✧ (Speech - Pre-Monster/Monster Reborn)

This is also a really great moment because less than a year ago, I wanted to give up completely - not just on music, just give up. it was a time of loss, confusion, second-guessing, third-guessing literally everything in my life.

Questioning myself - my heart, my sanity. It was a time when everybody turned their backs on me because it wasn't cool - to be my friend anymore, or because I wasn't helping thеir careers. it was when people wеre telling me I was a terrible writer, a terrible artist, a terrible singer, and a terrible person, and it was just a shame that nobody told me to give up yet, so-

It was a time of isolation, a time where was I made to feel like a monster✧ (Speech - Pre-Sleepyhead)

So in this time, I watched this former friend - vigorously posted about, “reach out if you need to talk” but when I reached out it was radio silence - and I remember thinking -

“Wouldn’t it be so amazing, if everybody who pretended to give a shit on social media, actually did? wouldn't it be cool if people didn't just use mental illness and - hotline numbers for retweets as I actually wanted to make a difference?”

It's hard, asking somebody for help - it's humiliating asking somebody to listen, and being ignored. When you have no one to talk to, you talk to yourself, and when you talk to yourself, you're living in the echo chamber of negative self-talk with no resolution-

Conversations you wish you were having with somebody else, just clinging around in your mind - it leads to a lot of sleepless nights where you're both your own best friend and your own worst enemy✧ (Speech - Pre-Medicate)

Mental health is a funny thing - because sometimes it's hard to tell if your brain is broken, or just heartbroken.

I'm a very intense person, which means I feel things very intensely, and I also put myself in very intense situation - which often times have very intense consequences, but if you put your entire life out there than your entire life is up for speculation, for gossip, for rumors - for people talking about you, and not to you.

One day when I was in the thick of it, I was talking to someone when they asked me if I'd ever tried medication? Which was a battle I had with myself for years, I come from a long line of mental illness cocktails, and no stranger to the idea of turning to a doctor for a remedy - I strongly believe that, with the right diagnosis, and the right prescription, that medication can be life-changing, life saving even.

But I didn't feel imbalanced - I didn't feel like my darkest came from Disconnected Brain Receptors or Stifel Serotonin - My darkness came, because some blew out my candle.

My darkness came from years of failed relationships, and self-doubt, self-pity, and the fear that the genes that made my mother yell all the time, and my father drink all the time - maybe they weren’t recessive, and maybe the reason - that no one could love me - it’s just because I just wasn’t lovable - And what was the perception for that?
“Can you medicate a broken heart?”✧ (Speech - Pre-Today)

I know a lot of people believe that everything happens for a reason, and it feels good to believe that, right? It's comforting, that everything terrible that happens to you is part of some "Greater Plan.” I hate to break it to you but, no it doesn't, bad things don't happen for a reason, they just happened.

To tell someone that their “child died,” or “lost their home in a fire” or “survived some sort of abuse” for a reason, is insulting, but what you do with that, is what matters. The brain is a muscle, and yes, I know it's an organ, but for the sake of this analogy, please just play along with me, and agree it's a muscle. And just like a muscle every time you break it down. or in this case “have a breakdown.” It gets stronger if you don't quit if you keep with it if you allow yourself the time to grow and recover.

I trained my brain to this point to be grateful for any pain or heartbreak that comes my way because no it didn't happen for a reason, but it can, do something very special with it. It's an opportunity to change to grow to create. Trauma causes all sorts of energy that a lot of tents to store away in our chest, or throat, or heads, and what if we just let it loose, and turn it into something great? And no, not everyone is an artist, a painter, a dancer, not everyone can do these things, but whatever it is, you can find something, and you might feel like you have no outlet but there's one thing you’re best at.

If you don't know what it is, ask somebody, maybe you ask and they say “you're so brave” use that pain as motivation, escape and go on as many adventures as you can to escape this. Or maybe they say “You're so kind” then throw yourself in volunteer work and help as many people as you can.

Every bad situation is random, But it’s an opportunity, and I would just so hate, for you to waste that opportunity to do something so special. So if you can’t take anything else from here tonight, take this, “Do not let your pain go to waste, Just live another day and do something special”