July 2018 – Letters From Liz.

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH.

I know the blog was scheduled to come back in August for a month long blog series that I’ve been prepping behind the scenes, but I felt the need to come on here and write after watching Bunny, or Grav3yardgirl’s, new video she posted today entitled, “We Need to Talk”.

For the past year, I’ve been following Bunny’s YouTube channel and I was extremely upset I didn’t come across it sooner. Bunny is very different from other YouTubers of her status; she’s extremely down-to-earth, relatable, funny, and a joy to watch because she was authentic. As I started to follow her, I began to realize that in the recent months, she hasn’t been completely herself, and I’m assuming her subscribers realized that as well, and soon after, Bunny began to lose subscribers.

In May, another famous YouTuber, Shane Dawson, went to Bunny’s hometown to help her out on her YouTube channel and figure out different ways she could improve and express more of herself on camera. She expressed during this mini-series between her and Shane that her mental health has been taking a toll on her for the last year, and she finds herself grasping onto this image of 2014 being the best year of her life.

It’s been about two months since that series, and Bunny posted this recent video about her thoughts and where she’s mentally been in the last two months. While we want to see this video as her being happy and taking care of herself and finding new and interesting ways to engage with her audience, we soon realized that she’s still very much battling with herself in her head. She’s tried too hard to make herself happy again, and she feels like it hasn’t changed how she’s felt for the last year.

That’s possibly the most honest thing I’ve watched in a really long time, and I commend Bunny for being openly honest with her audience.

Bunny isn’t saying anything about her views or number of subscribers and how up and down they’ve been this last year. As a matter of fact, she’s explaining the anxiety of upkeep of her YouTube channel and how she loves what she does because it saved her life the first time she was in a dark place. She is simply saying she is trying to figure out how to get out of it this time around, and how difficult it’s been when millions of people are watching your every move.

Now, I’m no famous YouTuber, but I very much relate to Bunny and her struggles of balancing happiness, passion, and your mental health all in one hand. I know how it feels to be passionate about something and still feel like it’s not good enough, I know how it feels to keep referring back to a time in life where you’re your happiest, and you try extremely hard to replicate that time again in real time, and I know how it feels when your mental health feels like it is out of your hands and you have no control over yourself. That’s currently my life as I write this, and it’s a reality that I believe a lot of us go through time and time, especially those who are going through a rough time in their lives.

I wish my life was 2016 again. I wish I was excited about something the way I was whenever I had acting class. I wish I felt the passion the way that I did while writing my portfolio for grad school. I wish I was strong and confident the way I was when I had a decent group of friends in college. There’s a lot that happened in 2016 that I wish I can get back, and I know it’s not possible because life happens and things change and that realization is sometimes hard to overcome.

Bunny’s message in her video is simply she is trying to force happiness on herself because she is tired of feeling the way she does. She mentions the little things people oversee are the things that make her proud and that make her feel like herself, but her audience is so fixated on this new “Grav3yardgirl 2.0” that she believes she has to live up to them and honestly, she’s saying she’s not ready.

And that’s the thing about recovery and mental health: things can’t change unless you’re personally ready to.

Happiness and good mental health do not happen overnight, and we have to stop believing that one good day solves everything in our lives. Things like that take time; there will be days where we feel like we haven’t made any progress. There will be days where we feel even sadder than we did before, but that doesn’t mean all the progress we made isn’t worth it.

I try to at least put real clothes on instead of staying in my pajamas on the day that I need to feel a bit productive. I try to write in my journals and so some TNTH writing to feel like I’m moving forward with my creative projects. I try to be aware of my behavior and the thoughts I have because if I just let them swim in my head all day, I’ll feel stuck and I will shut down. I try each and every day to get myself better, to feel like I’m in my element again, to be the person I know I’m meant to be, and the progress I made, whether big or small, is another step forward into bettering myself.

In Bunny’s position, sometimes you just have to do what you love and do it because you love it. Make those unboxing videos and makeup videos because they make you feel good. Make those tea vlogs in your car and talk about everything and anything because you feel better after venting. Everyone else is second to that.

As my friend, Tori, always says: you can’t fill someone else’s cup when yours is empty.

-Liz. (:

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A Voiceless Rant: July 2018 Edition.

July 9, 2018 liz

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH.

I wasn’t on planning to come back on here anytime soon due to a lot of things that are currently happening in my life. It’s been a lot for me to handle but I realize that TNTH is just more than a platform of “views” and “followers”. It’s my place where I can write, and I’ve missed it. Plus, it’s only right to come back with this month’s installment of:

Screenshot 2017-10-15 at 11.56.11 PM

I started this series in July 2017; exactly a year ago. It started off being a post about how I described myself as being a “voiceless person”, meaning, I don’t speak out or speak up enough. At the time of the first installment, I never thought twice about continuing this series and to make it into something like this. Yeah, TNTH is just my blog, but the “Voiceless Rant” series is about me and about me being a writer.

Sometimes I forget that I’m a writer and I write to help others.

This series has evolved into a monthly post where I come in talking about something that I’m currently going through and write about it in hopes of reaching out to someone who is too. Maybe there is a reader who doesn’t know where to turn to discuss their mental health. Maybe there is a reader who’s been traumatized by their family to the point of no return. Maybe there is a reader with insecurities, doubts, and judgment holding onto them by a leash. There are so many different people out in the world that you don’t know (and I don’t know) that is looking at you and seeing inspiration and motivation. You never know who is watching your content, reading your content, or viewing your content while holding back tears of sadness, waiting to end their life.

This post sounds like it’s not going anywhere, but hear me out. I was suicidal around the time I got into the TV show, The Killing. As dark and moody that show was, I will forever say that The Killing and its online community saved my life. I was suicidal all throughout my last year of high-school. Kelly Clarkson’s My December was all that I listened to because I related to every single song on that album. It is still considered one of my favorite albums of all time, and it will always hold a special place in my heart because that album saved my life. My point being is that creators and artists don’t know these things about their fans. Veena Sud does not know her television show saved my life one night when I was up at 5 in the morning wanting to not exist anymore. Kelly Clarkson does not know that an album that almost got completely scrapped because of it not being the “image” her record label wanted her to have saved my life when I was at my loneliest in life. Creators don’t know these things, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t have the potential power and influence to save someone’s life. I see it all the time in the comments of my favorite YouTubers; that their content makes them smile and happy in the gist of sadness and depression.

Let’s be real here: I’m no famous influencer with 100,000 followers, let alone 100. I am only one person. I have an immensely small community here on TNTH that is just as enough for me because, again, I don’t know who is reading certain posts in their time of need. Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not, and the majority of these posts are types of posts I wish I was reading in my time of need years ago. Shoot, I’m writing them now because I need them just as much as the next person. My point being is that I always knew that I was supposed to write to help others find their voices. I started to write to begin to speak in a language where people would listen to me. I write to express myself, heal myself, and speak up for myself with hopes of showing other people that they can do the same thing too.

If you’re a creator of any sorts who feel like they could just stop doing what they love doing, your mind and heart were never into it. Creating content, no matter how big or small takes time, dedication, passion, and devotion. Creating was never about making it big and gaining such a huge following (because the same people who wanted that for themselves are the same people who yearn for their lives back). Make your content because you want to make it. Make your content because you’re passionate about it. Make your content because you feel like you have more to show and tell. Make your content because you want to provide something for viewers in their time of need. Keep doing it.

And this is something that I truly need to start telling myself too. I leave TNTH unattended for weeks, even months on end because of my own personal reasons. I leave because I have to personally work on something. I have to personally get better. There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks here and there, but it doesn’t mean you just give up when things get too hard. There’s no reset button on passion. You either have it, or you don’t.

Your move.

-Liz. (: