usually, that’s the case. And how nervous and awkward you were with those girls, that’s, or boys, that’s me now, now. Because that’s the amount of experience I have with men now. But it’s not so cute. For some reason, it’s not attractive.

No, that’s not what I’m even trying to say. It’s getting in my way. Because dating and going on dates with people feels worse, worse than a job interview. It is the most terrifying, most horrible, most awful thing that I can put myself through. I hate it. So imagine, like, entering a date where you’re just, like, dreading it so deeply and so, so scared. Butterflies in your stomach, your brain is completely shut off because of the panic response. You can’t think of any words. You don’t want to be there. Like, even the fact is, like, when you’re more attracted to the guy, and the more handsome he is, the less you want to be there. Like, the more you want to run away from him.

I mean, this is, is in movies. I hope you can understand that a little bit. That, like, if you are really, really crushing on someone or really attracted, you just want to run away. But that does not serve you. And I’ve tried to battle this. I’ve battled so hard to get through it. And I can’t, like, or I am. I mean, I went on three first dates, and I was okay. I was probably better than I have been in the past. But, yeah, not good. All right.

I wonder where you are right now: another country, another state, next door. And what are you doing? Are you thinking about your future wife the way I think of you? I wonder when we'll meet and what circumstances will bring us together. Are you a stranger, a friend of a friend? Will you be the mechanic who fixes my car, the policeman who pulls me over, a barista working at a store I go to? Who will approach who? Will I be brave enough to say hello? How will we recognize one another? How will I know it's you? I don't want to get caught up with the wrong person and waste more time. I want to find you. I'm scared that the universe is keeping you until I'm ready, until I can fully stand on my own two feet and have the life and friendships I crave.

I feel like my world is too small here, and there's no way someone as extraordinary as you is here. Must I go out and find you, or will you find me? Are you looking for me somehow? It makes it better to know you were thinking of me under the stars or watching a sunset or listening to music, imagining being with me. I imagine you and us so clearly: your quiet sweetness, your tenderness, so safe. I just want to fall into you. We would be in our own little love bubble. I want to grow with you. I ache for you. I want to share my life with you. I plan to actually give you these letters, so you're reading this right now. What's your name? How old are you? You, what took you so long? Haha. Well, I am 26 years old. I've spent my entire life dreaming of you. It's hard to imagine this, but if you are reading this and we're together, go to Future me right now and give her the longest, most tender hug. Tell her how much you love her.

I write this at a coffee shop in Minnesota. Where are you now as you read this? I have so many questions. Who are you? What do you like? How old am I when we meet? 26, 27, 30, 35, 40, 61? Oh, God, I hope we have a lifetime together. I feel like the more I focus on my life and dreams and pursuing what I love, the more chance of meeting you.

So I'm getting over some sickness. I rarely get sick. I feel like my immune system is pretty strong, but I don't know if I'm going to make it through the video. When I do get sick, it hits me like a train. Gosh, it's hard to look at myself today. What is with this eye? I feel like this eye is drooping.

We're going to try lowering the curtains. I feel like that actually helps. Helps.

I feel better about my life so I'm going to put on makeup and just talk about different thoughts that are occurring today. First off, I feel somewhat too very much ugly today. This is me with zero makeup on my face.

I hate these lines and I don't like these. But as I say that, it reminds me of one of my thoughts that I think I realized it when I was getting my hair done at a salon. And I insulted myself. The guy had asked me a question and I insulted myself and I was like,

"Yeah, I'm just a loser. I just stay in most of the time. I don't go out."

And he was like, "Well, I do that too. Like I stay in most of the time too."

And then I realized that by insulting myself and calling myself a loser, I was inadvertently calling him a loser. And then it just makes me rethink everything that I insult about myself. Any like anytime I insult something about myself, I think to myself,

"Do I I want someone else to feel insecure about those things?"

Because there are people who share the same traits and like, for example, just as I was insulting these things and these, I was like,

"I don't want to spread around insecurity and be like, 'You should hate that about yourself.'"

It's ridiculous, but it's it's a learning process. I've never loved the way I look with no makeup. And I think that's fine. I have chosen to go without makeup more often, but it's more an act of bravery than me thinking that I'm beautiful with no makeup. I'm like, "I better get some makeup on soon cuz I can't keep looking at that."

First, I'm going to put these on. So these things are called Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Dew Drops. And I really don't even know if they make my face glow, but what I do know, is that it acts as a primer. And I've never been a primer lady, but this is the only thing that has blown me away where it's not even a primer, but it like it makes the makeup grab onto your skin so much better. And it does make the makeup last and it doesn't like interact. The chemicals don't interact and make like the makeup curdle or like, you know, women. No, it's always so hard to find like formulations that work together.

I got coffee. Then get it. I made it well. I put it together. I got cold brew. There's like a really special sweet cream thing that I got. I put that in and then milk. And I even got this topper stuff that's like cold foam that I saw at Target. It all like melted though.

Panic attacks

I've been dealing with a lot of panic attacks lately.

I started getting more — I’ve had this for years, but I started getting one like once a week and then one like almost every day where they felt like heart attacks. It was like the sharpest pain right in the center of my chest, an insanely sharp, like overwhelming pain. And it was like throbbing. And I was like, “At first, I thought they were panic attacks.” And then eventually, I was like, “Is this like heart failure? Am I having a heart attack?” And one of the weirdest things was that they would happen sometimes when my body wasn’t feeling panicked.

Like I was grocery shopping, and as I was walking out of the grocery store, I started getting this stabbing heart pain. And it lasted for like 10 minutes, and I was able to keep myself relatively calm, but it scared me. And then I also woke up in the middle of the night with the stabbing pain and racing heart, and I was like,

“Is that a heart attack? I don’t know, cuz like how can you be panicked at night?”

But I did Google it, and Google was reassuring and it said that panic attacks can come out of nowhere, even if you don’t feel panicked, you can have a panic attack. I also, like a while ago, I would read about how people were scared of the next panic attack, and I hadn’t — I didn’t really understand what it felt like to be scared to experience another panic attack. But now I understand that it can be so bad and so frightening and so serious that you are literally like scared to have a panic attack, and you’re always wondering when it’s going to happen.

It also kind of prompted me to go to the doctor, so I eventually went to the doctor a few days ago, and they gave me an EKG to test my heart, and they said it was fine. It was good. And all of my other tests came back good. And I went to the doctor for several reasons, and I did ask for medication to take if needed during a panic attack. So it makes me feel better, even though I’m scared to take the medication as well. But I would say, like several times a day, I am — there will be something that will happen with my body that will start to freak me out and set me down a path with panic.

The worst panic attack I got recently lasted for like an hour or two hours even because I was just chilling at night, and I noticed that my leg was swelling up. It looked like I had gotten a bite, like a bug bite, and it started like there was some sort of mark on my leg that big that was swelled up that big, or like, you know, like an area that was swelled up. And this is me — I immediately went jump to the worst conclusion.

“What if it’s a brown recluse spider bite?”

Cuz like it obviously looked like some sort of bug bite, but I wasn’t aware when it happened. And I was like,

“What if it’s a brown recluse? What if it’s a brown recluse, and my leg is going to rot off?”

I actually don’t even know — I don’t know if a brown recluse kills you if it bites you, or if it makes like the injury area — anyway, I’m getting dark. See, that’s a part of my personality I hide from my YouTube videos. I can get quite dark. It’s not like purposefully hiding it. It’s just like socially, I learned what is socially acceptable and what’s socially looked down upon. And so naturally, I hide specific parts of myself. And it’s extremely difficult to calm yourself down in a situation like that because there is something wrong, like I had a bite. And like, sure, it turned out to be like just any sort of random bug bite.

I still don’t know what it was, but it’s so hard because it’s like,

“Well, I don’t want to calm myself down if it actually is an emergency.”

Does that make sense? Like if it’s actually an emergency, you want to like go to the ER, but I don’t want to just go to the ER because of — anyway, I’m talking about this too much. I like to do half of my face just for fun to show you the difference. So people who are not familiar with makeup don’t probably — or they don’t know this, but the first step of foundation is supposed to kind of give yourself a blank canvas to work on. So I am fully aware that it looks kind of like I’m dead right now, because it — what foundation does is, it takes all the color away from your face. But that’s the purpose of adding in all of those colors again. And I feel like some people who do their own makeup don’t understand either that like you can’t just stop at foundation. If you stop at foundation, you’ve like wiped away all of your own natural shadows and colors and your natural rosiness, and you do look kind of like a dead person. And foundation does do an excellent job of like wiping away.

Everything I was watching Jennifer Garner’s like makeup tutorial for Vogue. I love watching the celebrity makeup tutorials for Vogue. They’re fun. But Jennifer Garner said something interesting, something that kind of hit me. And it’s like something that I have heard so many times before, but it never really — never really struck me as true. It actually always struck me as like extremely insulting. But all right, I’ll just say what she said, and I’ll say my thoughts on it. She said,

“The way to gain self-esteem is to do estimable acts.”

And she was like,

“Focus less inwards and more undoing things for others, estimable things for others.”

And I was like, “I paused and I thought about it for a while.” Because I’ve had a lot of people be like, “Stop focusing on yourself. That’s why you’re so unhappy.” And it’s like, it’s so annoying because like, and people say that like being self-aware or pursuing self-awareness or personal growth is the same as self-centeredness, or like being too selfish or focused on yourself. And I think that is such bull crap. Like I think being self-aware and focusing on self-awareness and focusing on healing your own healing and like working through your own issues and discovering your trauma or not trauma, but discovering your triggers and working on like how learning, how to like self-soothe and manage your emotions, all of those things are extremely beneficial. So it’s just so annoying whenever people would tell me that. And I would pretty much immediately brush it away. And they’d like,

“Focus on doing things for others.”

And I’m like,

“I am — like you don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I actually do a lot for other people. I focus on like generosity and giving to others and like showing up for my friends and offering support, and offering help. I volunteer at nursing homes here and there, and I do art classes at nursing homes.”

I’m trying to get rid of these shadows under my eyes, like these red shadows. This actually kind of looks cool. I look like an anime character or something. I think some of the most dangerous people — gosh, I look like a freak.

Some of the most dangerous people in society are not self-aware. I think not being self-aware and like, for example, not understanding the difference between “You made me do this” versus “Oh, that’s a choice that I made. I need to take responsibility for it.”

The difference between those things is major. Like most abusive people, if not all of them, are not self-aware. They don’t understand exactly why they’re doing the things they’re doing or why they’re reacting the way they’re reacting. I’m so glad I thought of that because that is such a good example of why self-awareness is so important. People with no self-awareness hurt people.

This is going to get better. I promise. So I’m going to lock it in with some powder, and then we’re going to get going. I can’t tell you how much I love makeup and how important makeup is to me. It’s always so personally insulting, when people tell me that they way prefer me with no makeup or they hate my makeup or

“Why do I wear so much makeup?”

Because I love it. I’ve always loved it. It’s like one of the very first things that I got to practice my own agency, because I was like hiding the fact that I wear makeup for my dad, because he didn’t allow us to wear makeup as teenagers. And the fact that I would put on makeup as like an act of rebellion and I loved it. It made me happy. I feel like it was the first time I like exercised my own independence.

So the whole reason I was recording this video is, because I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing with my life right now. Me and my now ex-boyfriend were planning on moving in together. So a lot of my focus was like looking at apartments and like thinking of what areas of town we were going to live in and like planning to live together. And it kind of put a halt on my own life. And I wasn’t upset about that. I was so excited.

I felt like I was going in a specific direction and even leading to marriage with him that like, again, my life was on hold because our life together was kind of up in the air. I was like waiting for us to live together, and then we would figure it out from there. So when it ended, now I’m kind of left like,

“What now? Where am I?”

Great. I have to focus on my own life. And now I’m actually really grateful that we didn’t live together before breaking up, because it would have made the breakup a lot harder, because there would have been a lot more adjusting to do. And I’m lucky that I’m in a good spot in life for like my — at least financially, I’m doing good. Okay, I have an income. I have a reliable job. So that was good. I have a place to live, which is good. So life in general is good.

But it has led me to,

“Okay, I love to pour all of my energy into a relationship. I just love it.”

And I think part of it is like a healthy love of like,

“I just love to love. I love to give. I love to put my energy into relationships.”

I don’t think that that’s a bad thing. But another half of it, I would say, is that I do it to escape the overwhelming feeling of trying to figure out my own life. And I’ve known that about myself for a couple of years. I did it with my ex-boyfriend, my previous one, where like I just — I’m so happy to like give up my own life in order to support their life. Cuz it’s just so easy. And like to me, I value a relationship more than I value anything else, especially like a career. So it’s easy for me to put my own life on hold in order to maintain a relationship. But I was doing that for years with my first boyfriend. And then I spent like three years on my own, kind of just like flopping around, just like not really knowing what I’m doing. I was in California, and I’m proud of those years and I’m proud of that decision, because it was an adventure, and I did learn a lot, and it was fun. But at the same time, I didn’t do anything while I was there to create a future for myself. Like I didn’t pursue goals when I was in California.

I was mostly just like floundering and terrified. Like, so I was just like overwhelmed by life.

Another aspect to this is that I felt, and still feel to an extent, that if I made a wrong decision or if I started to pursue my own life goals, then there’s a chance that I might like not have a place for a relationship anymore. Meaning that like if I did eventually meet the right person and they had a career and they needed to like move to another state, but I also had a career that was based here and I wanted to stay, and I had all my own goals and my own life and my own like everything, my own friends, then I would be a lot more reluctant to follow.

Because something in relationships, and I think this is true — I really do — like ask anybody in a relationship, one person has to follow the other at some point. And most of the time, it’s the woman. I have seen and met so many couples who have moved together for either school or work. And there have been one or two, where the man does follow the woman, which I appreciate. But that’s what I’m talking about is if I want to stay with somebody, I have to be ready to like approve my life. So I always felt like it was easier to just have no life. And I’ve always had a life. It’s just I haven’t pursued anything that requires like full-on dedication and commitment. Pretty much nothing in my life has been commitment, which I chose that.

This is one of the things that people just misunderstand because of YouTube. But I’ve always been a very committed person. Like the first job I had in high school, I stayed at for like four and a half years. And I didn’t realize that like I could quit. And I hated it for four and a half years. I hated it. And then my mom was like,

“If you hate it so much, why don’t you quit?”

And I was like,

“Like, because that’s all you do. Like you don’t quit jobs. You stick with them.”

Like I was trying to think that like even if you hate something, you stick with it. So I did, and I still have that within me where like you stick with things. You finish that thing. So it’s actually against my nature to not commit. But I chose to live a life with no commitment because I saw all the adults around me committed to things and how it was like like chains around their ankles, dragging them down, holding them back. They’re like,

“I wish I could travel, but I can’t quit my job. Like I’ve been here for 15 years.”

Oh, I think I totally got off topic of the estimable acts thing. I did.

So Jennifer Garner said the estimable—like,

“To gain self-esteem, you must do estimable acts.”

And it made me pause because I think there is truth to it to an extent, where you can be like,

“I think self-awareness is good.”

But at the same time, if you are self-aware and then you remain in your head, you can go down such dark trains of thought. And a lot of it has to do with like beating yourself up, like even things like saying like,

“I should be farther along. And like like I haven’t been doing a good enough job. Like I need to be pursuing more like this or that.”

I think when you get stuck in your head in a negative way, it can really drag you down. And I think that’s the line when you know you need to be looking outwards more. And I actually think that I have finally hit that line because I think that I am self-aware. And I’ve definitely hit the line where like everything I could know about myself for the most part, I know.

Like I like to joke with myself and others that I know I have figured out all the ways that I’m broken. I’ve figured out everything that’s wrong with me. But it’s very difficult for me to figure out how to fix it. So that’s when therapy comes in. And it also kind of points to like,

“Okay, there’s nothing else you can do. Like you’ve done the work. You’re self-aware. You know how to like question things. And now you’re mostly just like going in circles.”

I do a lot of circles. I think it hit me now because I think it is actually connected with the place I am in life right now. Because I always knew I was doing important work before, but now I’m like pretty good. And I think I should focus more on like looking outwards, looking outside of myself. And there is truth in it.

My YouTube channel

But still, to anyone else, I would not give that advice specifically to like, like that is the way to gain self-esteem. ‘Cuz I don’t think it’s the way. Like you do not want to be out of touch with yourself. I’ve gained a lot of self-esteem in a lot of different ways. Something that is incredibly important to me that I would like to focus on and that I wish could build, and one of the reasons I’m recording this video, is my YouTube channel. My YouTube channel, of all the things I’ve done in life, not very many, the one thing that makes me feel the most purposeful or like I’m living aligned with my purpose is my YouTube channel. There’s a lot of things that have been extremely discouraging having to do with my YouTube channel. I’ll name three.

1. I don’t like when I post a video and I get excessive compassion and attention from people focusing on me. Like I don’t like when people don’t understand that the reason I’m sharing my problems and issues is not to get all this positive like,

“It’s okay. You’re wonderful. You’re going to be okay. Like we’re here. We support you.”

Because it’s not about me. And yeah, sure, it’s my channel, but I always say the reason that I record my videos is like it’s a personal diary. So I am recording my own life, my thoughts, my journey, all of that. And it’s important for me to look back on. But the reason that I make my videos public, the only reason that I make it public, is for anyone who feels like they can relate to these problems and then they can watch me and see how I solve the problems, or the thoughts I have or the breakthroughs I have. Anything at all that they can relate to that inspires them or gives them hope. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable it feels. But when you share these things and you get thousands of comments like just smothering you with this compassion and empathy and being like all about you, it’s extremely uncomfortable because it’s like,

“No, you missed it. You missed the point. That’s not the point. The whole point of the video is not about me and my personal problem.”

The comments that make me feel the best are the ones that say,

“Your channel has helped me so much.”

Or,

“I’ve related so much to you in your journey.”

I’m like,

“Yes, you get it. This channel is about you.”

It’s for people who struggle with anxiety, for people who have social anxiety, for people who feel kind of out of control of their lives, for people who feel weak, for people who struggle with self-hatred and insecurity and trying to gain confidence and they’re on this path trying to gain awareness and progress in life. All of that.

2. Okay, the second set of comments that make me extremely uncomfortable are all the men in love with me. If I could snap my fingers and make them disappear, I would. There’s no value in comments from people just be like,

“You’re so beautiful. You’re so — oh my gosh, I just love you so much. Please come to Detroit and go on a date with me.”

I guess so many men like inviting me to New York to go on a date with them. I’m like, “That’s never going to happen.” And like,

“How can you watch my videos, which are about deep subjects and me sharing my thoughts, and the only thing you can say is something about my looks and how like you’re obsessed with me when you know nothing about me?”

I just hate that. And like, there is a huge difference. And hopefully, you know, there’s a huge difference between the creepy obsessed weirdos on the internet and people who are giving me a genuine kind compliment. I can tell the difference. But even I don’t really like the compliments unless I like specific compliments. I like compliments on my makeup. I like compliments on my hair color, when I color my hair because it’s kind of complimenting a decision I’ve made, not so much looks. Like I decide to wear makeup because I love makeup. It’s my decision. And anytime somebody insults my makeup or tells me that I look way better without makeup, they’re insulting me and my decisions and my autonomy. Like makeup is very much a part of who I am. The third set of comments that not just makes me uncomfortable but makes me hate YouTube and hate being public and wish that I could just disappear are the comments who say that I love attention and the only reason I post is for attention.

3. I wish that I could just make disappear the comments, who say that I love attention and the only reason I post is for attention and sympathy from people, and that I just relish that sympathy from people, when it’s the most uncomfortable feeling? And I do understand, like, you guys are genuine. The thing that you should know, I am always okay. I’m always doing okay. I’m never in severe mental trouble. And even if I was, I would reach out for help to people who can actually help me, like professionals. Like, it is not your job in the least to make sure that I’m okay. I’m pretty much never reaching out for direct support from you. Like, I don’t think that’s your job. You don’t owe it to me. It makes me uncomfortable. That’s not the purpose of my channel. I’m not trying to sound ungrateful about it. Just something that’s built up the entire time I’ve had my channel.

The internet

The reason I have my channel is to provide hope. And I think I’ve said it once or twice, but the reason I created my channel was for, maybe this is a little selfish, it was for my teenage self who was so lost and struggling so deeply and had no help from anyone. And I’m better now, but I still have so much compassion for that teenager. And I want to help anyone who was like my teenage self. And I’ve never really shared exactly what I mean by that, but I was struggling so much as a teenager with so many things, like self-hatred, insecurity, deep shame, thinking that I was like a bad person. I had no sense of identity. I was being bullied and abused. I was in constant fear. I was in like fight or flight. I would just journal about how much I hated myself and what a loser I was and how I was completely worthless. And then I got the internet. I actually got access to the internet when I was like 18 or 19. I had like internet here and there, like at a library, but I didn’t have access to the internet on my phone until I was 18 or 19.

And once I did get internet access, I found everything I needed. I found YouTube channels and I started with TED Talks. I started listening to TED Talks, and they covered all of the issues that I was struggling with and gave me so much insight and perspective.

The comment that always means the most to me is when I can hear from a young person in their early 20s or in their teens, and they tell me that my channel has helped them. Because when you’re at those ages, you’re so overwhelmed and so confused, and life is just so overwhelming, and you don’t feel like you can do it. You’re scared and you don’t feel capable. And as far as life direction, I hope that someday my channel will actually grow again, and I’ll have opportunities to help more people. If I could ever make YouTube my career, I would. I’m putting this out in the universe.

But my dream would be to do what Diary of a CEO does. That’s my current dream. I would like to interview, basically have a podcast and interview all my heroes. There are so many people, like relationship therapists and researchers, people in different fields, but like in the personal growth, self-awareness, and relationship fields, that I would love to get a chance to talk to.

I’m kind of cured on relationships for now. I had like two traumatizing relationships. I know, the word “trauma” is so overused these days. It was traumatic in different ways. Like in my most recent relationship, I was made to feel very safe and very stable, and then suddenly I wasn’t. Sudden, it was so sudden that behavior would change in the other person, where one second I was safe and the next second I was scared. And then like the way that the relationship ended was very — it was very traumatic for me, where I felt very secure that the person loved me, and then suddenly they were acting like I was garbage. So now it’s like hard to ever trust, even when I do trust in somebody’s love for me, because now I feel like I can’t trust my own feelings about like that. I also don’t think I can trust my taste in partners. I think I’m choosing unhealthy people and I can’t really see it. So even though I thought I would be married for a while at this point, I guess life takes you in a different direction. And I don’t really feel like being in a relationship anymore at this point in my life. Like, I will be, but I’m not in a hurry. And like people encourage you to take time for yourself to grow and heal and this and that. And I feel like I’ve already done that. I feel like I’ve done all the healing and self-awareness I can do on my own.

Overall, I mean, another thing is I am scheduled to work with a therapist for the first time in my life. I actually made an appointment. I got that far. I made an appointment with someone just coming up. So I’ll let you know how it goes. But I’m very excited for my first therapy appointment. That’s super duper exciting. So I guess there’s probably a lot more work I can do with a therapist. But at the same time, like I feel like for me, a lot of my issue is just being able to choose the right partner for me. I just need to find someone who is a healthy person or or at least is self-aware and can catch themselves when they’re acting out of their own trauma and triggers.

This talk is over. I’m going to edit it down. Here’s my final makeup look. I feel a lot better now than I did. All right, goodbye.

“I’m ready, Universe. I’m ready. Send me men! Abundance of men. Like, I’m trying to think in abundance and, like, if I law of attraction men, tell the universe I’m ready, and I will.”

"Send me the men"

I literally said,

“Send me the men. I will talk to the first man that I see that I’m attracted to. I’m not going to mess it up.”

I picked the dumbest place to record, ‘cuz, yep, okay. And not one minute later, maybe three or four minutes later, after I said that, there was a man walking on the path. He had a motorcycle gear, like a helmet and boots. He was in full-blown sport bike motorcycle gear. And anybody who knows me, knows that I like that. So I was like,

“Oh, man, interesting.”

And I skated past him and then went to my car. And I saw that he had stopped. I’m trying to think of how to describe it, but we were at a park area. He had stopped to, go sit down somewhere. And I was like,

“Oh, he stopped, like, very close to my car, maybe, like, 50 feet, 50 feet from my car.”

So I went to my car, I was done rollerblading, I took my rollerblades off, and I sat in the grass for maybe 15 minutes. And I sat a good ways away, like about 50 ft, but I noticed that he was looking at me quite a few times. And I looked at him quite a few times. And then I was like,

“Okay, okay, nothing’s going to happen.”

I was like,

“Are you going to—to myself, I was like, “Are you going to approach him?” And I was like, “No, I’m not.”

Then I got up and I started walking. So I took a walk, and as I began walking, then he started walking, but we were walking opposite directions. So we crisscrossed, nothing happened, and I thought that that was it for sure, like we were just never going to see each other again. And then, oh, and I gave him a tiny little smile when we crossed. And, and then more cars pulling up. So yeah, I continued on with my walk and I kind of forgot about him and I thought that it was all over. And then on my way back, when I turned around, I saw that he was walking in my direction again. I think we were going to crisscross again, and then we did crisscross, and then I noticed that he had turned around and actually was kind of following me. And I wasn’t creeped out. There were tons of people around, and all I was thinking was,

“Oh, maybe he’s going to talk to me, maybe he wants to talk to me.”

And that thought terrified me, so I just walked to my car, ‘cuz, like, I wasn’t sure and, like, what are you supposed to do in that situation if someone is walking—he wasn’t like closely behind me, he was like 30 ft behind me, and if you think,

“Hm, we’ve shown quite a bit of interest,”

I’ve shown him some interest by, like, we looked at each other and that’s it, and I smiled a little bit. So I think that we both knew that something was there. I think that he might have been coming to talk to me, but I don’t know. And so because of all that awkwardness and not knowing, I just walked to my car and I got in my car. And I’m sorry, I’m laughing because I made so many bad decisions.

Analyzing the missed opportunity

But it’s like,

“Oh, you complain about being single and no men approaching you, and then when someone kind of wants to approach you, you get in your car and you shut the door.”

But another reason that I think he was actually coming to talk to me, maybe it was that when he crossed in front of my car, we looked at each other again. He looked at me, and I think it was like a look of,

“Oh, I was going to come talk to you.”

We’re both sad. I don’t know, maybe I’m reading way into it, but I felt it was a misconnection. I felt like we both kind of wanted to talk to each other. We were both kind of giving the cues that we wanted to talk to each other. And then as I drove off, I saw him on his motorcycle, and I was just, like,

“And to be clear, I don’t like motorcycles. I like sport bikes, and he had a sport bike, and it was cool, and he was cool.”

But I have a few thoughts about it, which is, I know all the comments. I know men in the comments, they’re all going to be like, ‘Uproar!’ I don’t know if anyone will even make it far enough to hear me say this, but, like, they’re going to be like,

‘Men, you, you’re not supposed to follow a woman, or, like, you say, “Do not follow a woman.”

This is wrong, and you, I don’t know.

Point is, yes, yes, a man should not follow a woman, and, like, sorry, backtracking. I am a shy, awkward woman, and there’s like a whole different thing with me where, like, a normal woman might approach the guy, or a normal woman would show many more, like, obvious cues of interest or attraction.

But because I’m awkward and shy, I don’t really show interest or attraction very well, or at all. For example, I purposefully sat in the grass about 50 feet from him, kind of facing him, almost kind of open, kind of looking like I was ready, like waiting for him to approach me. And then we looked at each other quite a few times. And, like, I’m telling you that I understand that that is not really a cue. That’s extremely confusing and not obvious at all. So, like, I’m not encouraging men to just approach women who are sitting 50 ft from them, but I kind of am saying that if you are not delusional and you have a feeling that someone is interested in you, but they’re not being really obvious, but you just feel like they’re interested, like they’re showing you attention and interest in a way, and you’re just like,

“I don’t know, maybe, maybe just check.”

And if they’re not interested, they’ll let you know.

Like, I’m pretty good now at if a man I’m not interested in shows interest, I’m pretty good at kind of shutting it down. So even if I wasn’t interested in that guy and he came up, I could have shown non-interest.

But anyway, I’m not saying all the responsibility, because I’m hearing the comments saying,

“Oh, the, the responsibility is on the, the man to approach all the time.”

And I’m saying,

“No, no, it, it wasn’t his in that situation. It wasn’t his responsibility to approach me. I could have approached him, but I chose not to. I was too scared. But I’m just saying, if he wanted to approach me, he could have, and my queue was sitting right there.”

I’m trying to figure out what I’m saying, like, am I saying approach women or don’t approach women? I’m trying to just give you some insight into how a woman, how someone who is shy and awkward might act when they’re interested.

And that’s the thing, I gave him a couple cues. They were very small, but here’s the cues. This is so dumb, so dumb. When I rollerbladed past him, this is so dumb. People are going to tell me that I’m stupid, like, and don’t say it, because I already know it. When I rollerbladed past him the first time and I was like,

“Ooh, motorcycle guy, you’re interesting. He seems handsome,”

as I passed him, I looked at him, and I saw his face, and I think he saw me. We both kind of noticed each other at that time, so there’s the first cue. I looked at his face, we both looked at each other, and that could be nothing, but with all the other things together, it’s something. And then I, like, passed him, and then when I was in front of him, I rollerbladed right in front of him, and then kind of swiveled, like I kind of went like this, like, just, just, like, kind of showing off my rollerblade skills. I feel like I’m a man now. Like, I feel like when men like somebody, they try to show off, but I was kind of, like, trying to show off a bit. And then I got to my car, and when I got to my car, I turned around and I looked to see where he was or if he was there, and I think we might have seen each other again. And then instead of leaving, like, I know this is all so bad, like, it’s so hard.

I’m thinking from the man’s perspective right now. I’m thinking this is so, so hard to differentiate a woman who’s not interested versus a shy woman who is interested, ‘cuz, like, the you could read into things and come to the wrong conclusions for sure, or, like, you can be like,

“Oh, this woman rollerbladed past me. She must be interested. She’s just shy.”

But, no, I’m not really giving any advice whatsoever. Yeah, zero advice in this video. I’m not telling you how to approach a woman.

I’m just saying this for insight’s sake, if you care to get a little bit of insight into what a shy woman might do. And also, I don’t represent women or shy women, because I don’t know what other girls do. But when I got to my car, instead of just leaving, which is what someone would probably do if they’re not interested, I chose to stay and sit in the grass. And I also wanted to stay anyway, but I stayed with him in mind, just in case. And then instead of walking far away, far, far away, I was about 50 ft, and maybe even 35, 40 feet, I don’t know, about 50 ft away from him, definitely, like, within range for me, at least, like, and it would be creepy if I went like five or ten feet away from him, I think.

I think that’s another thing with shy people, you have to kind of put together a bunch of different cues. For it to make a little bit of sense. And none of this makes sense, I know.

But, um, sitting in the grass, and then I chose to, like, walk around. This is going to sound bad, but, like, I did it. I did it for me, because I wanted to walk, but also part of the motivation was I wanted, like, to get his attention. That might, that sounds bad, but, I kind of just wanted to get his attention. So that’s what that is. So if, maybe if you notice this girl who’s, like, keeps walking around past you, which again is like so broad, so broad, we’re like,

“Please don’t misinterpret this and start, like, thinking that people like you when they don’t, like, ‘cuz it’s like, ‘Oh, the girl was walking around in my vicinity, and so she likes me.’”

But it’s that in conjunction with things like looking at each other a lot. Okay, so, like, he and I had looked at each other maybe four times, maybe, maybe around four times, and he might have caught me, like, looking at him a couple of times. So that’s what I’m talking about. It’s like this girl’s looking at you, she showed off rollerblading, she sat in the grass close to you, she’s walking around you. And if you cross paths, she might look down but smile and be like,

“Shy looking.”

So yeah, it’s so hard. I’m not even telling you to approach shy people because it’s such a case-by-case basis, and I never ever want to encourage a man to approach someone who is not interested or, there’s just no worse feeling than a creepy man approaching you. I’m not saying you’re creepy, but I’m just saying sometimes creepy people approach me, and so I’m trying not to encourage those specific creepy people.

“Oh, if a girl is just walking around in your area, that means she likes you,”

which is not true. Like, you just, you have to have a little bit of awareness.

Attracting a man's attention

I don’t know, but one of the biggest ones is, I would say there’s two things that, like, girls might do. This is what, two things that I always do is I always sit where I can creep on them. Am I creepy? Like, if I’m at a coffee shop and I see a man that I’m interested in or that I like, or, you know, I would be interested in, I make sure to sit so that I’m, like, facing him kind of, or that I can get a view of him. So I wouldn’t, like, be, I would never choose to sit with my back facing him. I would always choose to sit somewhere where I can kind of watch him, but that sounds creepy. And so that he can, like, look at me. And then another thing I might do, if I have any skills whatever at that time, is I would show off something or walk around. So, like, showing off the rollerblading or walking around in front of him, but far enough away, that’s kind of like a,

“Look at me, hey, notice me.”

Anyway, I know, like, this, the whole thing is, I just need to get braver, and I need to approach people. I could have approached him, but all of that is to say, I was interested, and I’m fairly certain that he was interested in just having a conversation. And I miffed it, if that’s a word. I don’t know if that’s a word. And I left feeling disappointed in myself that I didn’t do anything. And I felt like it was a missed connection.

But at the same time, I’m trying to think in terms of abundance. So I was trying to think, like,

“There’s lots of other men out there. Like, you don’t have to be sad about this one. Just try to move on. Don’t be stuck on it. Just chill.”

But I also, and here’s the other thing is, I really wanted to just, like, I want to practice male interaction, because I don’t have any male interaction. I’m so fucking awkward and, like, don’t know how to be around men for the most part, especially, like, men I’m interested in.

But at the same time, I don’t want to use a man for practice. I don’t. So a part of the reason, a part of why, why I was hesitant to approach this man was because I did the thing that I always do, which is I asked myself, like,

“Am I actually interested in him? Like, could, could I imagine dating him? Like, could I imagine him as my boyfriend, my husband? Like, how interested am I?”

And then I realized, like,

“Oh, I’m not that interested. Like, I’m interested, but I don’t feel strongly or strong enough.”

So I’m like,

“Maybe I was like 45% interested in him, not 100%.”

And I was like,

“Well, that means I can’t approach him, because then, like, we would have a conversation, and what if, like, we went on one date and I decided no?”

Which was to me, that was like a high probability that I would probably decide against him. And I was like,

“Well, I guess there’s no point.”

But at the same time, like, all that does is it makes it so I can’t approach or talk to or have any interaction with any guy unless I see him as like a 100% yes. And if I don’t get any practice with any other guy, anytime I do see a 100% yes, like somebody who I’m 100% interested in, I can’t imagine that going well because of how awkward I am and not having any practice. You know, you get it.

So I don’t ever want to approach a man with kind of like an ingenuine interest, because I just never want to approach him or tell him I’m interested or show that I’m interested unless I’m all the way interested, because I don’t want to, like, back out or, like, be like,

“Oh, never mind, I’m not interested anymore.”

Please, if anybody makes it that far, please explain how I can do that. I know, I think in normal dating, people will date people that they’re not 100% interested in. I think that’s actually a thing, and to me, me, it seems very foreign and very ingenuine and using the other person, basically. But I don’t know, you tell me. That was just interesting. I thought I’m sharing the story for several reasons, just for fun, but also because I thought it was funny that I was like,

“Universe, I’m ready, give me the men,”

and then the universe gave me a man, four minutes later, and then I mess up.

I literally promised I was like, “The next man that I’m interested in, I will talk to you.” And I lied. I messed it up. I was like,

“Never mind, never mind. Backtracking.”

Anyway, that’s it. Bye.

This is me recording a day where I got very triggered. It was a very high-anxiety, triggered day. Part of it — there are a couple of parts to this — but I guess one of the important parts is that I learned that I never thought that PMS hit me, but when I started paying attention, I realized that my mood was 100% exactly on time for where I was in my cycle.

And it took me — I don't even know why I never learned about this — but it just, I guess, wasn't common knowledge for me that women generally have these hormonal cycles, that they usually feel pretty high and pretty good — their mood — the first two weeks of their cycle, or two or three weeks, and then the last week of their cycle, or the week before their period, they start to feel really depressed. And that's right on time for me.

So, the week before your period, you start to get really, really, really depressed. And like, before you start thinking,

"Ah, women are hormonal and emotional."

It's not like the feelings are over nothing for me. I mean, maybe that's the case for some women, and there's no shame in that whatsoever, but for me, it's just that like the things that already are bothering me, or hurting me, or making me sad, those things just feel worse and more heartbreaking.

Breakup

For example, the breakup. So, last month, right around this time, the breakup hit me really hard, and I was just like crying more and so sad, and just all the emotions were amplified, and I was missing him so much. And I feel that happening again this month, and hopefully it's not as extreme this month, and I'm hoping that each month it gets less and less.

But I guess I wanted to talk about the breakup a little bit. I am struggling with the breakup so much, not because I feel like we shouldn't be broken up. I actually feel quite comfortable with that, and I think it was the right thing. Like, I'm 100% certain it was. There was no way that it could have worked with where we were. But the thing that is the hardest for me, and the thing that hurts the most, and the thing that's the most frustrating is that I wanted it to end very amicably and with lots of love and respect, and I did my part in that, where I tried my hardest to leave it that way. And I spent a long time, like, writing out different texts here and there, like thanking him for all these different things, telling him all the positive memories that I'll carry with me, telling him like all my friends loved him, and that like all the good things about him and all the good memories and that I would always cherish it. But then, on his part, he's been hitting me with lots and lots and lots of anger. Like, the actual breakup was with an explosion, like screaming and yelling, and it ended horribly, and the last words he said to me in person were just horrible before, like, slamming the door. And then, instead of him like trying to acknowledge and like express gratefulness and love, acknowledge the good parts of our relationship, he is only focusing on the bad parts and the problems, and like will just come at me so aggressively, telling me all the ways that I failed him and all the ways that I disappointed him and all the ways that I've made him angry or made him sad. And it's like, at this point, what good does that do? Like, that just puts me in this helpless state where I have no idea what I can do about that to make it any better. Like, it just makes me feel absolutely horrible.

So anyway, that's been happening. Today, at the bridal shower, he did it again, and he continues to do it where he'll text me like the most mean, horrible texts. Like the one today he was saying that like he's happier without me and that I sucked all his energy and that I was demanding too much from him when we were seeing each other twice a week, and I was fine with that.

He was the one — I mean, we both — but he was the one who wanted to live together. And he was saying like that he finally has time for hobbies and things now. And I'm like, I encouraged you to do hobbies when we were together, and I was fully supportive. I was happy to be beside you as you were doing your own thing, and you wanted to live together, so how did you expect that would work if it was too much to see me twice a week? Like, to me, clearly, to me, he doesn't or didn't have the capacity to be in a relationship, and I don't know what he was expecting.

But he is mad at me for expecting normal things that happen in a relationship. Like, I was just asking for time together and like to go on a date here and there. And I was happy — like, most of our dating relationship, literally almost our entire relationship, was us in front of the TV watching a show together and eating pizza, and that was fine with me overall. Like, I was pretty much fine with that as long as I got to be with him and we just watched a lot of TV. And like, granted, a lot of our relationship was throughout the winter, but point is, I was more than happy for him to do his own thing, and I encouraged it. But then he has this idea that I was asking him not to hang out with his friends or telling him not to go out and do his own thing, and that's just not true. I don't know. This whole relationship has been so freaking confused.

I just don't even know how he and I share the same reality with how twisted he makes it. And I'm like, how are you getting there from where we are? I see it a specific way, and he sees it in a totally opposite, totally different way, and it just doesn't make any sense. I've been so shocked.

But anyway, all right, that's the relationship stuff. So, he basically was just telling me today how I zapped all his energy and how I was expecting too much from him and that now he's happier and has more time to himself and this and that. And I'm like, just makes me feel like shit. And I already feel low, and on top of that, I missed him, and I see a lot of positive things. So, I answered him, and I was like, all I want with this breakup, all I want is for us to end it amicably. I just want him to acknowledge how I gave to him and what I gave to him because he talks and acts like he sacrificed so much to be with me when, even if that's the case, which I don't really think he did sacrifice a lot — like, I didn't ask him to sacrifice — but even if that is the case, I sacrificed for him like crazy, and I would say I sacrificed more for him. For example, I was always the one driving to him. I drove to him every single time we ever hung out. He never came to my place, which is whatever. I was good with that.

Um, so I was always the one who was uprooted, and when I would spend a weekend day with him or this or that, I would pack my bag. So every time I went to visit him, I had this bag that I would pack of stuff, and I felt very uprooted, and my life was very like crazy because of it. And I had another thought. Oh, yeah, just what I was saying earlier, that I was like expecting too much from him? I had literally asked, could we spend one day together each week? Like, one full day? Is that too much? Like, a Saturday? I had asked for Saturday or Sunday to just spend the day together because our entire relationship, we saw each other after work. So we would literally only see each other from like 5:30, maybe 6:30, 7:30 — sometimes it was 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 — to bedtime. Our relationship was like an evening, three-hour relationship, and that just felt weird.

I was like, if we're in a relationship and we're partners, I want to like have the experience of spending a day with you. Anyway, he thought that was too much, too much to ask. I also like had to make sure that I kept my schedule very open and very flexible so that whenever he was available or whenever it worked best for him to see each other, that I would be available because it was a priority for me to see him. And if I was making all my own plans, then the one time he was available, there was a good chance I'd be busy. So I always kept my schedule quite open and flexible for him, and I always saw him on his invitation. Like, I would never ask to hang out with him. I would wait for him to invite me over, and it was just all on his time, whatever worked best for him.

So anyway, he's being so unfair to me, and he's like decided — like, it's hard because he went from being very invested and often very kind and loving and giving and all of that — he was good sometimes. He went from that to like this stark contrast right after breaking up with me where he just like is done with me and acting like I'm nothing and treating me like I'm nothing and like not giving me basic respect. And anytime we do contact or he contacts me, it's just to like yell at me or like he's very aggressive in his conversation, just telling me all the ways is that he's angry at me.

There's literally no sadness. Like, he doesn't express sadness. He doesn't express pain. He doesn't express missing me. He doesn't ever acknowledge the good parts and the good like times in our relationship, which is crazy because we had a lot.

Anyway, that's enough of that. But that's why it's hard is that I just wish that he could acknowledge the ways that I gave and sacrificed for him.

Bridal shower

And then the other triggered part was the bridal shower. I guess I didn't know wedding etiquette. I didn't know that you give two gifts for wedding people. I thought you got them a wedding gift, and that was it. And then I right before the bridal shower, I was, wait, what? Do you get a gift for the bridal shower? I thought that was the wedding gift. And then I was, crap. Okay, so I ran to Target, and I got gifts, and I had asked my mom, and she was like, okay, bridal shower gifts are things for their honeymoon. And I was like, okay, honeymoon, honeymoon, okay. So I got like things associated with honeymoon. It was mostly like self-care items for her, like taking care of like glamorous things, I don't know, like perfume and stuff like that and makeup and stuff. And then I started researching it more on my drive there, and I was like thinking about it more, and then I realized, oh yeah, people usually give like bowls and towels and like things for the house and home. And I was like, shit.

I failed the assignment so bad. I didn't get anything like home related, and then I felt like a huge failure. I got all the wrong gifts. Even though I spent tons of money, I felt awful, and that was already like extremely anxiety-inducing. And then the entire time, I was not kidding, my stomach was in knots. I felt like heart pounding. I felt absolutely horrible. Oh, yeah, I even had some heart pangs, like maybe two or three minutes of like sharp heart pain, like a panic attack from this fear of imagining her opening all the gifts in front of all the other women and then like opening my gift and it's all wrong, like all of the gifts are wrong, and everybody's like, what? Like, why did she get you that?

That's such a weird thing to do for a bridal shower. Maybe they wouldn't say it, but they would think it. I just felt really extremely embarrassed and like I failed. It was so anxiety-inducing to imagine her opening it in front of everyone, and that's exactly what happened. So I was just terrified — like, I was terrified for her to open the presents. And so when I got there and had to meet all the girls, that's all I was thinking about was, I fucking failed. I failed. I am so embarrassed and so scared.

And, yeah, so that's how I was approaching it. And then on top of it, I was like, do not make it about you. Do not make it about you. It's about her. It's about her. It's her bridal shower. This is huge.

So I put on my mask, and I was as friendly and nice as I could be, but still like the symptoms of anxiety were like eating my body, so it's extremely difficult to get to be okay. And then on top of that was social anxiety. There was like 25 women. I didn't know anybody except for her, and I'm a bridesmaid, so I was like kind of expected to interact with the other bridesmaids, and I just started to really feel like — imposter syndrome is not the right word, but I just started to feel really crappy about myself because all the other bridesmaids knew each other.

So all of them were all laughing and talking, and they're all talking easily with the bride-to-be, and they're all like super open and expressive and animated and laughing, and the more they talked and the happier and more connected they all were, the more disconnected I felt. I just felt like I shouldn't be there, and I didn't really want to be there, and I also just started to feel like I'm not a woman, which is such a weird thing to say, but it's expressing how I feel where because I was raised mostly by my dad and with five brothers.

I have very masculine traits. I'm usually not very expressive or animated. I'm not open with my emotions. I am on here, but I'm not in person generally. I'm not expressive. I don't do a lot of like women, like laughing and giggling and like going "ah". Like those kinds of things that are very feminine. I generally don't do those things. I generally talk in like a more monotone way and not extremely expressive.

I am not acting like a woman

So I just started to feel like I don't belong and that I can't be a woman. I'm not acting like a woman. I don't know how to interact with these women. I generally don't know how to interact with women.

So yeah, all of that compounded was really rough. And there were so, so many people who were close to my friend who were like,

"So how do you know the bride?"

And just that question was like, wait, she hasn't talked about me at all to them, so they don't know who I am. So I just felt like that was kind of hurtful. And on top of all that, even though she and I had been friends since childhood, we didn't get extremely close, mostly because of me because it's difficult for me to get close to people. And so I felt like an imposter, that like she was obviously closer to the other girls — she was — and it makes me feel like crap.

But that's what bridal parties are all about is just like you comparing your relationship with the bride to all the other girls and their relationships to the bride and like,

"Oh, they're much closer than we are,"

And

"This girl knows her so much better than me,"

which is just a bad feeling. But I try my best. Anyway, this whole time I tried my best, and when she opened the gifts, it was really embarrassing and shameful, and I felt horrible, and I was like blushing, and I was like,

"I'm so sorry I missed the memo. I didn't know that I was supposed to get house gifts. I've never shopped for a bridal shower before."

I did Google it, and I got confusing Google answers for ideas.

Anyway, enough of that. So I left the party today feeling very triggered and inadequate and like a poser and like I didn't deserve friends and very isolated and disconnected and just craving connection. And throughout the day, I've been so close to tears, and I have cried a couple of times whenever I'm reminded of people who are very closely connected. I watched a video of two people who are very connected, and when I see that love and openness between them, I just start to cry.

And then yeah, it was during that bridal shower that my ex talked to me and just said a bunch of awful things that made me feel worse. And it's like, we spent a year and a half together, almost a year and a half, and I poured into him. That's why it's so hurtful. It is when you give 110%, you over-give, you give more than you even have — so much effort and time and love pouring into him to make him feel encouraged and loved and built up and like doing everything in my power to improve his life, buying him gifts and plants and like giving him compliments and all of that and tons of other stuff, and for him to not acknowledge it and to only acknowledge the bad and to tell me like I made him miserable when that wasn't my intention.

This is rational me speaking, he is very manipulative, and he puts way too much blame on me that is not deserved, but often I take it to heart, and I feel like it's true even though rationally I know it's not. He is just one of the people who put too much blame on other people for things that he should be taking responsibility for.

Feeling alone

But anyway, it all just hit me really hard today, and it's been a very triggering state where I start to get triggered into who I was when I was a teenager, which is feeling very worthless and mostly feeling unworthy and undeserving of anything. I just feel like a speck of dust or a piece of dirt and like undeserving of love or friends or people reaching out, and it makes me want to self-isolate, and my life feels very empty, and I feel very alone.

And all of that is to say that it's okay to have these days. That most or part of this is my cycle — emotions heightening all of this and making it seem more extreme. And it doesn't mean that I'm going backwards in growth, and it's okay to have these bad days, and it doesn't have to mean anything. It just means that you're having a hard day, and actually the best thing you can do for yourself is to feel it.

There's a line between wallowing, but if you feel in your body that you need to cry, like I feel it right now, I have a tight throat, then let yourself cry for a while and release it because it means something has to be released from your body. It's almost like a toxin, and you'll feel better. And also, when you're having a tough time like this, you can be okay at the same time because you've got yourself. If you've created a good relationship with yourself, you know you've got you, and that's me. I've built a relationship with myself where I know I can take care of me when I'm doing badly like this. And even though it's a bad day, and I feel like emotional and very triggered and I'm descending into that dark black hole, I can still pull myself out and have perspective and use logic and rationality and process the emotions and know that it will pass.

And yeah, another thing I really want to get across is that so many people, my ex-boyfriend included, they try to run from pain, and they run and run. They try to avoid it, and they see pain and sadness or bad days or any negative feeling to be a bad thing when I believe very strongly, 100%, that you need to have a relationship with it. Pain is not the enemy. You have to feel pain in order to work through it, and that's the only way. And it's not an enemy.

Pain and sadness are teaching you things, and I know that sounds so cliché, but if you think about it, ask yourself, what is the pain teaching me? Pain is trying to point you in a certain direction, and sometimes that can be tricky because it can make you — for me, it can be like,

"Oh, I feel heartbroken, so that means close myself off and never love again,"

which is what some people do, and it's very tempting, and even I'm tempted to do that, to become jaded and distrustful towards people.

But if you think past it, it's like, no, what is it teaching you? What is it teaching you? And something that the pain is teaching me is it's very important for me going forward to not give any part of myself that I would regret having given if the relationship ends. So if you over-give yourself and you're just pouring too much and giving too much and like to an unhealthy extent where you're like sacrificing yourself for the other person's happiness and giving too much, and then they end up leaving you, then you just keep thinking like how much you regret those decisions, like sacrificing your life for them and sacrificing a year and a half of your time.

And I don't regret the relationship. There's just specific things that I gave that I regret, and there's other things I gave that I do not regret. So it's just finding that line to only give what you know you won't regret later. And I feel like so many people would misunderstand what I just said, but I don't want to go into too many details.

Fine, I will. Here's an example: saying yes to giving away your body to your boyfriend when you don't want it because you love them and you want to make them happy, but when the relationship ends, you regret it so much, and it makes you feel like crap.

And I learned my lesson. I'm going to try to work through that, not do that again.

YouTube comments

YouTube has been so frustrating for me. I've really lost sight of YouTube — there's so many things I want to talk about and record, but I've gotten so good at predicting what the comments are going to be, and I'm not wrong. It's not a surprise when I get the comments that I'm expecting, but it always takes away the meaning of my videos when I'm trying to record things and share things to help other people who are struggling in the same ways and then to get comments like,

"Oh, you're just trying to get attention. You just want attention,"

or

"Why are you sharing all this weird crap? Like, you should just keep this private. Like, why are you being so open about such personal stuff?"

And it's literally that I am sacrificing myself and my sanity for you. Like, I am literally so exposed and so vulnerable and so open for all these comments to come and attack me. I'm doing it literally for you. And when I say for you, I mean the specific people. People who are struggling in the same ways that I struggle. I don't care about anybody else. Like, I'm not doing this for anyone else.

There's so many people who are like,

"Um, I don't relate to this. I don't know why you're posting this,"

It's like, okay, then it's not for you. People complain about there being so much fakeness on social media and so much toxic positivity and so much people just faking it and showing only their happy days or their best moments. People complain about that, but when I and others share pain or cry or share heartbreak or any other negative part or depression, there are so many comments who are like,

"Why are you sharing this? Like, you're being way too personal. Like, you need to keep this to yourself. Like, this is so negative. Why are you sharing this?"

Like, they—they're like,

"Be happier."

There's a lot of shame and embarrassment and like shaming of sharing the bad days and the bad emotions. There's so many people who don't want to see it. They don't want it. So it's hard, but I know that it's helpful for some people.

Anyway, I'm going to be done. Thanks for listening. Sorry, but I wanted to just record the triggers and the feelings and the descending down, and now I'm going to go outside and paint, and it's not my worst day, but I already know that this week is going to get worse emotionally because of my cycle.

Okay, guys, just want to say bye.

So, bye.

This is my face on a good day. This is me with no makeup. I’ve been going makeup-free a little more often this year. These are my eyes and how they crinkle now. I actually think these baby wrinkles make my eyes twinkle. This is my room. It’s the first room I’ve ever had that I’ve been able to go all out decorating. I think since I wasn’t allowed to decorate when I was a child, I think I wanted to make this room kind of my childhood dream.

It’s so strange to think that you only get to be each age for one year, and one year is so incredibly short.

25 was one of the best years ever, and I’ll never be 25 again. Let’s start with an easy question:

How am I doing? How am I doing as a general question?

Health issue and father's death

If I’m talking about all year, it’s definitely been up and down, up and down, up and down. The difference is what kind of struggle that it has been.

When times were bad this year, I went through a lot of fear. There was a lot of fear, mostly anxiety over my health because I had health issues. It was also loss, because I lost my dad before just a couple days before my birthday throughout year of 25.

I’ve been going through that, which has been a very complicated, complex process that I feel has barely even started. So apart from that and another crisis within the family that impacted me very strongly, okay, so that’s the overall how I’ve been doing. It was up and down, and and throughout this year also was with my current boyfriend, and that was overall positive. He’s been an overall positive part of my life and something that added a lot of light and joy. Overall, even though it was up and down throughout that throughout the year, my mind and mindset were much stronger this year. So even when times were horrible and tough, I felt stronger throughout it, which was really cool.

Did you enjoy being 25, and what was it like?

So, I’m asking myself this question because I know that when I was like any age younger, like a teenager even, I always wondered what it would be like and feel like to be 25, which I felt was a very old age. Like, I know that I felt that I would have it all figured out at this age. I wrote an essay in high school, where I talked about being 25 and that I would have my cabin in Colorado, and I would own a dog, and I would already have a career started, and I already went to college. I definitely overestimated the amount of things that would have happened by now.

So, to be 25, I would say that it, it was an awesome age to be. I felt emotionally and mentally, and within myself, I felt the best that I ever have. I felt the most confident.

I liked being 25, and actually, I’m going to miss it a lot. But luckily, 26 is probably going to be very close to 25. I know that I said in my 23 video that it’s all downhill from that age, and that’s a lie. It’s a lie. It’s not true at all. I was so terrified of aging, and I still am scared of it, but less scared and more chill.

Things getting better and better

To be 25, you’re not going downhill, like you don’t feel like you’re going downhill. I think I imagined that I would feel that I was going downhill, but I don’t. It feels like things are getting better and better, and it feels like things are going up and up and up.

So, anybody younger who’s listening, just know that as long as you make the right decisions, which just includes like some self-awareness and personal growth stuff, and self-love and, you know, growing in confidence and all of that kind of work, it’s just going to get better and better, you’re not going downhill. You don’t have to worry too much. It’s going uphill for quite a while, and I was just way too freaked out about aging, and you really don’t have to worry about it for a long time.

Kind of freaking out. Honestly, almost every night before bed, I just have like a moment of freak-out. Like, how am I this old already? What happened? I blinked. I hate those thoughts, because it went slowly as well, but slow and fast at the same time. And I don’t feel my age. I’m thinking to myself right now, how it just feels like I was a teenager so recently, and that at 25, I thought I would be, I would feel older, but I don’t. I just feel like a teen, and taking walks with the sunset is such a familiar thing that I’ve always done, and it kind of transports me back to when I was a teenager, looking at the sunset. Okay, you little get scared.

For how do you feel about aging now?

This is an important topic to me because it’s been on my mind a lot.

When I was like 22, 23, I was really freaked out, really, really freaked out about aging and getting older because I thought that it would just kind of like happen all of a sudden, and everything would just fall down and fade, and you get gray hair, and wrinkles, and it just happens so suddenly. But it doesn’t.

I realized that it wasn’t really happening. I thought that I would show more signs of age faster, and that’s not the case. It’s, I still look the same overall, and this year, I did notice like my first baby wrinkles, and that kind of freaks me out a little bit.

I feel a lot more chill about aging. I just feel like so far, it’s felt like I’ve had plenty of time so far, and I know when you look in retrospect, it feels like everything went so fast. But so far, it really just feels like a long time, and I know it’s going to just go by and keep going, time.

I know that I’ll be older and look back and be like,

“You have no idea how fast it goes.”

But as long as I’m just living, aware of time, and like not wasting it as much as possible, it’s going, it’s going slower than I thought it would.

I was so scared that time and aging would just go like a race car past, and I would be 80 and look back and be like,

“Oh my God, where did the time go? I just blinked.”

And again, I know that that’s how people, that’s what people say happens, but I, at 25, looking back at 20 up to 25.

I do not feel like those years went by so incredibly quickly. I feel like they felt like years.

Admiring older women

One more thing that helped me that I want to share is that it helped me like crazy to, uh, kind of make a mental list of all the women, especially who I admire, who are older and who I think are beautiful and gorgeous women.

So I have like, they’re all like celebrities, but I have this whole list of these celebrity women who are in their 30s and 40s and beyond, who I think are just absolutely gorgeous, stunning women, and I’m like,

“Okay, so you can still be like a perfectly healthy, functioning, beautiful person, and age doesn’t have to eat you alive. You can age gracefully.”

And I hope that happens to encapsulate what 25 was. It was kind of just a like a sigh of relief.

“I’m not aging that fast. It’s all okay. I can just relax a little bit.”

Like, it was kind of a year of chilling out, and it was a year of like coming into myself more. It was a year of becoming more authentic and practicing authenticity. It was a year of practicing, having opinions and forming opinions on things and gaining confidence and practicing facing more fear and also caring a little bit less of what people say or think about you, because you know who you are. And when you know who you are, people’s opinions of you and the things that they say, you can either attach to those things and believe that that’s your identity, or you are so secure in your identity that you know what’s true and what isn’t.

That was a huge point of growth for me. So yeah, 25 for me was very positive. It feels like you’re really getting the hang of being an adult, and people are treating you like an adult more.

It’s actually really shocking and jarring to me still when other adults, like in their 30s and 40s, like in business settings as well, are treating me like an adult and giving me that respect and consideration, and I’m just like,

“I’m trying to lean into it and fake it till I make it,”

But it just feels so strange. It’s wonderful. It’s what I’ve always wanted, but it’s just, I can’t believe that it’s happening, ‘cause it’s a very big difference to when you’re younger.

Blooming

Then there’s a question that says,

“Am I proud of who I’m becoming?”

The answer is 100% yes, I am. I’m very happy with the choices that I’ve made, and I’m happy with my personal growth. I feel like I’ve grown and transformed like a butterfly.

I feel like I’m kind of blooming now, and in a lot of ways, I am the same and struggling with the same things, but in other ways, I have grown so much so that I’m barely, I can barely even recognize who I was before, especially looking at who I was as a teen and even like early 20s. I’m so different in the category of self-respect and valuing myself and knowing what value I have. God, I wish that I knew when I was younger.

Another thing is, I’ve become so much more authentically me, and I feel more free.

Letting go of people

And I’ve let go of people who I don’t want to say hold me down or tear me down, just people who suffocate me and don’t allow me to be who I am. Like, I’ve let go of different communities and people who thought or wanted me to be a specific way and who I would have to fake myself around. So now I can just be me, and everybody in my life right now, I am me, which is great.

You know, now that I’m talking about value and self-respect, I’m going to answer this question, which is,

“What advice would I give to my 21-year-old self and my 18-year-old self?”

And I would, I want to give advice to my 18-year-old self first, and I might have different advice at a different time.

But it’s really on valuing yourself, you know. The horrible thing about this is, I don’t think I would have been able to believe it or understand what I’m about to say right now, so this wouldn’t have even really been helpful. I just had to go through it and learn. But I would just say,

“You are so much more valuable than you think you are.”

Relationship don'ts

And in terms of relationships, don’t let somebody use you. Know your value.

1. Don’t let somebody feel like they own you, and
2. don’t give yourself to someone as if they own you,and
3. don’t serve someone like you are their slave, and
4. don’t let someone treat you like their slave.

You are so worthy and valuable and deserving of respect, and you deserve to have all of your needs met, and you deserve the right to say no. And you can say no. You can say no. And saying no won’t make the right people leave you. Maybe saying no will make the wrong person leave you, and that’s a good thing. But you have to say no.

If we’re on the subject of love, I’ll say to my 18-year-old self and my 21-year-old self that just because you’re in love with someone, it doesn’t mean you give yourself to that person. And again, this won’t connect unless you’re ready to hear it. But that’s not enough to just love someone and then give them yourself to them. They have to love you. They have to treat you well. It doesn’t matter if you’re in love with them. You can ignore that part. The part that matters is, is if they love you and respect you and are treating you well and pursuing you. And if they’re not, you have to learn how to move on. And for so many people, especially young people, and to myself, I would have rejected that immediately.

“There’s no way I can move on. I can’t move on. I’ll never move on.”

You can. You can. You can.

But it’s a decision. It’s a decision you have to make to change how you’re thinking about things. Think about it differently.

Heart broken

Anyway. Okay, we’re gonna just not speak anymore. I don’t know what advice I would give to my 21-year-old self. Honestly, my 21-year-old self did pretty darn good. I think that’s when I got broken up with, and I was heartbroken. So, I would just say,

“Keep your chin up. It’s going to be okay.”

There’s going to be a day when your heart is not hurting anymore, and you’re going to feel great, and you’re not going to miss that person. And I mean it’s just not going to feel the way you think it’s going to feel. You’re not going to be in pain for the rest of your life. You’re fine. You will be fine. You will be fine.

There’s one that says,

“Do I have regrets on how I spent time in my 20s?”

And so far, I’m going to say no, overall, no. Literally, everything has worked out. Everything worked and happened for a reason. And once I adopted that philosophy, whether it’s true or not, it’s true for me, and it really, really helps to have the philosophy of absolutely everything that’s happening currently and has happened in the past is leading you to something good, even if that means your own personal growth. And for me, I’ve been shown time and time again that everything that has happened in the past has led me here.

And I know so many people say that, like,

“Oh, I have no regrets, because then I wouldn’t be here now,”

But as lame and cliché as that sounds, it’s 100% true. Like, I made what I believed were mistakes at the time, like dating the wrong person or having the wrong friend group. But those decisions changed me, and I learned from them.

Like, yeah, it’s, yeah, very, very cool. And I believe that those painful memories and painful decisions that I made, they’re going to help me out in the future when I inevitably go through more hard times. I’ll know that it will work out again. I suppose I have smaller regrets, and I would say it’s wasting time. However, I haven’t yet done the things that I’ve wanted to do. And I’ve done a pretty good job, a very good job traveling, but as far as like self-development, like going to therapy, going to college a little bit, I thought I would write a book, writing a book. You know, different pursuits that you just put off and you put off and you put off. I’m trying to do those things this year.

The other regret is too much time spent on my phone. You guys, be careful, be careful. You might just spend your whole life on your phone doing nothing.

How have I changed the most this year?

How I have changed the most is the authenticity and self-respect and confidence. I really, really worked this year on having opinions and sharing them and saying things that I would normally keep to myself.

Being open and being a woman

And I’m just such a person who’s always been so withdrawn and like inside myself, and I’m closed. And I was practicing

• being open,
• being open,
• being open.

Mostly on social media, honestly. And I had a lot of my friends or people who I knew, reach out to me and tell me that it meant a lot to them that I was being so open and that it was helping them. So, that made me feel like I was on the right track. But as I was practicing being more open and more authentic and just saying what I wanted to say without fear, I would gain confidence every time, as I learned, like,

“Oh, there’s nothing wrong with me.”

I feel like confidence partially comes from feeling like you are living according to who you are. And when I started openly being myself and who I am, I felt more confident and more authentic. And I don’t know, that’s the biggest change.

And then the other biggest change that I’m very proud of and I love and I embrace and has helped me like crazy is how I feel about being a woman. I embraced being a woman and the power of being a woman. And I’ve completely let go of believing

1. that I am weak as a woman, or
2. that I have less value as a woman, or
3. that I am less powerful.

So, I’ve really embraced the power of being a woman, and that includes supporting other women and their power and encouraging them ,and following women who know the power that they hold as well. And that’s been a journey and a discovery, and I’m still discovering it, because I grew up as a woman believing that I had no power. And now I’m slowly discovering the power of being a woman. It’s just been a huge process for me to even discover that. I just didn’t know. And I thought that a lot of things were backwards. I’m really just embracing how I want to be treated in relationships and the respect that I deserve and that I have equal rights, which is so crazy.

I am a feminist

They were, yeah, I could get into all of this whenever I want to talk about Christianity in a different video.

So I identify as a feminist, and I only want to hang around with men and women who are also feminists. I am trying my very best to repel every man from me who does not believe these things, and it’s kind of like the greatest discovery of my life this year and this past year and maybe the year before, but mostly this year, to discover that there are men out there like that. And maybe there’s a lot, but I still don’t know. But there are men out there who are feminists, and they truly love women, and they, they are supportive of these concepts. And that’s the only people, I do not want anything to do with the other kind of man.

What’s been on my mind the most, almost at 25? Did I just answer this question? I don’t even know. What would I like to say to my 30-year-old self? And that is, just comes to mind, I would like to continue growing. A lot! I never want to stop growing. And what I want to become and what I hope that I am, when I’m 30 is a very open and warm person. I would like to be the person that other people feel is so loving and warm and open and comforting to them. And I am a long way from that. That’s just how it is right now, and I’m working on it. But I would tell my 30-year-old self, “I really hope you’re like that, and I am working on it, and I’m doing my best, and that’s who I want to be.” And as long as I have a clear image of who I want to be, I think I’m going to make it.

And I hope that you’re either married to the love of your life or dating the love of your life, or you somehow magically found so much happiness and fulfillment in being single. I just really hope that you’re, that you found the person.

Could I say what am I struggling with right now?

Right now, I’ve been struggling a lot with my relationship because it’s been going up and down and maybe is kind of a steady, and I’ve been very confused, trying to, because I’m aware that in relationships, I am not a fully healthy person, and I tried my very best to pick someone who I believed was very, very, very healthy and securely attached and all of that and good family, and it was good. But I definitely chose someone who came with their own baggage and issues. And I’ve been struggling a lot to try to figure out if we are compatible. I can’t tell if it feels right or not. And people say,

“Listen to your gut.”

But I don’t even know what, what my gut is saying. Like, I can’t tell. I feel like my gut is kind of telling me something is wrong, but then I can’t really tell if it’s me that’s wrong, that like if I do things differently, or if I work on things more, you know, or if I just let go of my idea of what I thought a relationship would be like or should be like. But in that case, I don’t want to do that, because I don’t know. It’s like I don’t want to let go of what I believe I want. So, yeah, just trying to figure out if I’m with the right person and how to be like, because they say, like, “When you’re in a relationship, it’s not going to solve your problems, and you’re not going to feel 100% whole and happy, because the relationship isn’t all you need.”

And that’s true. So, I’ve been working on and trying to, find happiness and fulfillment in other relationships and trying to nurture other relationships and just have an all-around full life. And that’s it.

I don’t know. I don’t know. So, I just, I want to remember that I don’t know if I’ll be brave enough to put that in the video, but I’m just trying to, I never really had, a good example of what a healthy relationship looks like. So, I’m not sure if my expectations are actually way too low, and I’m accepting too little, or if they’re too high and our relationship is actually very normal and healthy. It’s not healthy, but normal. Like, where do we have, have as many struggles as a normal couple, or do we have more problems and struggles? Because everybody says,

“Yeah, we all have our own relationship issues and problems and things we’re working through.”

But I sometimes it feels like I have more, and trying to figure out if it’s, I don’t know. I don’t know. So, that’s where I am. I don’t, know.

It’s been interesting because overall, it’s given me a lot of peace and a lot of security overall, and it’s given me a lot of happiness overall.

13-Feb-1998 is my birthday

Today is the last day of being 25, and that was definitely me speaking to an audience. And I shan’t do that. So, we are going to restart. Today is the last… nope.

Today, let’s talk to me. This is only recorded for you. Today is the last day that I am 25. So, if somebody asks me how old I am today, I can say 25. And even though this doesn’t really connect fully in my head, it is the last time I will ever be 25 in my entire life.

There are no do-overs. But a silver lining for me is that 26 isn’t too far from 25. It’s just one year older. So, I’m okay. But I will say it is freaky. Very freaky sometimes. You know, it’s interesting. Sometimes I feel like it’s freaky and scary, and other times I feel like I don’t feel any different. This is totally fine. We’re okay.

I feel totally opposite, depending on the day. In some ways, it’s great. I think in the aging, I’m good with aging right now, and I don’t feel so depressed or hopeless about that.

But as far as getting one year closer to death, that’s what freaks me out. So, that’s why it’s scary. But I’m okay with aging. A couple weeks beforehand, I like to tell myself that I am 26, so that doesn’t scare me on the day of. So, the last couple of weeks, I’ve been already telling myself I am 26.

So I actually posted this first part of the video already and from the comments that I'm getting, I think I need to address some things because I think that I was a little careless to just post my unfiltered thoughts without giving some caveats. I never know how to say that word—caveats. I can't stress this enough: this video is me doing a video diary where I express my innermost, innermost, innermost subconscious beliefs. Everything that I'm saying is a subconscious belief that I've had that I wasn't even aware of, that I had to dig up for years. I've been thinking about this for years, trying to figure out what my subconscious beliefs are, and that's what these are. These don't reflect my actual beliefs and what I know to be true, and I get to it at the end of the video. I do talk about "not all men," which is absolutely true, and I genuinely still love men and I know some very good men. I have good men in my life.

But I mean still, I think I was just trying to express thoughts that I have and feelings that I have that basically torture me to this day, and I definitely need therapy for this. But try not to take it too seriously. Like, if you are not one of these men, if you don't identify with this and you disagree, first of all, I actually want that because I want to hear that this is not true. I want to hear that men love women and men want to love women. Also, if you don't identify with this kind of man, then I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about a specific kind of man. I'm very aware that what I say is a blanket statement and it doesn't reflect all of mankind. This is just some therapy work and I actually really, really value your insight. I was gonna say especially if you're a man, but kind of especially if you're a man because you can offer the man's perspective, but also especially as a woman because I want to hear if women can relate to me and these thoughts and feelings that I'm having about male sexuality.

I'm going to do a therapy session where I am going to attempt to get every one of my thoughts or a lot of them out on the page metaphorically.

Childhood

I never know where to begin, so I'm going to begin at the very beginning.

Child me: basically as background, child me loved men. Loved as in I idolized men, and from a very, very young age, I was attracted to older men for some reason. Maybe it's normal. My first crushes, when I was like five years old, were older men like in their 20s, 30s, 40s. And it was all innocent and cute and sweet; nothing happened. It was just like, I remember the first time I was a little sheltered, like Christian growing up, and the first time I ever saw a man shirtless, I was like, "I like him," and he was like 40 and married, and I was like six.

But yeah, I had crushes and they were so innocent and sweet, and I would picture like talking to a boy or holding hands. I couldn't even get as far as kissing, I was so innocent.

As background to try to understand where I'm coming from, it's hard to explain, but I was very sheltered, and I knew nothing about boys. Very much because I was raised strictly, like a very strict version of Christian, like fundamentalist or whatever you want to call it, where men and women were separated growing up. For the most part, men were so separated from the women where it was like it was bad if a boy was interacting with a girl. And also boys were taught some sort of hatred or looking down on women to the point where, as a girl growing up, I was bullied by a bunch of boys all the time, like church boys, because they thought girls were yucky or dumb or stupid or something like that. I still don't quite understand.

So I kind of grew up thinking I was ugly, which I actually was. I went through the awkward stage of being actually ugly, and I just thought that boys didn't like me and that I was unlikable and unattractive. I didn't really understand how the dynamics of boys and girls worked.

Teenager

Fast forward to when I was a teenager and I started developing, and getting you know, developing. I started getting attention from boys and not just boys, but college boys as well, when I was like 15, 14, and also like just any man would give me some attention. And all of this positive attention, compliments, or even like catcalling on the street when I was a teenager, I took all of that positively. I was like, "They like me, they think I'm pretty, they might want to go on a date with me." I didn't think that clearly, but I didn't think that it was bad in any way. The attention felt nice and sweet and good, and it built me up and it built my confidence. I thought that these men and boys liked me, like the word "like." I thought they liked me.

I'm going really fast, but it was, and again this makes me sound so sheltered, but it wasn't until I was 19, 20, 21, 22 and still now, that I'm figuring out that all of that attention from strangers and boys that I knew, all of it was sexual attention.

I had no idea that these boys and men didn't actually like me. They liked my body. They just liked how I looked in short shorts and tight jeans, and their compliments were always like, "I like your jeans," or "I like your shirt," "I like how things fit on you." For real, in high school, a boy once said with a smirk, "I like those jeans," and all of his guys around him giggled and laughed, and they were a really tight pair of skinny jeans or something. I was like, "Thank you," and that compliment made my day.

If you guys have the time, I know this is awful, but in high school, I had no idea that boys looked at me sexually, that he didn't like my jeans, he liked how my ass looked in my jeans. I did not realize that and I just took it as like this sweet compliment.

Oh, I finally started learning, thanks to the internet and thanks to just life, that men look at women sexually, like purely, only sexually. Every time I go out in public, men are checking me out every second. It's hard to explain, but there's this transition where I loved these men. I loved men growing up. I had crushes and I thought that my interactions with men were sweet and pure and cute, like in a movie or a book. I thought that boys, who had crushes on me or liked me, liked me for my personality and who I am, and that it wouldn't matter what I looked like or what my body looked like. So, I viewed all that attention as positive until I realized that men have this separation between liking a girl and wanting to have sex with her.

First relationship

It took me literally throughout my entire first relationship to realize that a guy can want to have sex with a woman without having feelings for her. That took me until I was like 20 or 21 years old to finally figure out that guys don't have feelings for women most of the time. Maybe one percent of the time they do fall in love, but even when they fall in love, it's like accidental and they're like, "Oh crap, now I can't have one-night stands anymore."

I'm digging through my subconscious right now. This is the number one most triggering topic for me. Men don't like me; every time a guy gives me attention, he doesn't like me. He doesn't like my personality. If I had a different face or a different body, he wouldn't like me. He's looking at my body. It's so frustrating. Every time I go outside, every time I go in public, I feel men's eyes on me. I turn around and I see men's eyes on my ass. I see men checking my whole body out, and it doesn't feel good anymore. It stopped feeling good the moment I realized that men stare at every woman all the time, every woman's body. They care about bodies. They look at your boobs, they look at your butt. They only care about what my body looks like, and they're doing it to every other girl.

It's not special. It doesn't make you special. It doesn't make you beautiful. It doesn't mean anything other than that they're objectifying what you look like. They don't want to love you. They don't want to be in a relationship with you. They don't want to take care of you in the sense of if you're sick, or if down the road and you were together and you got cancer. They just want to have sex with you for a while with no feelings attached. This is coming out so badly, but it's basically that the attention from men I thought was positive and sweet and cute turned negative when I realized that men don't have feelings for you.

I ended up having quite a negative view of male sexuality, where I don't view a guy wanting to have sex with me or thinking I'm attractive positively at all, because they want to have sex with every woman and they find almost every woman attractive. What's special about that? And also, they make it very clear and loud that once you turn 25, which I am, I'm a 25-year-old, you become unattractive. This is all subconscious crap in my head, but all of this is counteracted by conscious thoughts, which is I know that I'm beautiful. I'm going to be beautiful for 20 more years at least, and even after that, I'll be beautiful in a different way. I also know that there are men in different areas of the internet and world who do find women attractive all the time, and I've met tons of them.

The point is that men tell me, and there's this internet portion of men who tell me that I am unattractive, unlovable, unwanted the second I reach a certain age. So, why should I somehow value, respect, or cherish men's attention towards me if I know that it's temporary and dependent on my youth?

Nothing is special about it. I don't value it. I realized that men can have sex forever with one woman, like in friends with benefits situations, without feelings. When I was young, and by young I mean like 19 and 20, I thought that men who had sex with women had feelings for those women. I thought it was impossible to have sex with a woman without feeling anything for her. I've heard so many things about men going to clubs to pick up women to sleep with, and then in the morning, looking at her and being repulsed. Why did they do that? Because of male sexuality, they couldn't help it. They were just so horny that they had to grab someone they thought was ugly and use her for the night.

Basically, all of it is down to men just wanting to use women. They just want to use me. While I'm young, they want to use me, and when I get older, they're on to the next. Nobody cares about you, you're ugly, unwanted. It's ridiculous. And the other thing is there are tons of men who, if I did post this in the comments, they would be relishing this. They would be happy. They would say, "This is what you get for being a woman. This is how it should be." They'd think, "Yeah, you get all this male attention and then it all dries up. That's what you deserve." There's this hatred. Anyway, I'm getting off-topic.

There's another whole section which I probably won't be able to record because of my phone storage, but I will say a huge massive portion of this. You know what? I'm just gonna say it: disgust towards male sexuality. I was sexually abused when I was a child, a very young child, like four years old, and then again from seven through nine, or seven through ten, or something like that. I was sexually abused by two different people and used in the worst possible ways. The absolute worst, disgusting behavior by men who couldn't control themselves. I'm so sick of that, like, "Oh, gender biology, they can't control it," which I think is the basis for all of this pent-up anger. To me, male sexuality is men who can't control themselves. It's all about using women for themselves. It's about throwing and discarding women. It's about having no feelings towards women and everything being about sex, sex, sex, sex. I can't walk down the street as a normal human without being objectified and turned into a sex doll by strangers who are staring at my ass all the time, every single day. They follow me around and stare at me, and if I bend over, they stare at me. If I'm literally just trying to pick something up or tie my shoe or dig through my car, I turn around, and there's a guy staring at my ass. It's not a compliment, not respectful, not great. I hate it, and I am a self-conscious, low-confidence person most of the time. Being stared at by men constantly, especially old men, having to walk past men sitting on benches while they stare at me, I can't stand it. Men, you don't know what it's like. You might stare at a woman for a good ten seconds and think, "Oh, that's probably the only person who stares at her for ten seconds straight that day." Nope. There are men who just unguardedly stare at me, and it's not a friendly stare in the least. It's a growl. They're just staring, and their whole head turns. It makes me so uncomfortable, and it's constant.

And I can hear comments saying, "Oh well, good for you. As you get older and uglier, no man will want you, so you should just relish the attention." Why should I relish this attention? It's not positive attention. It's just, "Oh, I would do that person," and I would do that to any other girl too.

Laughs

I ran out of storage and deleted a bunch of videos in order to create this one. I don't know how long it will be, so I will try to talk very quickly.

Romance versus porn

Another thing that I failed to mention that is very important in this conversation is that I am a die-hard romantic, and I'm straight, which means I need a man. Which means that my whole life, I've been looking for a man to fall in love with and to fall in love with me and to have that beautiful love story.

And that desire, being my number one desire in life, makes all of this so much more intense to me and so much more passionate because as I grew older, I realized that was less and less of a possibility. It seems that most men do not want that. Because of the internet and things that men say and things I've heard in person, it sounds like and starts to seem like a man's dream life is to have multiple women in rotation who all get along, and he can just go from one to the next to the next, and that's perfect. It seems like there's almost no man in the universe who is happy, content, and searching for that one special woman and who would be content with one woman. That's also part of it, that it seems like men have this raging, uncontrollable sexuality that forces them to need several women all the time.

It's ridiculous, and all of this, again, is subconscious because I know consciously something else. I need to get into the hopeful part of all of this before the video ends, but to get to the bad part again, more to this dynamic is I've heard so much from men online and in person who talk about how important sex is to them to the point where it's come across that sex is more important than anything else in the entire world. And that if a woman cannot perform or give them the amount of sex that they want or do it good enough, then they will leave or cheat. It's like, "If you don't do this, I will cheat on you, and you will deserve it."

Another thing that went into this viewpoint or started making me believe this was porn. I view porn as a man's fantasy or what men truly want deep down, even if they don't admit to it. And basically, all porn is all about women serving men, women being degraded, men physically harming women, men physically disrespecting and humiliating women and degrading them in horrible ways. And I don't just mean like, "Oh, they make them do..." Sorry, I don't know how explicit I should be, but...

Another thing...

Well, maybe that's just too rough, but yeah.

So that created also a very negative viewpoint of what men want, what men are truly looking for, and who men are deep down and what they want to do to women, which is just basically harm and use women.

So I got really helpless about men and sexuality, and I have such a deeply ingrained negative viewpoint of male sexuality.

And the funny thing is you might think that makes me cold in that way in relationships, but it's actually the opposite. This belief system comes out in relationships by me seeing men as degrading a man all the way down to his most animal sexual nature and thinking that that's all there is to them and that's all they want. I was taught so much growing up, here and there, and in Christianity that the one way to make a man happy is to give him an endless supply, if you know what I mean, and to never say no ever and to act like you're enjoying it all the time.

Sex in my first relationship

With the first relationship, he was like, "Whoa, it's a dream come true," didn't really complain about it, but at the same time, he still left me, so it kind of shows that sex is not the only thing to keep a man. He never would have guessed that this is how I viewed sex or sexuality. I never told him, I never told anyone, I never talk about this ever with anyone. That's why it's so passionate. I never get to talk about it because it's so triggering to so many people.

But the cool thing is I wonder if I can get to this before this video ends. The cool thing is I've met a few men and I've heard some stories of men. I've purposely been searching for these stories about men who actually love women, who don't objectify women, and who see women as a person rather than a thing.

And one more thing on the negative side: men are constantly like, "Oh, growing up, I wanted to be friends with men. I like men. I wanted to be friends with them and I thought that men wanted to be friends with me." It took me forever to learn that, oh, whenever a guy was friends with me, it was because he wanted to have sex with me. The second he realized that he couldn't have sex with me, bam, gone out of my life forever. Absolute rejection. I was like, what? I thought we were friends, but no. Men are constantly saying, "We don't want to be friends with you. Are you crazy? We just want to have sex with you because that's what you're worth to us. That's how we see you. We see you as something to have sex with, not to actually have a conversation with or to value a relationship with or to see you as a human with valuable thoughts." That was another thing going into it. But anyway, I finally found these men, these good positive examples of men, including my current boyfriend who is nothing like what I described. All of those thoughts that I just described to you, there are men who are not like this, who I have met, and thank God. And also, thank God I got out of the Christian community that I was in, because Christian men are among the most sexist and objectifying of all men. Absolutely. And it's partly Christianity and Christian men to blame for this mindset.

But yeah, yeah, I'm not using words today.

Sex in my current relationship

My current relationship has been extremely healing. I don't let this thought process out; I don't really discuss it. It almost doesn't come out in a negative way because, as I said, it comes out as me being like, okay, I love someone and they're a man, and I know what men want. They just want endless sex, so let's just do that.

So, it's almost like you can't complain about it. But I have let it slip with my current boyfriend a little bit, some of these thoughts, and I'm always like, "Not you, obviously," because not him; I don't actually believe he's this way. But he finds it very insulting, which I guess a lot of guys would find insulting. But he finds it insulting that—and he has told me that he never, ever, ever, ever wants me to have sex when I don't want it or feel like it. He doesn't want me to pretend. I'm not very good at pretending, but he said it makes him feel like a really bad person that I'm almost unwilling inside, even though I act completely willing. And even though I sometimes am the one very viciously asking or starting it. I can't think of words today.

So I finally realized that there is actually more to sex, or there's more to relationships than sex for a man.

Another couple of positive examples: I follow these channels and follow these guys who are with women who have cancer, who are battling with cancer, or women who have all these different ailments or things wrong with them, or mental illnesses. Like, this one woman has schizophrenia and she has a really loving husband. I'm just purposely feeding myself these positive examples of men who actually see women as someone they can love and respect, someone they can talk to and have a real relationship with. Also, I view it as a very positive sign, very positive, that my boyfriend has female friends. It's a good thing because it means that—and he's told me explicitly—that it means he doesn't see women as sexual objects. He sees women as valuable, equal people who he can have friendships with without... I'm so against that. I don't think that it's true that men can't be friends with women and the only reason they are is because they want to have sex with them. Sure, that might be some men, but not others. Also, I have made friendships with men who I know just wanted to be friends with me, and I know it because they had crushes on other girls or they started dating other girls or they were in relationships already. They would tell me about them, and that would be part of our friendship.

Trauma

So anyway, all of that is to say I have a lot of subconscious trauma work to do and a lot to work through. I did get it all out, and it's going to offend a bunch of people. But I feel like this can be helpful, possibly for men who want to understand a woman's experience, and for women who feel this way as well. Honestly, it would be helpful for me if a woman can comment and tell me that I'm not the only one who feels this amount of anger and disappointment, and maybe disgust and sadness. Sadness over the fact that it seems like men and women are just so different in what they want that you're never going to find what you're looking for.

But yeah, I'm trying to end it positively because it is positive. The positivity is that I have found a current boyfriend who does not value sex more than he values me. If I'm sick or feeling bad, or I know for a fact if I get cancer, all of this stuff—there is a man who will be there for you and who will love you. For a man, love can go so much deeper than sex. I'm just learning that in the last year or two, and I found an angel man. The cool thing I want to end it like this: the man that I found and have been dating for 10 months is exactly the man that I dreamed of and thought that men were like when I was a teenager. When I was a teenager, I idealized this version of a man who loves women, wants to love me, and care for me the same way I want to care for him. When I say that, I'm not talking about financially; I can just hear comments.

But yeah, to love and be loved. He's romantic, sweet, loving, understanding, and he does not value sex more than he values me. I feel so much trust and security. There are men like that who exist, and I feel like all of this anger comes from the optimist inside of me that was slowly destroyed. Now, in this relationship, I can let that child optimist out again to know that there are men out there who truly respect women, truly love women, and truly care for women. They want to love them, and they love their mothers and sisters, and they're actually good people.

So I know all of it was so negative, but it's how I truly feel inside, in my subconscious, and there's so much work to do. But I do know that there are good men out there, and I know that there are men out there who are exactly as I described in this video, which is sad. It might be a large portion of men who are like this, but not all men. Hopefully, this video can attract the good ones to my channel and get rid of the men who are like this, or can somehow help those men realize something—maybe to help them realize that I have a brain and if you're staring at me in public, please stop.

Smiling

Oh, and here's the last thing, if I have enough room: smile. Smile at pretty women or smile at all women, but when you walk past a woman or look at a woman, instead of staring in that aggressive, mean way, smile at her in a friendly way like she's a human. Just smile. Sometimes men do smile at me. There was actually one today who did smile at me in a friendly, sweet way, and that's like once every year that happens. It feels so nice; it feels so good. That's all. Bye-bye.

I'm going to do a therapy session, where I am going to attempt to get every one of my thoughts, or a lot of them, out onto the page metaphorically.

Childhood

I never know where to begin, so I'm going to begin at the very beginning. Child me, basically, as background. Child me loved men. Loved as in, I idolized men. And from a very, very young age, I was attracted to older men for some reason. Maybe it's normal. My first crushes, when I was like five years old, were older men, like in their 40s. Like 20s, 30s, 40s. And it was all innocent and cute and sweet. Nothing happened. It was just like, ..., I remember the first time. I was a little sheltered, like Christian growing up. And the first time I ever saw a man shirtless, I was like, "Whoo, I like him!" And he was like 40 and married, and I was like six.

But yeah, I had crushes, and they were so innocent and sweet. I would picture like talking to a boy or holding hands. I couldn't even get as far as kissing; I was so innocent. And then, as background to try to understand where I'm coming from, it's hard to explain, but I was very sheltered, and I knew nothing about boys. So very much because I was raised strictly, like a very strict version of Christian, like fundamentalist or whatever you want to call it, where men and women were separated growing up, for the most part. Men were so separated from the women where it was like, it was bad if a boy was interacting with a girl. And also, boys were taught some sort of hatred or looking down on women to the point where, as a girl growing up, I was bullied by a bunch of boys all the time, like church boys, because they thought girls were yucky or like dumb or stupid or something like that. I still don't quite understand.

So I kind of grew up thinking I was ugly, which I actually was, like I went through the awkward stage of being actually ugly. And I just thought that boys didn't like me and that I was unlikable and unattractive. And I didn't really understand how the dynamics of boys and girls worked.

Teenager

So fast forward to when I was a teenager, and I started developing. I started getting attention from boys. And not just boys, but college boys as well, when I was like 15, 14. And also, just any man would give me some attention. And all of this positive attention, compliments, or even like cat-calling on the street when I was a teenager, I took all of that positively. I was like, "They like me. They think I'm pretty. They might want to go on a date with me." I didn't think that clearly, but I didn't think that it was bad in any way. The attention felt nice and sweet and good, and it built me up. It built my confidence, and I thought that these men and boys liked me. Like the word "like," like I thought they liked me.

I'm going really fast, but it was, and again, this makes me sound so sheltered, but it wasn't until I was 19, 20, 21, 22, and still now, figuring out that all of that attention from strangers and boys that I knew, all of it was sexual attention. And I had no idea, no idea that these boys and men didn't actually like me. They liked my body. They just liked how I looked in short shorts and tight jeans, and their compliments were always like, "I like your jeans" or "I like your shirt, I like how things fit on you." Like for real, in high school, a boy once said with a smirk, "I like those jeans," and all of his guys around him giggled and laughed, and they were a really tight pair of skinny jeans or something. And I was like, "Thank you," and like that compliment made my day because, at the time, I know this is awful, but in high school, I had no idea that boys looked at me sexually. That he didn't like my jeans; he liked how my ass looked in my jeans, and I did not realize that. And I just took it as this sweet compliment.

Sexual attraction

So I finally started learning, thanks to the internet and thanks to just life, that men look at women sexually, like purely only sexually. And that every time I go out in public, men are checking me out every second. It's hard to explain, but there's this transition where I loved these men. I loved men growing up. I had crushes, and I thought that my interactions with men were sweet and pure and cute, like a movie or a book. And that boys who had crushes on me or liked me, that they liked me, like my personality and who I am. And that it wouldn't matter what I looked like or what my body looked like.

So I viewed all that attention as positive until I realized that men just, they have like this separation between liking a girl versus wanting to sleep with a girl. And that it took me literally throughout my entire first relationship to realize that a guy can want to sleep with a woman without having feelings for her. That took me until like 20, 21 years old to finally figure out that guys don't have feelings for women. Like, it's coming out, the passion is coming out. This is the number one most triggering topic for me, number one. That men don't like me. Like every time a guy gives me attention, he doesn't like me. He doesn't like my personality. If I had a different face or a different body, he wouldn't like me. He's looking at my body.

Eyes on me

It's so frustrating. Every time I go outside, every time I go in public, I feel men's eyes on me. I turn around, and I see men's eyes on my ass. I see men checking my whole body out, and it doesn't feel good anymore. It stopped feeling good the moment that I realized that men stare at every woman all the time, every woman's bodies. They care about bodies. They look at your boobs; they look at your butt. Like they only care about what my body looks like, and they're doing it to every other girl. It's not special. It doesn't make you special. It doesn't make you beautiful. It doesn't mean anything other than they're objectifying what you look like. And they don't want to love you. They don't want to be in a relationship with you. They don't want to take care of you in the sense of like if you're sick or if down the road you were together and you got cancer. They just want to have sex with you for a while with no feelings attached. This is coming out so badly. But it's basically that the attention from men I thought was positive and sweet and cute turned negative when I realized that men don't have feelings for you, like a million percent of the time, and maybe one percent of the time they do fall in love. But even when they fall in love, it's like accidental, and they're like, "Oh crap, now I can't have one-night stands anymore."

Oh, okay, that was really bad. Okay. I'm like digging through my subconscious right now.

So I ended up having quite a negative view of male sexuality, where I don't view, oh, a guy wants to have sex with me or a guy thinks that I'm attractive, I don't view that positively at all, because they want to have sex with every woman, and they find almost every woman attractive. So what's special about that? And also, they make it very clear and loud that once you turn 25, which I am, I'm a 25-year-old, that you've become unattractive. This is all subconscious crap in my head, but all of this is counteracted by conscious thoughts, which is, I know that I'm beautiful. I'm going to be beautiful for 20 more years at least, and even after that, I'll be beautiful in a different way. And I also know that there are men in different areas of the internet and world and man worlds that do find women attractive all the time, and I've met tons of them. But the point is that men tell me, and there's this internet portion of men who tell me, that I am unattractive, unlovable, unwanted the second that I reach a certain age. So why should I somehow value or respect or cherish men's attention towards me, if I know that it's temporary and it's dependent on my youth?

So yeah, nothing is special about it. I don't value it.

Sex and feelings

I realized that men can have sex forever with one woman. Like doing these friends with benefit situations without feelings. When I was young and by young I mean like 19 and 20, even I thought that men who had sex with women had feelings for those women. I thought it was impossible to have sex with a woman without feeling anything for her. I've heard so many things about like men going to clubs to pick up women to sleep with. Then in the morning, looking at her and being repulsed. It's like, "Why did you do that?" It's because of male sexuality. They couldn't help it. They were just so horny that they had to grab some ugly person they thought was ugly and use her for the night. Basically all of it is down to, men just want to use women. Men just want to use me. While I'm young they want to use me. When I get older they are like on to the next. On to the next, nobody cares about you. You're ugly, unwanted. It's ridiculous.

Sex and age

The other thing is more about men is that there are tons of men that if I did post this in the comments, they would be relishing this, they would be happy. They would be like:

• this is what you get for being a woman
• this is how it should be

That like you get all this male attention and then all of a sudden, it's all dried up, and that's what you deserve. There's this hatred.

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. There's another whole section, which I probably won't be able to record because of my phone storage. But I will say a huge massive portion of this.

Sexual abuse during childhood

Something what I'm just gonna say, disgust towards male sexuality, is that I was sexually abused, when I was a child, a very young child. I was four years old and seven through nine, or seven through ten, or something like that, I was sexually abused by two different people and used. Just the absolute worst disgusting behavior by men who couldn't control themselves. I'm so sick of that, like gender biology they can't control it, which I think that's the basis for all of this anger pent up. Anger that to me, male sexuality is men who can't control themselves. It's all about using women for themselves. It's about throwing and discarding women. It's about having no feelings towards women. Like everything is sex, sex, sex, sex.

Staring

I can't walk down the street as a normal human, without being objectified, and turned into a sex doll by strangers, who are staring at my ass, all the time, every single day and following me around and staring at me. If I bend over they stare at me. If I'm literally just trying to like pick something up, or tie my shoe, or dig through my car, I turn around there's a guy staring at my ass. Not a compliment, not respectful, not great. I hate it and I am a self-conscious, low confidence person, most of the time being stared at by men. Constantly old men having to walk past, men sitting on benches, while they stare at me. I can't stand it. Men, you don't know what it's like you might stare at a woman for a good 10 seconds and you're like oh that's probably the only person who stares at her for 10 seconds straight that day. Nope, there are men who will just like unguardedly just stare at me. Also it's not a friendly stare in the least. It's a growl. It's like just staring. Just staring. Their whole head turns. It makes me so uncomfortable and it's constant.

I can hear comments saying, oh well, good for you, as you get older and uglier no man will want you. So you should just relish the attention. Why should I relish this attention. It's not positive attention. It's just, oh I would fuck that person, and I would do that to any other girl, too.

“Will I meet you today?”

Will you walk through the door of the coffee shop, and our eyes will meet? You’ll sit near me and strike up a conversation. You’ll ask what I’m reading or writing, and conversation will just flow. By the end, we’ll both know we want to see each other again. Or will it be on a hiking trail? That’s how I often envision it. We’ll both hike to the top of a mountain or to the same waterfall, and that shared experience and love of nature will open a natural conversation. I imagine you’re someone who loves to hike just as much as I do.

I imagine it every day, a thousand different ways, a thousand different “how we met” stories: a bookstore, the grocery store, on a hike, a coffee shop, in the park. Everywhere I go, I wonder,

“Will I meet you?”

Sometimes I’ll lock eyes with a mysterious and handsome stranger and feel that instant pull to them. We may interact just a bit, have a short conversation, or nothing at all other than a long look, and I’ll fall in love for just that day, wondering,

“Was that it? Was there supposed to be more? Could it have been you?”

It was a joke with me and my roommate. Almost every day, I would come home, declaring I fell in love, and she’d let me tell her this story. I picture you in my head as clearly as I can. I imagine your personality to be quieter, thoughtful, laid-back, maybe a bit mysterious. You’re the one in the corner reading a book at the party. You are abundantly warm, kind, gentle, and patient. I feel comfortable and safe with you. You aim to treat everyone around you with kindness. You are the type to go out of their way to help anyone, anytime. Some may call you a “feminine man,” but that’s exactly what makes you perfect to me. You don’t see femininity as shameful or weakness. You love and embrace it within yourself. You value emotions and are in touch with yours. You know how to express yourself. You’re not afraid to cry. We take turns being the strong one for each other.

You are in awe of the feminine and encourage me to discover and embrace my power. You treat me with respect and view me as an equal. You are an absolute gentleman and take great pleasure in making me feel like a princess, always thinking of little romantic gestures. You write little love notes, make a fuss over my birthday and Valentine’s Day, and pick me wild flowers. We share a fascination of psychology and know how relevant it is in the day-to-day. You might even be a psychologist or a therapist. You’ve studied relationships and know the effort that they require. And we share the commitment to work together. You value relationships, emotional maturity, self-awareness, and are also a hopeless romantic, searching for me right now.

I imagine you

I imagine you’re creative and an intellectual, a photographer, a filmmaker, an artist, maybe a writer. You love to think as much as I do. You think about life and the world as if it’s all finite. You know what life is really all about. You don’t put too much weight in the constructs our society has deemed important, and you still see the magic and beauty of life. And you have the same passion to live life to the fullest.

You are strong, you are noble, you have integrity. You are respected by those around you because they know you are good. You have endless depths and constantly provide me with new perspectives. We can talk endlessly. We love to talk. You have a true desire to get to know me fully, and I share that desire to know you fully. You have an unsatiated curiosity about all things in life. You love to read, you love nature, you love travel, you love animals, you love people, you love growth, and most importantly, you love to love. You desire a great love. You too have desired that one person who you can bear yourself to in entirety, so you can build trust with, share thoughts with, be vulnerable with, feel safe with, share every secret with, and develop true intimacy and an inseparable bond.

We’re on our own wavelength. We understand each other. We get each other. We are loyal, committed, and devoted to each other for life, through everything. We love to spend time together. We admire and respect each other, care about the other’s thoughts and opinions. We are each other’s number one person.

How you look

Can I say this? Can I say the more superficial things? I’m going to. You have long, dark hair, tan skin, beautiful eyes. You have the perfect mix of feminine and masculine facial features. You like to wear dark clothes. You care about what you wear and how you look. You wear jewelry: necklaces, bracelets, earrings. You wear black, ripped jeans, and you have a favorite pair of worn-out boots. You have a couple of tattoos which all tell a story.

What I have just described is my unicorn of a man. And the thing that kills me is that I know, I know that you’re out there. I know that you exist and that you are alive right now, even if I never find you.

What am I?

I’ve always been this way, as far back as I can remember, always dreamed of a great love. As a teen, what I wanted most was to meet you, the love of my life, and have our story begin. I thought I would be married by now. Some people get that. I’ve seen it. They get to do all of life together. People tell me, “You’re young, you have plenty of time. You might meet him in your 30s or your 40s. Just live your life.” But how can someone say that, and how can I believe that when we only live one time? We only get to do it all once. Every year we live is the only time we ever get to be that age. For me, the more time we had together, the better. And how can I live my one life when the most important piece is missing?

I am 24 and a half years old. Already my life is more than a quarter over. Already I have missed your teen years and your early twenties. I’ve missed those years and every milestone you experienced in them. I wasn’t there. I haven’t met you. I don’t know you. In case you can’t tell by now, I am what some people call a hopeless romantic, and I’m floundering in life because I never thought I would be here now. I don’t know what to do with myself. It was supposed to be You and Me Against the World. It was supposed to be us living Our Lives, making decisions together, pursuing what we both wanted. Now I’m afraid that whatever I do will lead me away from meeting you.

To me, the meaning of life is love: intimacy, closeness, to love someone with every fiber of my being and to be loved back fully, to see someone, their every complexity, their light and their darkness, and to love and accept everything they are. I’ve had plenty of Amazing Life Experiences on my own, but nothing, not even me at the Pinnacle of joy and happiness, compares to the fullness of being with you.

Me finding my one true intimacy and inseparable bond is a human need, no different than food and water. I’m sick of people saying, “You must be fully happy and whole on your own before meeting your person.” That’s like saying you need to stay alive before you drink water. Ask a happily married couple if they are more or less happy since meeting the love of their life. Of course, finding the person you want to spend your life with makes life happier, more fulfilling, and complete.

So I am doing the best I can be without you. I’ve done everything I can to prepare for you. I have lived fully. I have traveled. I’ve grown and done amazing things that I’m proud of. I like myself. I’m waiting to meet you. And every day that I don’t feels like another day wasted. If only I could live the exact same day but knowing that I would go home to you at the end of it.

It is my hope, my dear future husband, that in the not-so-distant future, I can show you this video or play it at my wedding with you by my side. You may be all of the things I just described, or almost entirely different, but we find that we fit together. We will both tell each other every detail of our journey to find the other and revel in the fact that life is unpredictable. And we will know, in hindsight, that it was all just around the corner. If we can just hang in there a little longer, we will both know soon that it all worked out. We met, and have the greatest “how we met” story. We fell in love. We are together. And we are together for the rest of our lives. And even that won’t be enough time.

Stupid YouTube videos

I'm just like brooding over it right now. I'm at a Rover house and I'm just thinking about how well I was listening to a lot of YouTube videos about how to get him attached to you within the first two weeks, and how to make him never want to lose interest, and how to keep his interest in blah blah blah, and how to get your hooks in him really fast before he loses interest in you. All these stupid dating videos.

I can't believe that I have allowed myself to go down that rabbit hole of Doom of going on those stupid YouTube channels and researching like how to get him hooked on you, how to get him crazy about you, blah blah. Because dating is so unnatural. You are strangers. You've never met before. And then you go on a date. You might be excited before the date. You might have all these high expectations, and you're probably fantasized about who this person is. So chances are you're going to be disappointed when you meet them. And then like they get one shot, one shot. This stranger, who you've never met before in your entire life, gets one shot. And I was just thinking today, it's exactly like an audition, not quite an interview, it's an audition. You're auditioning for the part. And if you are nervous for your audition or you mess up your words on your audition or you're just not quite yourself, you're maybe tired or not having a good day. You bomb the audition and you never get a call back.

Audition scenario

It looks like I'm having a mental breakdown. No, I'm just so angry. Like one chance. And if they are nervous, I should just come clean. That person is me, okay? It's me. I am the person who somebody gives one chance to, and I am the one, who is nervous and I probably mess up on the day. I'm not my true self. I don't act fun or silly or goofy or funny because those things do not come out of me until I feel comfortable and safe with somebody. But you don't get time to get comfortable or feel safe with somebody, because they're a stranger and you have no relationship with them whatsoever. So, of course, you're gonna fear judgment, and, of course, you're gonna feel the pressure of being on an audition.

There's no way that I'm actually gonna post this because I'm screaming. And then like how to keep somebody's interest and try to keep them interested in you, like and work hard for it and do all these tricks and games and like say exactly the right thing and these certain texts you're supposed to send. It's all stupid bullshit. It's all stupid, and I refuse to take part in it. I refuse.

What a mistake it is. Such a mistake to meet a stranger with an expectation to be in a relationship with them. It also gives you such an all-or-nothing mindset. If you don't feel the instant connection with that person and you don't feel instantly attracted or instantly interested, you're done. You're onto the mat, onto the next, onto the next. And it's easy. It's easy to leave because you have no attachment with that person whatsoever.

Point is, I think a better way to do it, that gives a fair shot to everyone, including those of us who are nervous or awkward or unable to be ourselves on the first date, is not to date. That's the best way. Don't date!

I keep doing this where I'm like,

"Oh, I'll just, I'll try it. Like I'll try like online dating, and I'll try going on a date."

And then when you end up liking somebody and fucking it up because you're not, you're not able to be yourself on a first meeting and you're nervous and closed up, I don't even know what I'm saying with that thought. Gosh, I don't even know what I was gonna say. But point being, it's not natural.

No more dating

The way that I need to do it from now on, I am giving myself, I am for, I'm gonna do it this way from now on is, you go to groups. You go to hiking groups, you go to yoga classes, you live your life. You go to a race car track and race your car because I've considered doing that. You're rock climbing. You join an improv group, you join a theater group, you do everything that you want to do with your life. You go to college, you take college courses. And then there you are interacting with the same group of people every week or every couple of days or every day. You're with the same group of people, and you are able to develop a normal, natural connection, a human connection, where there is feeling and where there's actually like some trust built and some kind of foundation and some safety instead of feeling like you're on a fucking audition.

I'm so sick of it, and I did it to myself. But so many mistakes are made. I don't like the all-or-nothing mindset. I would like to get to know people, you know, dating apparently is not for people genuinely wanting to get to know people. It's about:

• Are you entertaining enough?
• Are you fun enough?
• Are you funny enough?
• Will you give me a good time?
• Are you adventurous enough?
• Are you silly enough?
• Can you keep my interest?
• Can you entertain me?

I'm so jaded right now. This is so bad. These are not my actual thoughts. Well, they are, but it's all jaded with a little bit of frustration.

Yeah, no, totally. I was like, I was rejected. I know it's, this is the fuel of this outburst. But it's just teaching me a lesson that again, I made the mistake of trying to date and learning again that casual dating or modern-day dating, the way that it goes, meaning a stranger with an expectation of romance, does not work. Doesn't work.

The only way that's gonna work for me and my temperament and the fact that it takes me a while to be myself around somebody, but apparently nobody wants to give me that time, I need to just live my life and pursue my own things and meet people that way or just never meet anyone, because this unnatural way, it just seems so self-focused and, yes, I'm absolutely one of those people, where it's like I'm going into it expecting the other person or wishing the other person would be like the ideal person or my person.

Yahuda

Of course, I have that hope. But I do think the thing that separates me from a lot of these people is that if I don't feel a romantic spark right away, I still want to get to know that person. Like, genuinely, like I was thinking to myself, there's so many men that I've met that I would have loved to actually form real friendships with. There's like a guy named Yahuda, Yahuda. I loved him. Like, I would be a, like, I would be friends with him in a heartbeat. I wanted a genuine, real connection and relationship with that person, not romantic because I didn't feel the romantic spark. Sorry, if I didn't ever tell him that, but like, I love the conversation, and I feel like that's just not the way things are. The way things are, is how I said, you, you give people one audition, and if they mess up their audition, you're on to the next person, because you've got so many people lined up, and you're dating multiple people, and there's just no room at all and no desire to get to know somebody authentically.

I'm out of breath. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Softly rejected

Yeah, sorry. I, I was so rejected by somebody that I liked. I mean, softly rejected, but basically, it's what I said. I went into it actually expecting that I would be disappointed, because that's been my pattern, is that I get excited about people, when I talk to them and then when I meet them, I'm always disappointed because I hyped them up.

I get excited about men when I talk to them online and I imagine them to be like my perfect man. Then I meet them and I'm disappointed, and I don't feel anything. But this guy, I did it the opposite way. I was like, I'm not super excited. I'm not gonna allow myself to get my hopes up. I'm not gonna be excited. I'm just gonna take it as it is. And there were a couple of things, where I was like, I'm not ideal, not ideal. And I was not super, I was kind of excited but like keeping my hopes up, down.

Then when I met him, I was like,

"Oh, shit. Fuck, he's actually very attractive."

And that was the first time that I felt attracted to somebody on a date. At the end, I mean, because I felt attracted, I was nervous. And because I was nervous, I presented the self that I always present with new people. And it's not even men. It's just every person, every new person I meet. My fearful self always turns to being, very serious and mature and like not laughing a lot, not talking a lot, being relatively quiet. Like, I think I'm pleasant, very pleasant. I'm also very nice. That's also part of it. All of that is like my defense mechanism that I turn to when I'm scared. And with a new person that I don't know yet, there's no trust or safety or anything.

Little adult since childhood

I've been thinking about why I do that and how that's not even me. Like that person, I mean, it's kind of me, but it's not my actual, like, it's not my giddy, happy, goofy, silly self, which I haven't even shown here on YouTube, because I always am, I'm most often in that place of presenting like what I present to the world, which is the serious, mature side of myself. But it's always like vulnerable and scary to be like silly and fun and goofy and laughing. And I ask myself why that is, and I'm certain it's because of childhood, because my dad really expected all of us children, from the ages of being a baby to adulthood, he expected us to act like adults. So when we were five years old or four years old, he wanted us to be tiny little adults. And so that's how we acted. That's how I acted. I was just a tiny little adult in my entire life. My entire life, people have always said,

"Wow, you were so mature for your age. You are so mature. I always thought that you were older than you are, because you're so mature."

So I am always like, "Well, what the world expects of me is to be serious and mature." That's what I've always done, and that's how I get like compliments. That's what people like. And same goes for like being very agreeable. But in a dating scenario, no, they want you to be flirty. They want you to be funny. They want you to be fun, which I always thought, "I'm not, I'm not that." But actually, I am. I am fun. I am adventurous. I am funny. I laugh a lot. I have a good sense of humor. But I just don't show that right away. And nobody wants to take that time. So I met this guy, I was interested, and then slowly and gradually this person just like, it started out great. He was really excited about me at the beginning, and then I still haven't really quite figured out what happened, but he lost interest. Now he's not interested, and now I'm basically ghosted. And all of that is just really frustrating because it's rare for me to, I was about to say like somebody, but I don't even know if I liked him. It's very rare for me to be interested in someone. Very rare. You know, and this person checked quite a few of my checkboxes, which is great. Like, I was like,

"Ah, the stars are aligning. It's meant to be finally."

But no! 24 years old and still haven't met the guy.

So yeah, still haven't met him, and I'm done dating. I'm, I don't know if I am. I mean, I might keep doing it, but just have different expectations, but something has changed. I have to change something.

Modern-day dating is so self-focused and superficial and just like no feeling involved. Nobody, I don't know. I'm jilted. I'm a jilted person talking. I'm gonna be done. This is so therapeutic, though.

I was like,

"I'm gonna record like one minute and just say like, 'Oh, I'm gonna talk about dating a little later.'"

But no, it just all poured out, because I'm so frustrated by it.

Bad YouTube advice

Oh, one more thing is women, if you are anything like me or just women in general, stay away from every single YouTube video or channel, that is dedicated to telling women what they can and cannot do, what they can and cannot say in order to keep a man's interest. It's so toxic and bad for you. It's not your job. It's not your job or your responsibility to trick a guy or play games or have any sort of strategy or do things a certain specific way in order to keep or get a guy's attention. And if you don't do things exactly right, if you say the wrong thing, you send the wrong text, you say like, do the wrong thing at the wrong time, and you scare him off, that's your fault. It's always your fault because you're the one who's trying to get him. And if he runs away, that's your fault. Obviously not. Just be yourself. Be yourself. Do whatever the fuck you want. And like, stop making men control your life and dating control your life and control your decisions and stop giving all that power away. Just do whatever you want.

I'm telling future me, the right person will come along, who will respect that you don't play games. You don't, you're not gonna research all this shit, because that's what I did when I was like 18, 19. I was hooked on those channels. I was hooked on researching how to get him attracted to you, how to keep his attention, how to make him fall in love in you. Oh, whatever. How to make him fall in love with you, how to make him addicted to you, how to make him not want other girls, what to do when he leaves you. Like, stop it. So, I was good about that the last couple of years. I stopped. And then I got into it just a little bit once I got rejected again, and I'm sick of that. Done. I'm gonna focus on me. I don't know if I do post this. People are gonna say all sorts of crap about me. They're gonna be like, they're gonna think I'm bipolar or something. Oh, how dare I show actual emotion? How dare I actually be myself? People are gonna be like,

"What's wrong with her?"

Handome guy at a coffee shop

I was at a coffee shop just now, and I saw this amazingly hot guy looking at me. And I saw that he had a coffee cup on the other side of the table, so I thought that he was with a girl and that the girl was just gone from the table at that time. So right when I saw that, I looked away from him because I didn't want to be like staring at somebody who was with another girl. But I found him so handsome, and my first thought was like,

"He couldn't be that handsome. Like, he can't be that perfect. There must be something wrong."

But then I saw him go up to the coffee counter and ask for something. And when he asked, he showed this gorgeous, beautiful smile. And when I saw his smile and like these glinting, perfect white teeth, I was like,

"Oh, God, like, he's pretty much one of the most handsome men I've ever seen in my life."

Let me just describe what my type is. I've discovered over a couple of years of knowing myself better that I have an exact type. What I personally find the most attractive, is

• tan skin,
• dark skin,
• dark hair: either brown, dark brown, or black.

And honestly, the darker the better. So that's it. That's what I like, and that's what he was. He was tan with like dark hair and this, oh gosh, oh, anyway.

So we looked at each other a bit that time, but then I looked away. Then I saw that he grabbed the coffee cup from the other side of the table and took a drink, and I was like,

"Oh, it's his. Okay, he's not with anyone. He's alone."

Which I can't believe that he, I wonder if he's dating a bunch of girls at the same time. But then I was like,

"Well, he's alone, so I can just kind of look at him if I want."

And somehow, I had the courage to keep eye contact for longer.

And this is so weird. This has happened a couple of times.

There's something different about me and my aura, because the last many years, this stuff never, ever happened, ever. Like, sorry I'm screaming, but this never happened. Like, this is the first time that a really, really handsome, attractive man has come up to me.

It must be like the vibes that I was giving off. I must be different. But I guess so. A lot of people, like even in hate comments, like I recorded a video two years ago that was like, "I'm single and I don't know why," which was true. I didn't know why.

I went over like all the problems, and a bunch of people left hate-comments or angry comments, being like,

"You, like, have it so easy. You're a good-looking person, and all you have to do is make eye contact with a guy or smile at a guy, and he would come right over."

And at the time, I was like,

"Oh, these people are so mean."

But, they actually helped me like crazy, because I think that I'm learning that that's actually true. And at the time, I had no idea.

Talking to Alex

I still can't fathom that I have that much power because I've always struggled with powerlessness, but it seems to be true that if you look at a guy and if you smile at them, they come over, which is terrifying. Oh, I'm so weird. Oh yeah. Oh, gosh, I feel so weird. So I was told that the coffee shop was closed because it was one o'clock and they were closing at one, so everybody packed up, and I saw that he was kind of hanging out a bit, so I hung out a bit as I was slowly packing my stuff. And he looked over at me, and I looked at him, and then we had like one to two, two full seconds of eye contact.

And when that happened, I smiled a little bit, like just closed-mouth, and then I continued packing my stuff. And when he got up, he walked right over to me, and he started talking to me. And I was like, "But..." I was pretty good about it. I smiled, and he did the worst thing for somebody who's socially anxious, which is ask me to perform basically, which was, he was like,

"Hey, I'm not from here. I'm spending the day here. Do you have recommendations of like places to get food?"

I was like,

"Wait, maybe he was asking me to go get food with him."

But he was like,

"Do you have recommendations for places to get food?"

Which is probably, you know, a line, but it forced me to be trying to think of all the places that I know of. I really didn't know of anywhere, like because I don't go out to eat a lot. So I told him that,

"Sorry, no, I don't really know of any places to eat around here, but I know of places to walk or, beaches, you know, that kind of thing."

And so we talked a bit about that. I gave him some recommendations, and at the very end, I was giving off the vibes that I wanted to leave, because I was just getting more and more freaked out because this man was really handsome. And also, apart from being super handsome, he also spoke really well too. He had a really nice way of coming across.

So he really did seem to be a lot. And I'm never going to see him again, but you know what's interesting? I've been meeting a lot of Alex's. He said his name was Alex. And I've met three or four Alex's. It's a really weird thing, like it's I feel like the universe is telling me something about Alex because maybe like Alex's are attractive, because three of the four that I've met recently are attractive to me, and they're all named Alex. Huh. Yeah.

Well, anyway, so the whole story comes down to like, I blew it. I don't know how to talk to guys. I wanted to talk to him, but like he was so handsome, I was just like, "I mean..." Don't get me wrong, I did smile, but I struggled to speak, and , I did speak, but I struggled. And I think he could tell that I was nervous, so he kind of was like, "Well, thank you so much." And I was like, "And also..."

Yeah, there's definitely a chance that he was just asking for recommendations, but I don't think so, because he was like,

"Well, I saw that we locked up, like that we, uh, locked eyes a couple of times, blah, blah, blah."

So he said that at the very beginning. But anyway, at the very end, because I didn't ever want to see him again, and I knew I wasn't going to see him again, and this is what I do when I meet somebody handsome and quote "perfect" upon first impression, I never want to see them again ever, because my response to that is run, run.

I left

So anyway, at the very end, I mustered the courage, and I was like,

"Can I tell you something because I don't think I'll ever see you again?"

And I was like,

"I find you very, very handsome."

And then I said,

"And now I'm going to leave."

And then I left.

He laughed and smiled and whatever. So it was a good exchange, and now I'm never gonna see him again. And, yeah, that was good. I'm probably gonna have to rollerblade now, to rollerblade my feelings away.

But I did have a thought recently, which was, instead of using dating apps, what if I was able to just muster the courage to talk to the guys that I find so attractive? Because like, usually if I go out in public, especially in this town, which is filled with handsome people and beautiful people, it's very looks-based in this town, um, if, if I go out, usually I see one person a day who I find very attractive. And what if I just walked right up to them and was like, "Hey, I find you very attractive. Would you like to get coffee or something like that?" So, like, isn't that kind of cool that I could like actually date the people or actually ask out the people and possibly date one of them who I find like already really attractive to me?

Men approaching me

Anyway, there's a lot more and a lot less I could have said, but this was a really big deal to me. Something is different; something is happening to me, where I am somehow attracting men to me. Maybe it's because I don't have a broken heart anymore, but and maybe it's because I'm, I don't know, because something else happened yesterday.

I had another guy approach me in a Target. Well, yesterday, this is not normal. People think that, oh, if you're just a quote "good-looking person," that people are constantly approaching you, but no, people do not approach me. Like, this is a very weird, crazy occurrence. Something's changed the last month or so, or two months, where somehow I'm attracting more guys and making them feel like they can approach me, because it is happening.

Well, actually, the last two or three months because I did talk about the other two guys that approached me recently. And honestly, everyone that I've shared it with, it's all like, I've shared every time on YouTube because each time it's a very big deal to me, because it's so rare.

But yeah, I did have that one stalker guy that I talked about, and the nice guy, the good example guy, and then I wasn't attracted to either of them. And then I had the guy in Target, who I also wasn't attracted to, but it was still a compliment. And today, I had this guy who I was very attracted to and found very handsome. I have a bit of regret that I didn't talk to him, like he didn't ask. Maybe he was nervous, or maybe he didn't want to, but it would have been fun. But maybe, yeah, we'll see.

Chivalry

I talk sometimes bad about guys, but some really, really sweet, sweet, sweet guy was in the coffee shop today, too. We had different, sweet, nice exchanges, and he was just a really nice guy. He was like normal, middle-age, younger middle-age, and he was just really kind to me. And like, sure, it could have been because blah, blah, blah, but he didn't make any kind of flirtatious advance towards me. It was all just kindness and gentlemanliness. And one of the things he did was, I started looking for outlets. I was sitting down, and I like bent over, looking for an outlet underneath my feet or underneath behind my legs, you know, on the ground. Anyway, I was doing that, and he like looked over, and he was like,

"Oh, what are you doing? What do you need?"

And I was like,

"I'm just looking for outlets, sorry."

And he was like,

"Oh, here, let me..."

And he got to his knees. He went, he got, he got up and went on to his knees to look underneath the bench. So we were all sitting on a bench, and he looked underneath the bench to check if there were any outlets for me. And then he was like,

"Yeah, no, there's no outlets, but..."

That's so sweet! It does not happen a lot or ever. Like, I cannot remember the last time a man has done such a huge, gentlemanly, sweet, kind gesture. Even if that was quote "flirting," that is the way to do it. That is the kindest, most gentlemanly, sweetest thing you can do.

Like, by the way, chivalry is literally putting, what chivalry is and what being a gentleman is, is kind of going through a bit of suffering, so the other person doesn't have to. That's basically what all of those acts are. He chose to get on his knees and look so that I didn't have to, which I don't want anyone to be like,

"She was expecting it. She was demanding that he do that."

No, I was not expecting it. Out there was no pressure. In fact, I was absolutely shocked because that kind of chivalry is unheard of, and it never happens. Like, the most chivalry I receive on a day-to-day basis is a guy holding a door for me, which I very much appreciate, but also girls hold the door for me, and I hold the door for everyone whenever I have the option. So that I feel is almost just a human thing. It's a people thing that everybody holds the door for each other, but this is like the most out-there gentlemanly act, and it was so, it meant so much to me. And then the cool thing was after he did that, I was like,

"Thank you so much. Oh, I appreciate that."

You know, I appreciated it. Then we just sat next to each other, and he was working silently, and I was working silently. And when he got up to leave, he was like,

"Well, see ya." And I was like, "I'll see you. Thank you so much again."

So that was that exchange, and I was so happy, happy that he didn't like try anything flirtatious because I just appreciate a gentlemanly act that is done for that sake, just being a kind person. That was really nice. It definitely restored faith and made me feel really good about just to know that there are really good, kind guys out there. And it didn't seem like he had an ulterior motive. He struck me as the kind of guy who would have done stuff like that for other people too, which is important.

Now I just talked for 15 minutes, and now I'm probably gonna post this, because I'm just posting everything. Also, you get to experience me on a high. This is me not a drug high, emotion high. Usually, I'm quite low emotionally or very even, but right now I would say I'm, I'm very excited, and I have a lot of rushing feelings and like stomach feelings.

And like talking to that guy, really, the handsome one, really, really frazzled me. And it was so out of character, but also me trying to be brave and do what I always wish I could do, which for some reason it's always been important to me. Like, I've always wanted to be able to tell a guy that I think he's attractive or handsome. Like, I've never been able to do that in my life, and I never have. This is the first time. This is the first time in my life that I've ever been able to tell a handsome man that I think he's handsome. And also, I cannot remember any other time in my entire life talking to a man who I thought was like that handsome.

Okay, I'm done. Bye.

Because this was the connection I made: I was thinking, "I feel like everyone loves those people." I made this huge connection that the reason I wanted to be that way was simply because I felt like that's what people love and that's what people want. And I have—uh, my roommate actually is that person. She's outgoing, bubbly, loud, vivacious, laughing all the time. And people do like her; they think she's super fun. So I always wanted to be that way, even before I met her.

But I finally made this connection that me, personally, my favorite people are actually people who have a personality that is more even and very chill and very cool and like, not smiling or laughing a lot and just like, very chill. That's my favorite personality; that's what I find most attractive in men, and I'm finding that I love women that way, too. I like the girls that I connect the best with are people who have personalities similar to my own, who are more like — I don't want to say flat, but kind of flat. That's just how I come across. And so I finally decided to just relax and stop trying to be that person that I'm not at all naturally and to just embrace the way that I normally come across.

So I've been interacting with the world as myself. As in, I go to a coffee shop and I order a coffee, and I put zero effort into like, "Hi, how are you?"

You know, all I do is like, I don't know, I'm just myself. I do everything. I act the way that I naturally act. And the funny thing is, I've found that I've gained confidence. I have gotten more confident, so I can say things how I want.

I make dry jokes, and when I make dry jokes, people think I'm funny. So it's just so dumb that I was trying to be someone I wasn't this whole time. So I'm embracing me, the real me, the me that I completely rejected for years and years. And I finally realized that the coolest people are people who have a personality like me, the people that I think are so cool. And I just always disregarded my own opinion. Like, I was like,

"Oh, it doesn't matter what I like. It doesn't matter if I think that people are cool when they're chill and like, more flat and even, and dry humor and all that."

I was like,

"What matters is what people love and what people want."

And what people love and want, apparently, was vivacious, laughing, open, outgoing, loud people who smile all the time.

But yeah, that's so cool. That was a very huge turning point for me. And I've talked to other people about this, and actually, they connected to it as well. So if you find that you're suppressing your real self to try to be more loved or liked, try to just like take a day where you put in zero effort, zero effort to be anything other than what you actually are. And just do like a little experiment. I would say do it for a week, see how you feel. Decide that you're gonna just accept you. You're just gonna accept that this is how you are. It's not bad; it's totally okay. Embrace the awkwardness instead of like, feeling ashamed of how awkward I am. So at some point, maybe even on the screen, I don't know, I'll list my awkward celeb heroes that showed me that you can be cool and liked and funny and all of that and be, and embrace your awkwardness.

• anxiety,
• social anxiety, and
• self-worth or confidence or insecurity, or however you want to talk about that, or self-love.

Because all of those things are things that I struggled with, and I want to help other people who are going through exactly what I went through.

I was just looking at a bug, and as I was rollerblading, I was just thinking about how insecure people are brought up to believe that they are toxic people, and they are told by social media and society and other people and just all of this messaging to them to make them believe that they are the problem and other people are supposed to avoid them and that they are toxic people and that they are to be avoided and run away from and considered as red flags.

Insecure people

I think people, who are insecure, will know what I’m talking about. We are, and I am one, and I was one, and I was a lot, lot, lot worse when I was a teenager. And I’m really sick of that. I’m sick of insecure people being made to feel worse about themselves, worse, and shoved even lower by other people and society by being told that there’s something wrong with them.

And it’s just so backwards and such a cycle because it continues the issue. Like, somebody grows up like insecure, to me, it is basically a deep sense that you are unworthy of even existing. You’re unworthy of being around other people. You’re not worth as much as other people. I think it’s completely associated with having an inferiority complex, which basically is just feeling insecure to ever or inferior to absolutely everyone else around you, feeling lesser than and feeling like they have all the power and you have no power, and you’re very helpless. And it’s a really dark, helpless, sad, lonely place to be. You’re so lonely, and you self-isolate.

You’re insecure. You don’t think you’re worth friendships or love or to be around others. And then on top of that, you’re told that you are to be avoided, that you are a problematic person, and that people have to avoid you, which just makes you feel worse about yourself. It makes you hate yourself. I hated myself, oh gosh, that got deep, when I was a teenager because of that, because I felt like I was the problem.

So, I want to make this video that is focused on insecure people and what they’re going through. It’s about them. It’s not about, “Hey, healthy people, don’t date insecure people. Don’t be friends with insecure people. If you notice that your friend or someone you’re dating is insecure, run, run away, because they’re only going to be a problem.”

Instead, I want to focus on the actual insecure person, the other person, and talk about what they’re going through and what they’re suffering from and how to help them and how to help themselves. That’s the thing.

The coolest thing about a lot of this is that you, you have the power to help yourself, not in every instance, like there are instances of mental health where you do need to seek help, but I really think most of my issues growing up and, yeah, just growing up, a lot of my mental health issues came from me feeling helpless, and it made me feel like I wasn’t in control of myself and I wasn’t in control of my own life. And since feeling more powerful in myself, I’ve gained so much more confidence, and I’ve felt so much more self-love, and I feel more capable of living life and surviving.

So I want to show other people who have these deep insecurities and self-worth issues, I want to help them find their own power, which I know it sounds so cliché, but it’s actually one of the secrets. It’s to find the power within themselves and to fully accept themselves because, as I said, society makes us feel unaccepted and like we’re such, such a huge problem. And like, I feel like you have to learn how to accept yourself and love yourself and realize that you shouldn’t and don’t have to be ashamed of insecurity or feeling inferior.

You don’t have to hate yourself. And once you get a good grip on that and you start to feel more love and acceptance towards yourself, then that’s when you can take more ownership over your actions and start to work on actually how your insecurity is affecting others.

Insecurity and dating

I don’t want to glaze over that, because I know why people say that insecurity is kind of toxic because it can, if you don’t have a handle on it, it can hurt other people, or it can cause harm or be toxic.

For example, if an insecure person is dating, they can feel insecure in their relationship and they don’t feel like they’re loved or like their partner cares about them. So maybe they’ll start flirting with other people or tell their partner,

“Yeah, so-and-so was totally flirting with me. Like, I can tell so-and-so really likes me, and he was like trying to get with me,”

Just to make the partner jealous. Those kinds of things are the negative ways that insecurity can impact other people. But I swear to God, that’s not where you should start. If you’re insecure, if you struggle with this, if you struggle, you have to focus, I know it sounds like self-centered, but you have to focus on yourself first and figure out how to help yourself or seek help and to grow in your own personal sense of self-love, confidence, and acceptance. And before I talk too long, I have to add that.

Accepting insecurity

So what has helped me like crazy about being insecure is not so much to fight the insecurity and be like,

“Yeah, that’s not me. Like, I am confident. I love myself.”

And just shove down the insecurity. For some reason, as I have been pointing out in the video, we are taught to be so ashamed of ourselves and to hate ourselves, basically because we are the toxic people. But the thing that has helped me so much is to remove the shame and embarrassment and humiliation, or whatever you want to call it, around feeling insecure and being insecure and being that person. And the way that I’ve done that is just to tell myself and talk to myself, like,

“Yes, I have insecurity. I have more insecurities than other people. I am a very insecure person. I have inferiority complex. I do feel less than others. I do feel unworthy. I do feel all of these feelings.”

And I just speaking them and saying them to myself, myself, and accepting it right now. It’s not like I’m identifying as these harmful things, so I am going to be that way forever. It’s more just accepting where you are.

I’ve finally learned or been realizing that self-acceptance and self-love is about accepting who you actually are, not trying to change it. And like, for the longest time, I was trying to fight the fact that I was insecure, or that I had less confidence than others or that I felt unworthy.

And instead of

• fighting it,
• fighting it,
• fighting it,
• fighting it,

I’ve finally been just accepting who I am right now. And that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be that same person in a couple of months or next year or whatever. It’s just about constantly accepting who you are.

But other people, all of you, everybody who watches this video, to stop talking about how toxic and horrible and awful and harmful insecure people are and instead focus on the people in your life. And I know there are those people. Everybody knows one. Everybody knows the insecure person. And just focus on them for a change.

I’m not saying like, give them a free pass because I do understand the harmful effects that an insecure person can have. But you’re not ever going to solve the problem. All you’re ever going to do if you’re talking about how toxic and horrible insecure people are, all you’re going to do is perpetuate insecure people hating themselves, hating themselves. That doesn’t do anything. We have to actually focus on the insecure people, talk about

• Why are you insecure?
• What did you go through in childhood?
• What gave you these ideas that you’re worth less than other people?
• How did you come to these conclusions that you feel like you’re unworthy of other people’s attention or love or whatever or uh, all of that stuff?

Then insecure people, if you’re listening, there’s a lot of us, a lot, learn, try to just make an effort to decide that there’s actually nothing wrong with you, as in being insecure is okay. Most of us, or not most, but a lot of us, are seriously horrendously insecure, and it’s okay. It doesn’t make you less of a person. It doesn’t automatically make you toxic if you’re aware of it and you can hold yourself accountable for how you’re treating and talking to others and you don’t let it like come out. Or if it does come out, that you explain to others what is going on, like,

“Oh, I’m so sorry I just said that because I was feeling insecure and I was trying to make you feel jealous, and I’m really sorry, and I’m gonna try to work on that, or I will work on that.”

It’s all okay. We’re human, and there’s nothing wrong with you, and being insecure is normal. It’s part of being human. And if you start accepting that you are insecure right now, I promise you, it will lead to self-love and it will lead to more confidence.

I want to do a whole video on confidence too, because I finally have been learning that confidence starts with accepting your flaws. Like, for 20-something years, I’ve been fighting all of my flaws and what I consider flaws were like

• my insecurity,
• my shyness,
• my awkwardness,
• everything that made me me,
• or that I didn’t like about myself.

I was fighting, fighting, fighting. And finally, just accepting those things about myself and being like,

“Yes, I am insecure. I do struggle with self-love. I am not a confident person. I am weird. I am very awkward. I’m socially awkward. I’m not outgoing. I feel weak and afraid most of the time.”

If I accept those things, like,

“Yes, this is where I am right now,”

I’ve learned that I can be confident in my flaws. That’s so cool. I can be confident in my flaws. You can be confidently insecure. And I know that’s true because I am. I’m confidently insecure, and you can be confidently awkward, and I am that as well, or I’m just this year, like I’ve been letting my weirdness and awkwardness out.

And when I’m with other people, sometimes I’ll even just say it,

“Yeah, I’m a really awkward person, haha.”

Lucia just did it just there. And just voicing that you are awkward or voicing that you are insecure, it gives you power and it takes away shame.

And if you’re any of my family members who have stumbled across my channel, I want you to stop watching or turn off the video, or you shouldn’t have ever clicked on the video, and also do not watch any of my other videos because this is way more personal than I’ve ever gotten on the channel, probably, and in real life. I wish that my family had never found my channel. Anyway, please tell me if anything I said was helpful.

I’ve actually recorded in this video a lot of the things that I’ve been thinking the last year, and some of the things that I’ve wanted to put into words and put into a video. The last year, I’ve wanted to say this forever, but as with everything else, I’ve always been waiting until I felt ready. I’ve been waiting until I feel like I know exactly what words to say.

Viewer demography

I want to script it out. I never script anything, but I have that desire to make everything perfect. But you know what? Stop waiting. Just say it. I bet this could help one person, and I swear, my target audience in my channel this whole time has always been teenagers, and funny enough, I have the opposite. I think I mostly appeal to older people.

My demographic is mostly like late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. That’s kind of the demographic, but I ideally want to reach teens, because that’s where I was. I was a

• scared,
• helpless,
• sad,
• depressed,
• anxious,
• helpless,
• hopeless,
• self-hating,
• insecure,
• no confident,
• inferior complex

person.

Yeah, that’s a weird place to end the video, but I’ve gotten a lot better, and that’s why I want to share. I want to share the journey. It’s also good to look back on.

Also, I’m going to read my journal entries at some point. It’s really dark, but I’d love to go through my high school journal entries, just a couple, to show where I was mentally and how far I’ve come. It’s pretty extraordinary. And it all started with self-acceptance and self-love.

Alright, thank you for watching 17 minutes. I am learning that I can talk a lot when it’s something that I really care about, and I do care about this. So I’m gonna let you go.

Please comment, like, anything that stood out to you because it’s my favorite thing. It’s my favorite kind of comment to hear what I said that resonated with you. And bye.

It should be obvious that I kind of took a break from YouTube. Since I took a couple of months off, the algorithm is punishing me, so my videos will not be successful for maybe years. That was an accident.

I took a break from YouTube because it was causing extreme stress, and I bit off more than I could chew. I couldn’t keep up with the pace that I was going, as far as editing videos and trying to constantly improve. So I’ve decided that, instead of producing quality content, I’m going to just record myself with zero editing, because I just got so overwhelmed with the editing part. So these are going to be non-edited videos, and this is what I initially wanted my channel to be about: just me talking and using YouTube as like a personal journal. So, for at least the next couple of videos, expect a style that is a personal journal, and hopefully I can add an artistic twist as well, because I love being artistic.

Purpose of my YouTube videos

So, as I said, the algorithm doesn’t like me anymore, so my channel is officially dead. My videos will get about 5,000 views each, which is very low. So I’m not going to be trying as hard, but I will be posting, because the reason for my posting is still here, and that is for myself to have a journal. Something that I can look back on to see where I was at certain points in my life, to like see my growth and my journey. And then also because I think that me talking about my struggles makes other people feel better. And if making YouTube videos often makes me feel, like I am on the path of my purpose, like I am on the correct path, whenever I share videos, because it feels like I’m making some sort of impact or some sort of difference, so I’m going to keep doing that.

I found out yesterday, that I only have a month to live in my current living situation. So I’m freaking out about that, but I’ve been avoiding that, trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing. I think I might even leave, or I’m pretty sure I’m going to leave the city that I’m in, and it’ll be a surprise, but I’ll tell you what city I’ve lived in this whole time. It’ll be like a little surprise, because I tried to keep it secret so nobody murdered me. But once I move away, or when I’m about to move away, I can share it. I don’t see why not. It’s a pretty cool city. I’ve liked it, but it’s definitely time to leave. I mean, you know the funny thing is, it’s not quite time to leave, because the thought of leaving makes me sad. Like it’s a little bit too soon, one month, like one month left here.

Anyway, I’m trying to find alternate living situations and trying to figure out what the fuzz I’m doing.

Today I just decided I would use my Saturday off from work to just try to, quote, “enjoy my day,” or just do nothing. As in, go to coffee shops and think about my life. That’s what the goal was for today: was to go to coffee shops and think about my life. I’m thinking about — it’s a dandelion.

Wanting to talk to guys

I don’t know if this is true or not, but I feel now that, like, at the age that I am, early 20s, I always wish that I could be friends with guys and I wish that I could talk to guys in a friendly way, obviously, because that takes all the pressure off, and I just would love to, like, be that friendly person who strikes up conversations, and like, I see people all the time that I want to talk to, but not in a romantic way. Like, I’m not attracted to them. It’s just like I want to have a friendly conversation. Anyone who’s from a small town will understand that mentality, because everyone in small towns talks to each other, and it’s friendly and welcoming and warm and nice, and I want to do that.

But I feel like I’m not allowed to, and I don’t ever initiate those conversations, because I feel like if I ever initiate a conversation with any man, he will immediately think that it means that I’m interested in him, like romantically. It just seems like I have this prison. I feel like it’s a prison where I can’t strike up a conversation or talk to a guy without him thinking that I’m romantically interested in him. Like, how can you initiate a nice, friendly conversation for no reason, just like a friendly exchange, without this person thinking you’re interested? Like, I kind of want to walk up and be like,

“Hi, I’m not interested in you romantically, but I would love to have a conversation with you.”

That’s what I would like to communicate.

But yeah, I was thinking about that today, because I saw plenty of people at the coffee shop. I was feeling lonely today, obviously, and I always want to talk to people, so I was seeing these guys at coffee shops, and I suppose I can interact with women as well, but it’s almost easier to strike up a random conversation with a guy, but I just wanted to, like, talk to somebody for that, you know, the time in the coffee shop, but I feel like I can’t.

Kicked out

Anyway, so there’s been two tough things going on in my life right now. One is that I just got kicked out of where I’m living. I got kicked out of my room, for no reason. Their reason was that they want to spread around the blessing of cheap rent to multiple people, so they’re just replacing me with somebody else. I think the real reason is because I’m awkward and I avoided them, so I didn’t do great building connection. So that’s awful that I have to leave in one month, and I have no idea what I’m doing, so that’s stressful.

The other bad thing is that I had a really big crush on somebody, and he rejected me and got a girlfriend. So, I’m struggling with him recently dating a girlfriend. Yeah, I know.

Anyway, so what did I do? I got myself a very expensive flower, an orchid. There weren’t that many options at the store, and I saw this orchid first, and I was like, “Oh, it’s so beautiful.” And I was like,

“Oh, ten dollars? No way. It was 9.99? No way. I’m not gonna get that. Too much.”

And I was like,

“Wait, are you not worth ten dollars? Like, right now you’re really sad, and it would make you happier to have a beautiful flower. Like you.”

It was almost like a practice of teaching myself that I was worth that, and then nobody else is going to give it to me, so I have to, like, give it to myself, when I’m single and alone. I got myself other cheaper flowers. These were four dollars, my puppies. And then this was literally — I just went to the store and, like, bought things that would make me happy.

I got a bulky one of my favorite desserts. I know I’m just zooming into my mouth. It’s just this camera is so weird. The bread is not anything. I got myself a pizza for tonight so that I don’t have to cook, because I hate cooking, and I got myself some chocolate. And I’m not gonna eat all of this tonight, but it’ll just be over the coming days, and I’ll get to look at my beautiful flowers. And I have this one. There’s something about flowers. Flowers make me so happy.

You know what another thing I got, weirdly? Kalamata olives. I love them. I literally can eat half a jar in one sitting. And yes, I know I’m probably gonna die young. Anyway, so hey buddy!

Three reasons for the break

1. I’m on my lunch break at work, and I guess before I wrap up the video, I want to just say a couple of the reasons why I took a break. I think the main one actually was that I got so drained and heavy-hearted from all the negative comments, which I know I’ve gotten 99% positive. I don’t want to defend it. It’s just how I felt. So those really got to me. There was so much negativity that was hitting me, because I read all the comments on all my videos.

And it’s just I was like,

“This might be a huge, massive mistake to be so personal, because you give other people um, so much power to very personally insult you and your character.”

And a lot of people would hit on the things that I was most insecure about or the things that I care the most about, like insulting my character. So that really got to me. So I kept considering and I keep considering what would happen if I turned off the comments completely, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I do that for the next few videos.

I love connecting with the people that I love and are positive and encouraging, but it just makes me want to quit every time I read the horrible comments, because then I’m like,

“Why am I doing this?”

The negative comments make me feel like I’m not even making any kind of positive difference, and actually, I’m making a negative difference by bringing more negativity to the internet.

Even my last video was negative or it generated so much negative response, just me talking um, so I’m trying to think about that.

So that was the main reason.

2. The second reason, like one I just thought of, was the music. I hate having to decide between crappy music and more crappy music, because you can’t use anything copyrighted, and all the best music is copyrighted. Like, all my favorite songs, I can’t use. And I would hear so many beautiful songs in normal day-to-day life, and I would be like,

“Oh, I’d love to use that in a video, but I can’t.”

And instead, I have to pick from non-copyrighted music, which is all crap, unless I buy. I think it’s called SoundCloud. No, I don’t know what it’s called, but what is it called? It’s the one that Yana Yintin uses. But it’s a different thing, but you have to pay for it to get better music, better quality music.

So I just felt like all the music I was using and choosing from sucked.

3. Another reason was just that my life got so hectic and crazy, and I felt like I couldn’t keep up making videos, especially the kinds of videos that I was making, which entailed a lot of effort and work and time, and frustration with the editing app.

The editing app sucked. I ran out of storage as well on my phone. That was just kind of a basic thing. I ran out of storage, and I decided, like, I couldn’t continue with this horrible editing app, so I had to learn Premiere Pro. But if anyone has ever looked at Premiere Pro, it looks like an algebra problem. It’s so intimidating. It’s so, so intimidating. I felt like I could never learn it. Like, it seems like you need to take a college class to learn how to do Premiere Pro. So I got too intimidated by that.

Back to the basics

But the thing is, I went down the wrong path with YouTube, because once I started getting views, I started making videos, not authentically. But just videos where I was talking to the audience, where I would be speaking to the audience and trying to help the audience, like, talking to you like you were watching. And I don’t like that. I don’t like that style of video at all. Like, for me, it’s just made me slightly more inauthentic, and I wasn’t even trying.

It wasn’t conscious. It was just because I suddenly knew that people were watching and listening to me, so then I started thinking unconsciously about,

“What am I saying? And like, am I saying this the right way?”

Even my tone of voice and how I would speak would change, like, you know, when you get on the phone and you suddenly have phone voice, like,

“Hi, I would like to order a hamburger, please.”

You know, like the super polite, super friendly, outgoing thing that you put on. I started doing that in my videos, just completely unconsciously, just because I knew people were watching.

So I’m trying to go back to the basics, where I’m just talking to a cell phone and I’m alone in my car, and I’m acting like there’s not a soul that’s going to watch this, because that’s the kind of video that I want to look back on. I want to see my real self when I watch my videos. And I want you to see a real person, completely real. This is me, not putting anything on, not any kind of show.

So yeah, those were the reasons, and I just talked for six minutes. This might be the end of the video. I thought of a good word. You should say “pickles” if you finish this video. Comment “pickles.”

I grew up in a really big family in the middle of nowhere. My parents divorced when I was young, and it was messy. My siblings and I didn’t get along; it was kind of survival of the fittest. Then, I just remember spending most of my time alone. And even though it felt really normal to be alone, I knew something was missing. I felt lonely and I really desperately craved human connection. I wanted friends. I wanted to know how to make friends, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t have social skills. The only thing I knew how to do was to be alone.

I want to just give like a quick definition of what I consider friends. For me, friends are not simply the people you hang out with casually or the people that you see every day, like coworkers. To me, friendship means that you share, and you have trust, and honesty, and open communication. You work on the relationship, and you both trust that you can depend on each other in the future — something that’s

• deep,
• real, and
• lasting.

Fear of rejection

The most pivotal realization that I had, that was a big turning point for me, was that I was alone in my adult life by choice. I never thought that I chose to be alone, but I realized that I was making decisions—conscious or subconscious decisions—to self-isolate, to isolate myself more. And I guess that led me to question why. Why was I self-isolating despite craving friendships? A simple answer is that self-isolation is a way to protect yourself.

It also took me way too long to realize that I was terrified of being rejected by people. I never thought I feared rejection because I had never really been rejected in life. But that was solely because I presented a fake self — being extremely nice, agreeable, even submissive. Because I presented myself as being so agreeable, I was never rejected by people. I was the typical stereotypical people-pleaser. I definitely believe that if I ever was my real self — if I did something like show real emotion, negative emotion, or tell somebody if I was upset with them — I believe that that self would be immediately rejected. So my natural go-to was being that people-pleaser. And in high school, it absolutely worked. And beyond, it works because people end up liking you. It’s a defense mechanism, by the way, so I don’t judge myself or anyone who does this. It’s a way to keep yourself safe, but it’s not healthy for you or other people. Even though people will like you, you won’t be able to connect with people. And that was like the one thing that I wanted most — was to connect and to form real, deep relationships. And that is impossible if you are presenting a fake self.

It also tracks the wrong people into your life. For example, the people that I generally attracted as friends were people who loved to talk about themselves and loved to vent, because I was a very, very good listener. I’ll get into that in a second.

The last problem is if you do it for long time you may come to a point where you realize that you don't actually know, who you are. You don't know what your beliefs are, or how you truly feel about things. You might suppress feelings. You might learn to only think of others and not think about yourself at all. So you’re really out of touch with yourself.

When I was 21, in that video, I asked the question like,

“Why does everybody like me, but I can’t form connections with anyone?”

And the answer is: Everybody likes a nice, agreeable, people-pleasing person, but people can’t connect to you because you’re not showing your real self. And if they can’t see you, how can they connect with you? They don’t know, who you are, because you’re not showing them anything, all right?

So, as I mentioned before, I was a very good listener, and still am. And when people want to vent, I even encourage people to vent. And I always thought that was solely because I cared about other people.

And I truly believed, subconsciously, that friendship was contractual, where in order to be worthy of another person’s friendship, I must give them something at all times. In order to deserve talking with the person, I must give. And I felt like the only thing I had to offer anyone would be being able to listen really well. So I thought that was a really great gift that I was giving to people. And people did appreciate it, but it led into some problems. Our entire friendship would be based on somebody venting to me every day and me consoling and listening. And even after like years of that in high school, the other person didn’t know anything about me at all. And it wasn’t on them.

Sharing about myself

It was because I chose to never share anything about myself. I didn’t talk about myself at all, ever. And that’s still pretty much the biggest flaw that I have right now that I still have.

When I meet a new person, I share almost nothing about myself. I never open up. I’m very closed off.

There’s a listening psychologist speaking, and they said something that blew my mind and made so many things clear to me. He said that when a person only listens and never shares anything about themselves, it leads the other person to feel very vulnerable. And at the end of the day, after a long enough period, the other person won’t trust you.

Because trust comes from mutual self-disclosure. To people sharing personal things about themselves. That’s kind of how trust is built. For one way that trust is built. That was one of the greatest things that I ever learned because it opened up my eyes to realize that one of the biggest problems I had making friends was that even though I thought I was giving by listening, it ended up where people would not trust me.

And nobody ever told me they didn’t trust me. One person did say,

“I can never tell what you’re thinking. You’re so unreadable,”

or something like that. And I think that was their way of trying to say,

“I don’t trust you. I don’t know what you’re thinking. You make me uncomfortable.”

That could also be another way somebody tries to tell you that. They say,

“I feel uncomfortable around you.”

Clarify, I was very closed off as yet another defense mechanism. And it presents a big array of problems. And one of them is because I was closed off and guarded, the only way that I would be able to make friends is if one person put in prolonged, consistent effort to get to know me. That puts all of the work on the other person and also puts all of the risk on the other person.

It was my way of avoiding risk and rejection and definitely taking all of the responsibility off my own shoulders and throwing them onto anyone else.

But at the time, I definitely believed that no one would want to put in that kind of work to get to know me. So I just resigned myself to the fact that I would be lonely forever and not have friends because I felt like the only way it would ever happen would be if someone were to pursue me, which is flawed. But I again, I don’t judge myself in the least for this way of thinking. I understand it was just a way to protect myself.

But don’t worry, you don’t have to be stuck in that way of thinking. You can change! Yay! This is what I did. Even in early adulthood, when I was trying to make new friends after high school, after our first meeting, I would wait for them to contact me because I figured if they liked me, they would contact me. And that pretty much never happened, or maybe never happened. And I assumed it was because they didn’t like me, which is wrong. And actually, everyone understands that everyone wonders,

“Does this person like me?”

So they were probably wondering the same thing and probably waiting for me to reach out to them. And that’s how those connections just didn’t build.

Now, I know I’m laying out a lot of problems here, but don’t worry, I do have a whole section. In fact, the second half of this whole thing is going to be dedicated to the ways to solve these problems. Now, if somebody does choose to put in that kind of effort to get to know you — sometimes it does happen, and it’s usually just one person — usually people are not going to put in that kind of prolonged, consistent effort to get to know you if you’re not open in the least.

If you have these huge, huge walls up, what can happen there, and most likely will happen, is you will develop an overly attached, extremely dependent relationship to them. You will feel a desperate need for this person and be way overly dependent on them because they were the only people who were able to get through your walls and actually get to know the real you. So that feeling of being known finally by one person, it’s going to lead you to be extremely needy, which is not healthy for you and the other person.

But this video is about you, so we’re gonna talk about how we can solve these issues and how I’ve worked on them and how I’ve actually made progress.

And I’ve had a lot of good things happen since. Now, I know that I brought up a lot of problems in this video, and if you related to any of this, do not focus on the problems. It’s a beautiful thing to know your starting point. In my next video, I’m going to talk all about the things that I have done that actually helped. I am so excited to share that with you.

Male audience and hatress for men

Considering that my audience is oftentimes 90% male, and my subscriber base is about like 75% men (last time I checked), I must have a really damn good reason to record this. Because otherwise, what a risk am I taking? How stupid am I to be recording something that seems to be against the exact people who are supporting me? And the reason that I’m here right now is because these thoughts, to me, are pretty mind-blowing.

I’m 23 years old, as some of you guys know, and I only recently—very recently, maybe two weeks ago—discovered and realized that I have a subconscious hatred of men. And I truly did not know this until two weeks ago. Because consciously, I thought that I loved men. I really believed I loved men. And it’s given me so much insight because now I get to explore these beliefs. I get to explore why I feel the way I do, and how it’s affecting my relationships and how it affected my previous relationship.

Is that possible, what I just said? Is it possible to hold two completely contradictory beliefs about a subject? And the answer, according to science, is yes. It’s called cognitive dissonance. It’s when you hold two or more conflicting beliefs at the same time. It is completely possible. It obviously shows that human brains don’t know what the heck they’re doing. But basically, it causes extreme discomfort because the brain really wants to be certain of everything. And honestly, one of the main goals as you grow and get older is your brain wants to become more and more certain about more things. So by the time you’re old, like in your 50s, oh sorry, not old, in your middle age—by your 50s, you’re pretty set in your ways. And that’s why it becomes harder and harder to try to change somebody’s mind the older they get, generally, because you get more and more stuck.

It’s so natural, it’s normal, it’s not a horrible thing, because it’s a good thing actually for our survival. Because if we were in a constant state of unknowing or uncertainty, we would go insane. Like, imagine not knowing anything about anything. You would be in a constant state of panic and anxiety and overwhelm and just on the floor, screaming your head off because you don’t know what the heck you’re doing. Which is basically the place that I’ve been in the last year or so, where I’ve just chosen to accept and realize that I truly don’t know anything, and most people don’t know anything despite feeling they do.

Certain about things

But anyways, it’s a freaky place to be, so I actually admire people who are able to feel like they are certain of something. But today’s video is about challenging that. It’s about challenging those things that you think you know. And I’m so passionate about this, so let’s think: how did I have to ask myself,

“How was my internal belief formed about men? How did I get there? And why does my conscious belief differ, but my subconscious belief is still there?”

I’ll just go quickly through it because I know everyone can relate to this, but my personal experience was as a child: I had horrible, awful men in my life.

Hurt by men in childhood

I don’t know how much to share there, but let’s just say I was hurt a lot for years, constantly, by different men in my life. And pretty much in childhood, many men that were closest to me, who should be there to protect you, were actually either not protecting, or harming, and causing harm. So it’s pretty easy to trace back my belief on just thinking men are not good, because of my childhood experience. And that is natural, but is that right to form a belief based on your childhood experience, your limited experience?

For me it was only about maybe five or six men, male experiences that I based that entire belief system on? Is that rational? Is that okay? And the answer, obviously, is no. But that’s what we do. We form our beliefs, our strong subconscious, life-altering beliefs based on our own experience. Often our own experience is so miniscule, it’s tiny, it holds almost no merit, but we still do it. It’s natural, but it’s something we need to be aware of.

Confirmation bias

After we form our belief, our subconscious belief, our subconscious does even more work for us, which is usually in complete contrast to what we should be doing, and that is called confirmation bias. Once we have formed a belief, we will only accept information that supports the belief that we’ve already made.

That is huge. That’s the most important thing you should probably take from this entire thing, which is once you have a belief

men are bad, or women are horrible

You’re going to only take in the information that supports that. You’re going to pinpoint it, and also you’re going to project it onto people. You will see a stranger, I will see a stranger man, and I will think, “Oh, he’s going to attack me. He has this intention. He has that intention.” That’s not true. If you see a woman for the first time, you’ll think,

“Oh, I bet she’s really stuck up. Oh, I guess she’s this or that.”

You are projecting this belief onto a stranger, who you know nothing about. This is huge. Projection, confirmation bias. This is how we stay stuck in our ways, and it all comes down to our brains’ need for certainty. We must be certain on everything in life, or else we’ll be in a constant state of freaking out.

The most tragic part about all of this is, that not only do we accept the information that supports our opinion. The worst part is that we dismiss, we subconsciously just immediately dismiss anything that disagrees or conflicts with our opinion. For example, all throughout childhood or at least through teenagehood and adulthood, I have been surrounded by so many good men, good men, really good men. Especially now, especially this last year, I have met incredible men, so good. They are strong, good character, self-discipline, amazing men. But us humans, with our brains, with our neural stuff, the psychology of humans, it is so hard to change an internalized belief that we have formed as children. That’s wrong.

Guess what happens when you hear a conflicting viewpoint? Oh, your mind shuts off, shuts off immediately. Your walls go up, your defenses go up, and you immediately have an emotional response. I’m saying men as well. You get angry. People get angry when their viewpoint is challenged. And all of this was happening to me, and I didn’t understand why, exactly, because I didn’t understand how I felt about men, because it was a very internalized, very secret thing in my heart. I never would say it. I would never tell people. I would never talk out loud about it. I’m not an advocate in any way. I would not have conversations about this subject at all.

Man hating women

So that’s why it came as a complete shock to me. Since being on the internet, I’ve been on the internet a lot with YouTube, I’ve come across so much more men, who I would have to say have a genuine hatred or at least bitterness towards women, which is okay, because I understand that it is—it doesn’t just come out of nowhere. Men are not born with a bitterness and hatred towards women. It’s caused, for sure. I agree. It’s very valid. It is caused because of what they’ve experienced throughout life, and I can never understand or completely relate to it, because I’m not a man. I haven’t experienced their life, so I get it. It has merit. It’s very true and very valid for them. But the thing we have to realize, is, that everyone else has experiences too, and the experiences that other people have are often very conflicting, contradictory to your experience.

For example, my experience as a child was horrible abuse caused by men. Okay. We all have bad experiences. I just really feel that most men and most women have a subconscious bitterness towards the opposite gender. And I’m not addressing the actual bitterness, because guess what? They’re both valid, because we all have experienced something.

This is what always happened when I would hear men, especially on the internet, talk about how horrible women are. I was like,

“Oh, it’s not getting through, because I am thinking, ‘No, men are the bad ones. Men are the ones, and they’re wrong. Women are not the bad ones.’”

So when I hear that, I would instantly dismiss it every time. And it’s only been the last month or two, where I’ve decided to really hear it and to decide,

“They’re not just pulling it out of nowhere. It has value. It has—is valid. That’s their experience. It’s true.”

The thing is, we’re all too scared to say that. Both sides are too terrified to say,

“Oh, that’s valid. You have a reason to feel that way. That’s true. That’s your experience. It’s absolutely true.”

There are some bad men. There are some bad women. There are women — for me, it’s honestly been difficult for me to think and to say — there are women, who do horrible, awful things to men. There are women who destroy men’s lives. For some reason, just even saying it, I’m not used to saying it, but I truly believe it now.

It’s so hard to admit those things because it makes us feel like our side has no merit. It wounds our ego. It makes us feel like we’re saying that we’re wrong. No, I’m not saying that I’m wrong in my own experience, but I am validating your experience, and I agree. I completely agree. It’s true.

Why don’t we give the other side a little credit? We can admit and choose to see the other person’s viewpoint. Nobody comes to their conclusion without having a reason, without having experienced it personally. We have to understand that it is possible for two opposing views and two opposing sides to be right, because there’s not really a right. There is just people’s experiences and their beliefs formed by their experiences and what they’ve learned. I need to accept that women can be bad and not every man is bad.

Our brain is tricked

Because our human brain is so dumb, we assume that because these five guys were bad, it means four billion men are bad. No brain! Let’s not form an entire opinion on four billion people based on our childhood experience. There’s not one point of this video. There are many. And it’s basically become aware of what’s going on, understand a little bit about psychology and the human brain.

Don’t take your own experience as the truth. It’s not the truth. That only truth would happen if one person was able to have the experiences of every other person in the entire planet. That would be the only way for one person to know what the truth is, as far as human experience goes, okay? None of us can do that. So the best we can do is to acknowledge that there’s merit to every single side of every story.

And I now that I know that I have this internalized belief, it’s my responsibility to do everything I can to fix it. My belief is not on men. It’s not their problem. It’s my problem. It is something that is my responsibility to work on. It’s my responsibility to change it. It is not on me to try to go around and yell and scream to everybody on the planet,

“Men are horrible! Men are awful! Men are not to be trusted!”

By the way, that’s not how I feel at all. That is only my subconscious, by the way.

I hate men

I want to clarify what I meant when I said I hate men. It is not specifically a hatred. It is a mistrust, a distrust. It is a belief that men are there to hurt you, to use you, to abuse you, and they have bad intentions all the time. That is the internalized belief, not the conscious belief. My conscious belief is that I love men. There are good men. I know they’re good men. There are many good men, probably the majority. The majority of men are good men, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for all of the love and support of good men in my community. Like I know my subscribers are good men, because of the comments of support and love and kindness. I know they have good intentions. So, I don’t want that to be misunderstood and misrepresented.

The point is, you can have two conflicting beliefs, and one of them is internalized. And I think a lot of us, if not most of us, have these internalized beliefs against the opposite gender. And it is our responsibility to fix it. It is not within ourselves. It is not our responsibility to shout and try to convince the other gender that they suck. Because I can’t tell you, I’ve gotten a lot of that here on the internet. I’ve gotten so many men trying to tell me that I am a horrible woman and that all women are horrible women. There have been a lot of men, who do this that I’m aware of, but I also know that tons of women do it as well. Both genders do it. It’s bad. It’s wrong. It’s immature. It’s not the right way to go about it.

In my belief, for me, the way to go about, it is become aware of it within ourselves, understand where it comes from, understand that it’s a lie. It’s a lie. I already said it: the majority of men are good. Well, guess what? Men, I hope you’re listening. I hope you haven’t unsubscribed and left a hate comment yet. Women are mostly good too. The majority of women are good as well. Majority, majority. Do you see this? Both sides, the majority are good people, are mostly good. And on both sides, there are bad. And again, it’s hard. It was hard for me to say, but I truly believe it and I truly accept it. And honestly, I haven’t accepted fully how awful women can be, like because since I’m a woman, I’m only focused on men. I’m only focused on the opposite gender. So it has taken me a long time to really think about it, and I’m going to think about it more, because that is my responsibility.

My responsibility is to hear men out. I need to hear out the opposite side. I need to hear out what’s going on, instead of immediately throwing up my walls and getting defensive and getting my pride hurt, my ego hurt. I’m trying to think if I can sum this up anyway, and one way I suppose is to say,

“I’m sorry.”

Truly, I’m not gonna break down in tears. I’m not going to be stupid about it, but I genuinely feel convicted. I feel convicted. I feel that I have been jaded, biased, that my opinions and my beliefs have been not right, not true at all. I have ignored men’s side. As much as I love men, as much as I’ve read about it, read about men, I just purposely would tune it out anytime they talked about how horrible women are, because I was just like,

“That’s not true. Men are the bad ones.”

That’s the wrong way to go about it. I’m sorry.

Acknowledging bias

I also want to say again, in my defense, I am not loud about this. This is my first time ever talking about it. I’m here to try to stand between both sides and yell at both of you and tell you, the problem is not out there. The problem is here.

It is on us to choose to open our minds and to see the good in whatever we think is bad.

All right. We have confirmation bias to look for only the bad. We project bad onto good. So let’s open our minds and choose to be aware, consciously aware of the good people that we know, the good experiences that we have had, and let those rise up on the balance and outweigh the bad, because it will, if we become aware of the good. The good experiences: anytime a man opens the door for me, anytime a man smiles at me in a kind way, I promise you there are millions of examples of good men doing good things for me with good intentions.

I am choosing to become more and more aware of that. And again, I am so sorry that I was biased. I thank God I wasn’t vocal about it. I didn’t tell men that they’re bad. I just had this thought in my heart. I wasn’t outspoken. Thank God, because that causes harm.

So I swear, I can’t say this enough: we’ve all had bad experiences. We’ve all been hurt. We’ve probably all been abused. We know people who have. We know people who have been destroyed by the opposite sex in some way. We all have merit. We all have — it’s all true. We’re all right. But that doesn’t mean we get to ram it down the other person’s throat, scream at them, yell at them, and tell them how awful they are.

We have to focus on ourselves, figure out why we believe what we believe, figure out who hurt us, and let’s not spread that hurt around to other people. Let’s work on ourselves. Let’s choose to see the good, because it is there. The majority is good. I don’t know how to word what I’m trying to say in a way where men — like, I hope you understand, because my audience is male, and probably whoever clicks on this video is male, and I hope you understand that I am not — I don’t hate you. I love you.

I love you. I want to hear you out. I am so grateful for the support that I’ve gotten, and honestly, it’s all due to men. Like I have only men to thank for having this channel, because you’re mostly my subscribers and mostly my audience, and I know it’s mostly because of my face, but I’m hoping that as you get to know me, it will be for a lot more reasons.

I really care about you, and I really care about hearing your side. And I want everyone to have that. I want everyone to decide to listen to the other side and to work on themselves. Okay, all right. Please don’t unsubscribe. Oh, okay. This is a crazy video to make. I have no idea what response it’s gonna get. No idea. But I’m gonna post it because I believe in it. I really strongly—I mean, you saw how passionate I was. I’m very passionate about this.

Okay. Bye.

always get worse what that means to me

at least is that if you're having a bad time bad day week month or a couple months you're having a hard time don't be ungrateful for that time because if you're not grateful for that time just know that it's gonna get worse at some point - I thought that things were bad at the beginning of 2019 these are really hard and I was sulking around ungrateful for everything that I had and that slowly throughout the year I lost everything throughout 2019 I slowly and gradually lost things that I did not give a second

thought to I want to give a little timeline of what happened so in the first couple months of 2019 I was super unhappy about the job that I was in and then I definitely didn't like where I was living it was a place that I never really chose to be had like a really bad effect on me and then I'll just touch on I very very lightly I was pretty unhappy in the relationship that I was in unhappy in certain aspects just that um and again to really touchin it super quickly I was in a relationship where I constantly felt that I loved the other person way more than they loved me so my life was pretty bad to me I thought you know in the beginning of 2019 I thought my life was pretty bad that I hated where I was living I was very unhappy in my relationship I didn't have any friends I touched on that my previous video and I was unhappy in my job so life was bad right is sucked okay it just got worse I got broken up with felt very sudden and I was really not expecting it so that happened and I kind

of was still living with the guy for a couple months after I got broken up with so those months were just super rough and during that time I also injured my leg it's actually a ligament I think it's my adductor ligament or something like that I entered that last May and now in April earth sorry now in February

of 2020 it is still injured so that is 11 months later no not quite huh it's about nine months later that it's still injured I also quit my job which was a good thing but I was stuck in the situation where I didn't have a job I was living with my now ex-boyfriend I I didn't have any money I didn't have any friends and on top of that I had lost something that I never really realized was a gift in the first place I lost my mobility my ability to walk to

run to rollerblade to hike all of those things I'm an extremely outdoorsy person to experience the loss of all that just killed me it absolutely murdered me like everything got so much worse after I hurt my leg that just sucked I really

thought that it couldn't get worse how could it get worse I was super unhappy depressed in a horrible place emotionally mentally and then I got kicked out of where I was living I'm not by my ex it's kind of complicated but anyway I I don't really want to get into like the personal part of all of this because it's kind of a personal situation but I ended up getting kicked out with two days notice remember at that point I just had like this panic I'm not communicating the emotion that I was going through during all of this time obviously it was complete and utter despair so I decided to heal from all this that I was going to move somewhere far far away because I'm an adventurous person and I thought to myself if I could go somewhere that was exciting enough and new enough I could distract myself from all this pain so I kind of just on the fly too decided to move to Austin Texas because there's gonna be winter here I'd been to Austin for a month before and I thought I'd liked it so I drove all the way down to Austin Texas I found a place to live on Craigslist found a lady to live with

and I thought that was a you know yeah it's cheap rent and I thought that was an okay idea so after my Austin Texas thing didn't work out I ended up leaving Austin because I just realized it was not for me I fell apart emotionally when I was there I was way too alone way too scared I had moved away by myself before but this is way different somehow I was going through too much all at once way too much you shouldn't be going through like insane emotional changes at the same time physical changes yeah I know so I ended up going back to Minnesota about four days later and at that point I had much less money because I didn't get my rent back yeah I was almost going broke I had nowhere to live in the city I had no job obviously no friends and I was recently broken up with and I had lost my health or that I believed you know with my leg like that my whole life was obviously crashing down on me I was really feeling sorry for myself at this point with all of those things happening at once everything was slowly just taken away from me to wrap up the story I ended up living with my older sister's friend from way back I lived with her and her husband and they offered their home to me for one month and now I am going on very going on month number four with them but the story gets better I was really feeling sorry for myself I lost my only friend who was my ex-boyfriend I felt like I lost everything and I was just in absolute depths of despair and then what happens the one thing that I still had my car let's take it I was driving downtown to meet my sister for coffee and I got hit by a man running a red light in an intersection and he was driving really fast so it felt and he totaled my car and he hit me on the driver's side door so he destroyed the door and and the front window was stuck open so then I was stuck in the situation where I had a totaled car and I was did not have enough money to buy another car and I didn't have enough money to fix my car luckily the engine wasn't hurt and the frame of the car wasn't hurt it was the doors that were bashed in so I just have continued driving it for the last three months in the winter and not being able to use my front driver's side door or the driver's side window and for the first three or four weeks after the crash my driver's side window was stuck open so and it's winter here in Minnesota so that really sucked but I'm trying to save me from this whole timeline is that I really thought things are bad at the beginning but slowly and gradually they got worse until the crescendo of the car accident and losing my car as well as gaining a couple more injuries on my neck and my shoulders and my back were especially hurt and have been hurt for the last three months all in all 2019 was a really hard year and I actually am truly grateful

for the horrible horrible horrible things that happened and I have actually left some things out there were more bad things that happen but I just have not touched on and I really feel grateful in

a way for those things happening because it kind of showed me all of the things that can go wrong it showed me things in my life that I definitely took for granted for example just being able to get in and out of my car using the driver's side door or just being able to use a drive-thru with my driver's side window or even just having a car just getting being able to drive to wherever I wanted to go I didn't really think about that as a huge blessing as something that could actually be taken away so I've learned to view everything in my life my health everything I own I have learned to view all of those things as things that can be taken away and things that other people have lost for example health I had like this epiphany a couple days ago and I'm sure other people already know this but I just thought of it that you know everybody says be grateful for what you have be grateful for what you have be grateful for what you have i-i've always tried to be grateful for what I have but when you don't have that much it's actually hard to be grateful so I struggled with gratefulness a lot until all of this happened to me and I realized actually I've been looking at gratefulness the wrong way I should not only be grateful for what I have I should also think about the things that I don't have and be grateful for the things I don't have so and nobody ever told me this to think of the things that you don't have and be grateful for that I made a list things that I don't have that I am now extremely grateful for and things that I do now think of when I lost my health when I hurt my leg and the accident hurt my back my shoulders and my neck it got me thinking about all of the other health conditions and ailments that I could have but don't things like cancer or diabetes or if I actually did lose an arm or a leg if I didn't have properly functioning organs I know some people who are young who don't have properly functioning organs those things I absolutely took for granted you don't think about this but every single day that you live if there's somebody that is your age exactly that has died at your exact age down to the day so you can be grateful each day that you have not died I know that so serious sounding but it's absolutely true it's just kind of a dose of reality on that same line of thinking it's also true for people you love every day that they're alive you can be thankful that they have not died it sounds so dramatic but it happens people die and at some point it is going to happen to you at some point your loved ones are going to die so you can thank God that it's not today whenever I'm having an OK day I remind myself of all horrible things that could go wrong and to even take it to a more serious note sometimes I think to myself I'm grateful I haven't been murdered today because again it sounds so dramatic but it happens I was watching a documentary on Ted Bundy recently and I realized for the first time that his victims were 18 10 or 22 years old and that really hit home he's like wow that actually happened to someone it hypothetically could have been me so suffering so much has completely changed the way that I think about things and learning that things

can always get worse but when you think things are bad just reminding yourself that things can get so much worse there are so many things you have that you can lose there are a couple things that I still have in my life well there's many things in my life that I still have that I can lose so it's that way of looking at it think of what in your life can you lose and then be grateful for those things and think outside of the box I didn't realize how lucky I was to have such good health until after I lost it and now every day I make sure to be grateful for everything I do have I haven't completely lost my health I'm not bedridden I can still walk I still have a good right leg I still have a good stomach area I have great internal functioning there's so many parts of my body that are still working there are so many things I still have that I can be grateful for it okay I'm gonna quickly list off a couple things that I've been really grateful for lately things that I've really been trying to think of another thing that I realized I could lose at anytime is my cell phone the really cherish and value of my cell phone have thousands of pictures and videos on my phone and thousands of text messages that I'm really value I'm extremely grateful for the ability to take pictures and videos two or three hundred years ago pictures didn't exist and that's incredible I'm super grateful for the ability to communicate through cell phones to people who are discipline distance which leads me to I'm so grateful for the ability to drive places and cars like it's incredible the kinds of things that we have nowadays then nobody thinks about I'm also grateful for the internet every day that's a new thing that we have that other people did not have grateful for the necessities that I have everyday like food and water place to sleep access to warmth especially in the winter and Abed I've gone through lots of times in my life where I don't have a bad breath to sleep on the floor or sleep on the couch or sleep in my car so I touched on just a few things it's been life-altering to think about all the things that I have that I could lose people that I could lose and more of my health that I could lose my senses there is so much that we have that we can lose and there's so many things that can happen to us tomorrow that will ruin our lives it has made me desperate to be grateful every day for everything that I have if you made it through I really loved the sense of community from my other videos and I'm hoping I can keep that going and I don't want it to be like too corny but I really want to give another word because it was so much fun last time I really loved reading the comments I would scroll through and smile as I read those and some people would just comment pizza and that was it nothing else and that just made me super happy so if you made it through the video I would love if you could comment my favorite animal which is unicorn so if you made it through comment unicorn

first thing before I start this I saw

the other day that I got I noticed the other day the host what I hope that you'll get from this driving downtown to

meet my sister for coffee

I was driving downtown to meet my sister

for coffee when and as I was driving through [Music] I was hit by a guy hitting him Prince Allah being a prince and he was driving really fast so so what I am trying to

say by all of what I'm trying to say so what I've been trying to get to from this whole story [Music] is that [Music]

"Don't be so hard on yourself because you're not as bad as you think you are."

What I wrote when I was in high school was insane. I was just so full of self-hatred, and I really have overcome it. I'd say completely. I really don't hate myself at all, but when I was younger, I thought everything was wrong with me.

And I suppose that's kind of normal for high schoolers, but I feel like mine was a little more extreme. I just tell myself,

"At 18, there's nothing wrong with you."

And also, I would compare myself to everyone, and I still do that. I still do, but the thing that makes it easier is when you tell yourself that every single person on the planet, no matter how perfect they look or seem, they all experience the same pain and problems and insecurities.

2. And two, it would be to know how much your environment changes who you are.

And when I was younger and still living with my family, I was a really dark person, and I did not have any idea that my family was impacting me, like who I was, how I felt. And since moving out, I have become a completely different person, so much lighter and freer and happier.

The people around you will affect you and change who you are completely. They're gonna affect how you see things, how you see yourself. That's the most important one is they're the people around you are gonna affect how you see yourself, so keep that in mind. It's extremely helpful because I know now that everyone around me currently also impacts me, and I can choose who I allow to be around me. It really makes a huge difference.

And also, on the flip side, remember that you impact others and influence others, for positive or negative, so keep that in mind.

3. The third thing that I tell myself is life as an adult is much easier than I thought when I was younger. I actually believed that it would be completely impossible for me to be an adult, as in I went through this "Great Depression" at age 18. I mean "Great Depression" as in I just felt like I couldn't do anything. I couldn't figure out doctor bills, taxes, insurance. Couldn't figure out getting my own place, renting, living in the world, being alone. I felt completely inadequate, like I could not do anything.

4. And I would tell myself that that's completely BS and that being an adult is — well, I mean, just see, I don't mean the maturity aspect of being an adult, but just the different life aspects, you know, getting a job, moving out, paying bills, getting insurance, all of those things are relatively easy and simple and to the point.

And I would just tell myself that it's so much simpler than you think, and that's not as scary as you think. So don't ever fear moving out. Therefore, of things I tell myself when I was younger, 18, would be that things are gonna change a lot.

That it seems like when you're in childhood, you know, from 0 to 18, that things really don't change too much. Sure, your parents may get divorced, and different siblings are going to move out, but for the most part, life is pretty steady. Like, you usually stay in the same home, you've got your bedroom, everything's similar, probably with the same friends.

But yeah, it's so important to know that everything's going to change when you grow up. It seems for me that change has accelerated since I've moved out. That every couple of months, there's a drastic change. Every couple of months, I make a move, I get a new job, or I meet new people, or people leave me, or people move away, things like that.

Yeah, it's just, that things are always going to change. Remember that and be grateful for what you have now and know that it's not going to stay there. It's not going to last. It's everything will leave, everything will go, and family pets, everything will die. It's depressing, but at the same time, it allows you to be grateful for what you have.

5. Survive is an important one, really, really, really important. And that is, value yourself more.

When I was younger, when I was 18, when I was a teenager, I did not value myself at all. I did not think that I held any value. And I mean this probably in particular towards relationships and men. I didn't think that I had anything to offer. So when one guy comes around that I'm in love with, and he says he loves me, it was so easy to not value myself.

And that goes along with another thing that I've learned on the same line is to respect yourself, have self-respect, and make sure that you're being treated with the respect that you deserve. Because I believe that more, just a huge portion of young girls, teenage girls, I believe they are mostly girls, who don't have self-respect for themselves and make sure that they're treated with respect, and that they value themselves. I think that's really lacking. Girls need to know to value yourself and don't give yourself away. And by that, I don't mean sexually. I mean your heart. Don't give your heart away to any man who doesn't earn it or who doesn't deserve it. And make sure you're being treated right. It's extremely important. You can avoid a lot of pain.

6. Number six would be to take your health seriously. I know that when I was a child, a teenager, and 18 years old, even though I did eat rather healthy, that was mostly because of my parents. It wasn't because of my choice.

And actually, I had a lot of bitterness that I was forced to eat healthy for my childhood. But that's a different story. But basically, I didn't realize, I didn't really fully accept that food is tied to health. And I know that doesn't make too much sense because it's very obvious.

But when I was that age, I didn't really think that anything would affect me negatively. Like, when you're young, you kind of feel like you're never going to die, and that nothing can ever make you die, and nothing can ever make you sick. So I ate things without thinking about consequences.

So basically, I would tell myself at 18,

"Really be careful. Don't eat too much sugar. Don't eat too much fat. Don't eat any processed foods. Don't eat any junk food. None of it is worth it."

And that those things do cause disease and they cause your energy levels to crash. They do impact you.

Like, just get that in your head. But everything you eat, it's going to affect your body. And if you're eating bad things, it will hurt your body permanently and take years off of your life. And that's what I didn't accept that that what I ate would take years off my life.

I never even, it just, you know, you kind of feel invincible as a kid. And I always prided myself on feeling like I was very mature. And I think I was as an 18-year-old. But there was a lot I hadn't thought about yet. So yeah, take your health seriously as a kid!

And I keep telling my younger sister this before, you know, 'cause she's still young and she still has time. So the earlier the better. It's not like you can eat unhealthy when you're young and then clean up the act later. Just eat healthy now.

And also, research things. Research what foods are healthy for your brain. Research what's good for your gut. Research what's good for your energy levels. Everything like that. Research what fights cancer. All of those things. And then focus on getting those in your diet. And also exercise.

7. Number seven is to make a future plan.

And notice that I didn't say make a life plan, because I still don't believe that you have to make a life plan or that it's possible to make a life plan, because you can never predict how your life is going to go. But at 18 years old and as a teenager, I should have taken it very seriously to make a future plan, as in something like,

"Where will I be in the next two years? Where will I be in the next five years?"

Just little goals. Because when I was a teenager, I always thought to myself,

"I have no idea what I want to do. I have no idea how to do what I want to do."

And that I have time. And obviously, I didn't have any time, because now I'm here, and my life is not horrible, but I would have been in a different place if I had planned a thing.

8. I'd like to tell myself, and I was 18, would be that life gets better. I don't know how most people's lives are, but my childhood, so far, has been not the best part of my life. So, and I was told in high school on graduation day, I was told by the principal that your high school years are the best years of your life. And that's not true.

So any 18-year-old just graduating high school, don't worry about that. It's not the best years of your life. Some of the best years of your life are coming. So always know that when you're 18 and you're moving out, things can get a lot better.

9. The nice thing is something that people may roll their eyes over, and something that I never understood for years and years and years, the knife thing. I would tell myself as a teenager and as an 18-year-old is, dress modestly. And that has nothing to do with religious views. I have finally learned that it is so important to dress modestly. And by that, I don't mean don't dress conservatively.

You don't have to dress conservatively, but don't dress in a way where you're exposing all of your best parts. And the simple reason behind this thought is that not every man in the entire world deserves to see your body. And that just means that you, dressing modestly, is a way of telling yourself and the world that you value yourself and that you respect yourself and that you know that your body is a gift and that you know that not all the men in the world don't deserve to see it.

It's so simple to me, I'm open-minded. I don't judge women who dress exposing-ly, but I don't understand the way of thinking, because I'd like them to know how valuable they are and that men are looking at their body, and men do not deserve to see it. You know, I believe that they may have to earn the right to see the best parts of you.

So when I was younger, when I was a teenager, I dressed the way that all teenagers dress, in short shorts and revealing tops and all of that. And I thought that I was very sexy, and I know that a lot of girls like that feeling. Maybe every woman likes the feeling of feeling sexy. So I really relished the feeling of feeling like I was beautiful and sexy.

And the thing that I didn't know at the time was that the attention I got was not positive attention. I thought the attention I got was positive. I thought that men would look at me and think,

"She's beautiful. She's gorgeous. I like her."

Like, you know, all of just nice thoughts. But it kind of takes a little growing up to know that when guys are looking at you and giving you attention for dressing immodestly, it's not positive attention. It's kind of nasty. It's kind of gross attention. It's something that you shouldn't relish in.

So lately, the past probably two years now, I've been focusing on dressing modestly. And I thought, I just mean, don't wear ultra-revealing clothes. And by no means, I'm not accrued in the way that I dress, but I just don't wear revealing clothes anymore. For example, short shorts. I wear normal-length shorts. You know, just not to go to excess in revealing yourself. And again, it's just because you want to tell yourself and tell everyone around you that you respect yourself, you respect your body, and that not everyone has the right to see everything you have.

10. Number 10, it would be to stand up for yourself and to know that your opinion and your beliefs have value. And that by no means means to be argumentative and combative and, like, aggressive. But to not be a pushover and to, if somebody crosses a line or crosses a boundary, stick up for yourself.

And in high school, I had a lot of instances like this, where usually a guy would say something to me that was utterly disrespectful. And usually, it was a joke, but I don't believe that jokes are ever disrespectful, personally, towards you. Like, you know, it's not a joke if they're insulting you or saying something crass. So in those instances, I do wish that I had said,

"Don't talk to me that way."

You know, and you don't have to be nasty about it. You don't have to be mean, but just to say,

"It's not okay to talk to me that way."

And I really do believe that high schoolers, they're not bad people. They're not evil. They're not usually bullies. So if you tell somebody that, it's usually going to work. I have full beliefs that if I had said that to anybody, it would have worked, and they wouldn't have said anything else like that to me ever again. So just know that that, even though, like, always remind yourself,

"I'm still young and I have a lot to learn still."

And I know that, but at the same time, my values and my beliefs right now have value, and they actually have just as much value as anybody else's. That's not saying to yell and yell that you're right or to try to prove that you're right, but just to make sure that you value your thoughts.

You know that everything you say has value. So I know when I was in high school, I was a pushover. And if people crossed my values or standards, crossed my boundaries or standards, that I would just kind of put my head down. And I would not do that now. If anybody talks to me disrespectfully now, I do stand up for myself. Usually, it's more difficult if it's somebody who you care about, you know, somebody you care about is saying something disrespectful to you. It's harder to stand up because you care about what they think. But um, it's extremely important because it really is true that the respect that you demand from others, the respect that you demand towards yourself, not in a mean way, but just saying,

"You know, I deserve respect."

The way you say that, and the more you say that, that's how they're going to, but I'm messing up everything. That's how they're going to measure how worthy of respect you are. And at the same time, you have to be respectable. Obviously, you have to be a respectable person. But also, if you don't respect yourself, no one will respect you. And I know you've heard that before, and it sounds like a cliché, overused phrase, but it's absolutely true. And I know it from personal experience!

11. Eleventh thing that I would tell myself, and I know I'm saying "eleventh" instead of "number eleven." I don't know, "eleventh" sounds weird. But anyway, it would be, and this is something I'm reminding myself now, but I had to remind myself of this years ago as well. And that is, I'm reading it off my list right now,

"You don't have to live a similar life as those around you. Success is merely accomplishing what you set out to accomplish."

I wrote that down earlier. So what that means is, if all of your classmates and school are going off to be doctors and lawyers and nurses and dentists and electricians, don't compare yourself to them and their lives and their jobs, if that's not what you want to do. So I never had a desire to have a career, and so why was I comparing myself to those around me who had careers?

Even today, I met a couple of women who were extremely successful in their careers, and I was comparing myself to them and judging myself and thinking that I was a failure. And then I reminded myself,

"Wait, I don't want any of their jobs. I don't want any of their lives."

So anyway, the point is, success is just accomplishing what you set out to accomplish, and that can be small or large. If you spend your whole childhood and life dreaming of living your life on a farm, and then you get your own farm and you're living on your farm, that's success. You're successful.

So just keep that in mind. And that's something that I kind of recently learned that, like, I don't want to be super rich. I don't want to be wealthy. I don't want to be a doctor or a lawyer. I don't want to have a career. So stop comparing myself to those around me, saying they're successful and I'm not.

12. Well, the thing is pretty simple, and that is, don't trust people as much as you do. When I was in high school and when I moved out, I had a lot of faith and trust in people that I cared about. And the thing that you need to know is that even when people are not trying to hurt you, every single person in your life is going to hurt you at some point, unintentionally or intentionally. Maybe they'll be angry at you, and they'll try to hurt you in that moment, or they'll do something for themselves that will affect you negatively and hurt you.

So that's something I had to learn. There were a couple of people in my life, that I really imagined I could completely depend on and rely on, and would never hurt me ever, and that's a big lie. So just, when you're 18 years old or younger, keep in mind not to put all your faith and trust in people and know that they're going to hurt you. But also to kind of give them a break, as long as it's not abuse.

I just mean if somebody does something that hurts you, and it's usually unintentional, try to just know that it was going to happen. Like, I hope this sounds like good advice. Maybe I'm not explaining it well enough. I don't mean accept abuse. I just mean if somebody hurts you one time, and it's really hurtful, and they did not intend to hurt you or something, you know, just kind of expect that to happen because when it happened to me, it blindsided me. It just crushed me and threw me off, and I was not expecting it.

Yeah, and you don't want to be in that situation. You want to be prepared for that. You don't want to be taken off guard so dramatically.

13. I'm almost done, by the way. I have 13, 14, 15. Okay, number 13. Apart from your looks, change all the things you want to change about yourself.

Give a personal example. I have always hated how fearful I am of people, situations, things, new things. I've always been a scaredy-cat about everything new. And I mean to the extreme.

When I was 18, I was too terrified to try to drive in a city, like, and not even a large city, a small city. So I was terrified of driving, terrified of highways, terrified of downtowns. Anyway, I avoided it at all costs. And I always hated that.

I hated how scared I was of everything. Scared of people, scared of everything. So if you hate something about yourself like that, don't try hard to accept it and just be like,

"That's the way I am. I accept it, and I love myself."

First of all, that's probably not possible. And second of all, that's just kind of like giving up. So anything that you hate about yourself, you know, I'll reword it. So don't hate anything about yourself. Don't ever hate yourself. But if there are qualities that you would like to change about yourself, and if you would like to be a different person and a better person, there's nothing wrong with self-improvement.

And it's actually a good thing. So personal growth, self-improvement, working on things. I constantly am working on conquering my fear, conquering fear of everything. You don't have to try to accept every single thing about you. If it's changeable, you can change it.

And, of course, just use common sense about where the line is between accepting something about yourself and loving it or changing it. So it just needs common sense about that.

14. I'm getting tired recording this list, so I'm sure anybody watching is also getting tired watching. So I'm on number 14. The 14th thing that I would tell myself as a teenager is that all fear is learned. Fear is either ingrained in your psyche when you're a baby or, you know, in the womb, in your DNA, of things like spiders and snakes and anything that could actually physically hurt you, bears.

But most fear is irrational fear. Fear of people, fear of new situations, fear of driving. It's irrational. And just to know that all the fears you have, you can learn to not fear them. And I do know this from personal experience that I have completely made a 180 in terms of my fears.

There are certain things that I feared so much. For example, I didn't use my credit card, my first credit card, for about a year or two years. I just carried it around in my wallet, and I was too afraid to try to use it for the first time because I was terrified of messing up and looking stupid and being judged. So yeah, pretty extreme. And and obviously, that's an irrational fear. And things like using my credit card, I don't give a second thought to. So just, and then anything social, the more you do social things, the less you're going to fear it. So just know that all of those fears that you have, you can just tackle them one by one and conquer them, and you won't even get the same physical reaction.

For example, when I drove in cities, the first probably 40 times that I drove in cities, my palms would get sweaty, my heart would pound. I would have to turn off all sounds, like the radio, and I couldn’t talk to anybody because I was so focused on driving in the city and so scared. And I had all those physical reactions. And obviously, none of that happens anymore.

It’s been several years since I’ve had any kind of reaction of stress and anxiety. It was basically like I’d get a panic attack every time I tried. So just know that those, the physical feelings of fear, can go away if you keep doing it. And there are obviously limitations and exceptions. Like, I don’t think I will ever get over fear of heights. I’m always going to have a physical reaction when I’m on heights. But, you know, little things like talking to people, talking to strangers, you know, things like that.

15. The last thing I would tell myself is that your insecurities are given to you in childhood. I don’t know any research that concludes that or any scientist who says that, but it’s something that I know in my own life. It’s something that I learned has happened.

• So, for example, I was always insecure, extremely insecure, about my freckles. And I traced that back, and I got teased by my brothers about freckles. Okay.
• Then I was insecure about my earlobes being too big, and I realized that one of my brothers had made several comments about that when I was younger.
• Then I was also insecure about my long face because my brothers had made comments about it.
• And very insecure about my crooked smile, which I still haven’t quite overcome. So I have a crooked smile, and that was also pointed out to me. And I remember thinking about this, and it was pretty crazy because I realized that I didn’t see myself a certain way until somebody pointed things out to me. For example, when my brother told me I had a crooked smile, that was the first time I realized it. And I was probably 11 years old, somebody who should be self-aware, and I had no idea that I had a crooked smile. And then when he pointed it out to me, I noticed it, and I never stopped noticing it.

And that’s how it was for everything, about my long face, about my earlobes, and a million other things. I didn’t see those things in myself. I didn’t notice any of it until somebody told me that I should feel insecure about it.

Okay. Another thing is, not only are they given to you by the people around you in childhood, but they’re also given to you through society and through advertising and through models. So it seems like every year, I feel a little bit insecure over more and more things. Because, for example, a trend changes, like, for example, I don’t even know what trends are nowadays, but I think that curvy girls are still in the trend. So everybody says,

“Real women have curves,”

And you know, there are songs about it. And if you don’t have big curves and big, you know, then you’re not as real of a woman, not as good as a woman.

Okay. So now I feel slight insecurity about that. But no worries, I really, really love myself. I’ve learned to love my, so as far as my physical body goes, the biggest issue is trying to love my personality. That’s what I’m still tackling.

But as far as my earlobes, my crooked smile, my long face, all of that, I’m completely fine with. So I’m not insecure about those things anymore, and I’m good with my physical body. But just know, at 18 years old, don’t think that anything’s wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you. Your insecurities are given to you by society and those around you.

And anybody who bullies you on something, and just know that, like, anything, like, for example, a lot of people like the things that you’re insecure about. Other things, other people want. So, for example, freckles now, there are tattoo freckles. What? So there are women out there who want freckles on their face that they’re getting tattoos of freckles on their face.

So another example is that some people think crooked smiles are super cute. And I think somebody would want my earlobes, but I don’t know. And my long face. A girl actually approached me and said she wished she had an oval face like mine. And I was like,

“I wish I had your face shape because I’ve always been jealous of girls to have more of a rounder face instead of so oval.”

So anyway, everybody wants what you have.

Okay. There are always going to be people who want what you have. And just, you know, just know that nothing’s wrong with you, and that the way that you’re feeling about yourself, you’re feeling that way because somebody gave you that insecurity. And when you can trace it back and find who gave it to you and why, and all of that, somehow that takes the insecurity away because you realized that it had no basis. It was just somebody saying a mean remark.

Alright, that’s it. Last thing is, just wanted to say none of these things were listed in order, and I’m sorry that it was so long. I don’t really care, not too many people are watching, but I hope somebody does listen to this, especially a young girl.

I really want a young girl to listen to this because I think there are a lot of things in that are going to benefit you if you actually listen. And I know I think it’s pretty impossible to listen to other people without experiencing it yourself. It’s a horrible fact of life, but it seems as if you have to make your own mistakes to learn from them for the most part.

But you can learn from other people, you know. I have listened to people’s advice and just not made certain mistakes myself.

So alright, well, I’ll see you next time.

Tonight I'm extra lonely, just out and about by myself as always, and I'm just gonna make a video about why I have no friends and I'm gonna start from the very beginning.

So once upon a time when I was born 21 years ago. My parents thought it was a great idea to not socialize me as a child. Meaning, that we were a homeschool family, and I was the second to last child, which if anybody knows, the second to last child of eight children. Anybody, who knows or who's in a big family, knows that parents put in less and less effort with each child, and after child number three it gets pretty neglectful. So the older children got socialized. They got to do things and I grew up from age zero to five with not a single friend. Not a single friend.

Church

We went to a church which had a bunch of people, but they were all old people.

I remember old people and I remember I tried to make a friend with a girl, and I was chasing her around saying hi, hi, at five years old or four. And that didn't work out so well.

Then from age five on I remember feeling so jealous at that.

I remember being so jealous of my older siblings, an older sister in particular, because she had friends, because she went to this group, which was made for teenage girls. So she got to hang out with a bunch of teenage girls her age and I remember every time we drop her off and pick her up. I felt so jealous that she got to go and I didn't because I wanted friends and I was lonely. And I also remember this time when I was following my brother around when their friend would come over, who was a guy and they would exclude me completely. Sometimes just telling me to leave or just completely ignoring me, because I was the little sister. So that was my experience from age zero to five. Then we moved to Wisconsin to a teeny tiny town. And from five to twelve I also didn't have any friends. They really didn't think it was important to socialize me with anybody.

We did go to church and I was pretty shy. And again, there wasn't really anybody my age, because I don't know, if people know this, but first of all when you're young, like from age five to twelve, you're kind of in this awkward age group. where the teenagers are cool and like the teenagers won't be friends with you, because they're teenagers and it seemed like there was only teenagers at that church. Teenagers and older people just ignored me, like nobody talked to me. Basically from zero to twelve, zero socialization. As a homeschool family we didn't do anything. I mean what is there, where would a family go, to make friends.

Public school

So, I grew up extremely alone and just far away from all civilization. Obviously, that probably didn't help my social skills. Then after age 12, I got put in public school, which was good. This is kind of where it gets tricky. I don't know why, I didn't make friends. I mean every day in high school I had friends. I had pretty good friends, like I would call them friends. I would never call them close friends, but I hung around with a group of girls and the best thing about high school was that there was no drama for me. None at all. I wasn't included in any drama and it seemed like it was because everybody, every single person, including my friends, kept a distance from me. I don't know why that is. I really don't know what is with me that people kept a distance.

I remember one girl really hated me for a couple years. But for the last couple years of high school, we were great. But at one point she really made it seem like I was super stuck-up, and she just thought that I was proud and stuck-up, which I won't defend myself. But I don't think I am. I think it was because I'm shy. So sometimes people misinterpret shyness and quietness for being judgemental. So when somebody's really quiet, you assume they're being judgmental of you. Actually I know that firsthand because there was a girl in high school, who was super quiet around me and I really thought she was judging me hardcore. I have no idea if she was or not to this day. She might have been, but I absolutely believe she was judging me. But anyway, I just don't know what it was about high school. I don't know if I didn't have social skills or what.

In high school I felt like I was friends and on good terms with everybody, like everybody was my friend, everybody would talk to me. There was no drama. Nothing bad happened, but at the same time no one was close to me. I don't know if it was me. I don't know if I didn't let anybody close to me. I think at the time, I mean obviously pretty much every high schooler will say this, but it was a very like depressed and dark period of life.

In high school everybody's like depressed, but I was especially depressed and maybe I just wasn't letting anybody in. I don't know what another thing was: I always felt like I was in too much pain or I was too complicated for anybody to really understand, so I probably didn't try that hard, because I always felt like I was going through more and had harder problems than other people. Which I know that probably sounds horrible, but I think almost everybody can feel that way about themselves. I guess that might be part of it.

Another thing was, I didn't feel like I connected with anybody and since it was such a small school, I only had twenty classmates. I think that was also a part of it, because how are you expected to find like a great friend out of 20 people. I honestly don't think too many people did find good friends in that tiny school.

Homecoming queen

I'm gonna wrap this up. After high school I graduated and I won homecoming queen. So, I wasn't unpopular. I'm just saying like that as an example as a proof that that I wasn't hated in high school.

Everybody liked me, but somehow I just didn't make any friends. I was homecoming queen, but anyway, I didn't make any friends that lasted. I really wanted to — but maybe not, maybe not with anybody at that school. I think it was just because I didn't feel like I connected with anybody. Maybe they sensed that as well.

Anyway, I graduated. None of my friends stuck with me. I actually didn't see anybody after high school except for one person. So I didn't see anybody really after high school. Nobody really talked to me and I have reached out to a couple classmates and they all said that they have lost track with each other too.

So everybody has lost track of each other, which, I guess, people I guess it happens when people graduate high school.

I didn't go to college because I was terrified to, and I felt inadequate and I felt like I couldn't do it and I was stupid and I would never pass. I felt really intimidated.

• I was terrified of college students.
• I was terrified of the process.
• I was terrified of the money and the debt

So I didn't go to college.

Making friends

So, obviously, I haven't made any college friends. Then it's like, well, how do you make friends? Then you've got only the option to make friends as co-workers and like going. I don't know going to some kind of class or group or something but in church. So after or during this time after graduating I've tried everything. I've gone to church. I've tried to go to church and find people to be friends with. I've joined Meetup and I've done a couple meetups. I've reached out to people to try to go to coffee.

Well, what else have I done? I don't know, but with my work friends I never really made friends at my last job. Not really at any job. It's the same thing. I don't know what it is with me. I truly don't. I must be completely blind to myself, but I have no idea why people don't want to be friends with me. Like even people that I do very much like. When I find somebody that I do very much like and I want to be friends with and I reach out to them, and I'm trying my best I'm being friendly and inquisitive and asking about them and like really trying like putting an effort to be friends and it doesn't happen. When I find somebody that I think is super cool, which is pretty rare, but it's like they're too cool for me. I don't know. I really I mean, honestly, if anybody knows.

I'd love to know why people aren't friends with me.

Recently I went to a meet-up and I met a girl that I loved, I just loved her. I thought she was super cool and I wanted to be friends, but it's like you meet her, you talk, you talk for hours the day, and then nothing happens. Nobody reaches out to anybody. I'm too afraid to. It happened again on a different meetup, where I went to coffee with a lady and I talked to her for hours, like many, many hours. The conversation just flowed, and nothing came of that either. Nobody has reached out to anybody and I'm too scared to, because she's too cool. I don't know, but anyway, the moral or what it all comes down to, is that I'm 21 years old and I have no friends. No friends at all. And might I add that my relationship with my family is non-existent, so I have no support system, no friends, nobody to turn to, nobody to hang around. Nobody to do fun stuff, with nobody to vent to. Nobody to count on and nobody's there for me. I've always been alone my entire life, my entire existence.

I've been alone and it bothers me so deeply, because all I ever have wanted is people in my life and friendships in my life and good connection and close people. I don't know why it doesn't happen. I don't know and it's pretty hopeless. It's pretty depressing because I'm so sick of going around and living my life completely alone.

Final thoughts

Anyway, that's it. I mean I was maybe supposed to say something uplifting at the end. But there really isn't. I mean I wasn't coming to any kind of point. I was just doing a timeline of my life without any friends and that I don't have friends now, and that I've been trying, and it's super hard

But I guess, the final thing is that I'm fine. I'm good with being alone as in I can survive. I have a really good mental mindset at this point in life. I've really learned a lot. I think I'm strong and capable to get through it. I think being alone is beautiful in a way, and that you can only count on yourself and everything. So I'm getting through it, but I just want things to change, you know, want things to change.

Feel free to comment and if you made it through the video I'll give you a prize, which I don't have but I just wanted to say that, congratulations. I bet nobody has. If anybody has made it to the end, comment "Pizza" in the comments.

If you finish this video and I will, I don't know, I'll think that's great I'll make my day because I'm confident nobody will make it this far. I don't even think anybody would click, but yeah, I'm kind of to the point like of desperation, where I'm reaching out to the whole vast majority of the populace of the world, just kind of like begging for somebody to give a damn. You know, like, I think a lot of people reach that point, where they're like nobody cares, like nobody is in my life and completely alone in the world I have no support and I'm just kind of reaching out to the world for some kind of support anyway.

Goodbye.