PATREON EXCLUSIVE: Mental Wellness in the Apocalypse
Added 2025-09-19 18:27:44 +0000 UTCMental health check-in! What do y'all think? Should I put this into a structured outline and make it into a proper People Pleaser episode? Or are these inside thoughts?
Comments
White visibly disabled queer woman here, and I have the same issue of not being able to turn off the rest of the world. I get told alot to try and concentrate on my own peace. My head says, if those in gaza can't switch off what's happening to them, then I don't either. Xx
Amanda Mango Cape
2025-09-27 22:52:19 +0000 UTCCc'd ex were in xxx ex's esse ok
(at)Surdo
2025-09-21 20:32:47 +0000 UTCThank you for sharing this. Sincerely. You articulate so much so well. Keep doing it and I hope by doing so you get an opportunity to realize your dream of being a filmmaker and artist.
GingerElixer
2025-09-21 15:46:15 +0000 UTCI also have a justice complex. I’ve been like this since I can remember. I’m like the black sheep of my family. It’s good to know there are others like this!
Vicki McGuire
2025-09-21 14:48:48 +0000 UTCI do find being woke is a hard struggle with my mental health. I am white and queer and fem presenting and Canadian. But the things happening terrify me.
Samwise
2025-09-21 12:03:19 +0000 UTCThis is the first Patreon video I've seen, and I love it. But in my head I keep hearing your ditty for YouTube but different 🎶🎵Patreon exclusive content🎶🎵 Stay healthy and safe. Consensual Hugs.
Samwise
2025-09-21 11:56:18 +0000 UTCThe justice ⚖️ complex thing.... I wholly relate
Rhyme Penttila
2025-09-21 04:32:28 +0000 UTCAs an immigrant who is very much aware of everything that is going on, I thank you for speaking up and not simply enjoying your privilege. You ARE art by existing and resisting. Thank you!
Silvana Procopio
2025-09-21 03:29:21 +0000 UTC100000000% you have no idea how stressed and anxious I've been as a trans man Austin 😅 I knew it would be bad but good god living it is so much worse. I'm glad there are folks like you who put themselves beside us or even try to stand in front of us as we're barreling to this brick wall. I don't know if we'll avoid hitting it but at least we'll know we stood for ourselves until the end of it. Also I was gonna say there's so many artists who are political commentators and wield their art for social awareness. Maybe you don't consider it to be the same, but imo all the videos you create are art.
Johnme
2025-09-21 01:30:50 +0000 UTCYeah, but are you ... .... ....... ...................... ok? Really?? (Sorry, just joshin. Keep at it. You know you've got this, so you don't need me to tell you. Did I anyway, just then? Sure. Can you do anything about it? Nope!)
Steve Schaeffer
2025-09-20 20:07:35 +0000 UTCThis resonated with me sooooooo much. When Trump won in 2024, for the first time since the Obama administration, I had been so disheartened and defeated by the prospect of Trump 2.0 (being someone who is generally really well informed on the implications of this term...) that I made a conscious effort to completely check out. Rather than fight, and keep up engagement, I decided to bury my head in the sand, and I experienced a major depression. I refused to listen to my political podcasts, or the reactions of the commentators I watched every day of my life etc.....I never even listened to NPR in the weeks after (I have been a listener and even a donor for decades, mostly when I drive) but thankfully, I pulled out of it and have even felt inspired by some of the ways we have been able to come together and push back against this authoritarian, fascist regime....I do realize that as a white American, it was a privilege afforded to me that I was able to carry on about my somewhat normal life, somewhat unaffected during that period. I didn't have to look over my shoulder for ICE raids, or fear for my family...I'm happy to be back participating in the discourse, and glad people like you exist to help me stay informed and optimistic
Scott Phillips
2025-09-20 18:02:55 +0000 UTCThank you for saying this!!! This is something that has been driving me CRAZY, when people say I should "unplug" or that they just "don't pay attention to the news anymore" for their own mental health, in response to my saying how I'm feeling about the current moment. You articulated what I couldn't quite put my finger on. Thank you so much, I know it doesn't solve the problem, but it was very helpful nonetheless ❤️
Nicole
2025-09-20 17:56:39 +0000 UTCIt warms my heart that you, as a Canadian, care enough that you subbed to an American political commentator 🥰 I follow so many Canadian content creators that are showing solidarity with us during this time, and it's honestly one of the few things protecting what's left of my faith in humanity right now, so thank you from the bottom of our hearts here in the US 🙏🙏🙏
Scott Phillips
2025-09-20 17:38:17 +0000 UTCCanadian here, it has been such a rough 9 months even from this side of the border. We came close to going down the same road you all are and while we dodged that bullet, we only dodged it for now. I am glad you set this up as I appreciate the work you put in and I am moving towards choosing what content I watch as opposed to being fed it. It is not helping my mental health any and I often feel hopeless. My hobby is music, I lead a weekly jam session on Saturdays and we all call it out therapy. 2.5 hours where the world doesn't matter. I hope you find some peace in your art as well.
Christine Nicholson
2025-09-20 12:08:51 +0000 UTCI'm so glad I found you on Tik Tok. I don't get to speak about politics much because I can tell the people around me get sick of it. I internalise and then I come across creators like you who are articulating all my inner thoughts and feelings and it gives me the feeling of having a debrief session. Creators like you make me feel less crazy for being "blessed" with a heavy justice complex. The daily guilt I feel that no one knows about, for being born into a Catholic, white, 1990s style "upper middle class" family from The Valley. It was luck and it's not fair that we can't find a way for everyone to have a decent life. I one day just came to terms that life is always sad. I'll have happy moments but there is no way I can ever fully feel pure happy when I know about the horrors of the world. I too get annoyed being asked if I'm okay. My response back is always " Is anyone?". Thank you for this.
Trish Delaney
2025-09-20 08:43:59 +0000 UTCLmao we pay to see you and be part of this, we like you and we want to make sure that you're able to keep on doing what you do to keep us sane. So please make sure you're sane for us ahahha
Brennen
2025-09-20 05:59:05 +0000 UTCA smart person once said: straight men belong in a zoo. Stay true to yourself my friend and remember that you will always have support from an allies like myself. And for that 'friend'. F him right in the ear. You're better without that ahole. As you said, the bare minimum are pronouns and names. If they can't do that, how can you expect something greather from them. Sorry for this long reply 🙈 I just wanted to send my support to you ♥️🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 Stay strong and true to yourself!!!
Sejl
2025-09-20 04:36:46 +0000 UTCYour content always resonates with me and your reasoning is always spot on. Appreciate you
Miss Informed
2025-09-20 04:03:08 +0000 UTCI am a very light skinned Native. Because of genocide reasons, most of my extended family is affluent Mormons and Catholics. I have the same sense of justice and visible emotions, so I spent a lot of my childhood being told that I'm over reacting and that I shouldn't be so upset over everything. Which was done with love, but I didn't grow up in their homes. I grew up with a brown single mother. I knew that things really were incredibly bad. But I let them gaslight me into thinking that my mom was just uniquely bad with money or lazy or stupid. That sense of justice tore me to ribbons for most of my childhood because I was constantly being told by most of the people I loved that it was misplaced and naive. I was told thay my mom was just a crazy conspiracy theorist and that I needed to calm down. Decades later and it turns out my mom was right about everything. My point in the back story is so you understand how much I really do understand where you come from. I went to the same church and I heard all the same things. So, when I say that you are one of the most comforting voices in the world to me right now, I'm not looking at you through the rose colored glasses of being white and patting you on the back for being human. I am thanking you for dragging yourself through all of this filth when it would have been so very easy to take the path of elast resistance. And you've been so open about just how often you've been offered a guiding nudge back, but instead you grit your teeth, take the beatings and the frustration and the suppression online and you keep fighting for people like me. I am being entirely sincere when I say that seeing you, someone who looks so much like the people who convinced me I was trash and my mom was a failure and that I was just inferior, standing for people like me instead? Against every drop of programming that it took me decades to get out from under when I had no choice? And you're doing it, not because you were actually a minority who had been lied to like me, but because of an innate sense of justice and a choice to be informed? Every single video you make validates my entire life, every bit of rage and fear and confusion I experienced in the world I was raised in. The videos reinforce the knowledge that I deserved better and that those people could have chosen to give me better but they didn't. Your voice gives me a kind of hope I gave up on when I was a very young child. Hope that people can and DO choose to become better, even when they don't have an outside force driving them. You make me expect more from the world and the people in it. It's been a very long time since anyone has carved space in the world for me to do that. So, I see you. Where you come from. How afraid you are to be seen as overstepping your place and playing white savior. And I see you keep going forward anyway, despite knowing just how many people have every right to doubt the sincerity of a white man and how white supremacy keeps trying to beat you back into your place. It would be easy to soften your words and become palatable, but instead I see you dust yourself off over and over to keep fighting with as much distaste for their respectability as I have. Thank you. Sorry, that was probably a lot, but this was so relatable in some places and I needed to say SOMETHING when I know just how much hate you generally get.
Phina O'Neil
2025-09-20 03:35:08 +0000 UTCYou are so relatable. I too have such a strong sense of right and wrong, and can’t let things go.
Sarah Ackerman-Hale
2025-09-20 01:02:33 +0000 UTCYes omg I was a similar way growing up where I’d hold onto things longer because the unfairness didn’t feel acknowledged or absolved. I also get the “why do you care so much it isn’t happening to you” and my answer is that it’s unfair and shouldn’t be happening to anyone how does no one seem to care about that.
kirsten cox
2025-09-20 00:22:15 +0000 UTCDude I gotta tell you… this whole video hits so hard. On many levels—the addiction/alcoholism/recovery (nice, me too), the social-justice-autism, the unfairness of being in this timeline *especially* as a recovering addict, etc. Unbelievably well-orated, btw—impressive with no outline. Really just wanna say thank you, I feel seen & see you back. Also, it has helped me to remember that joy is an act of resistance.
Praisely McNamara
2025-09-19 23:17:11 +0000 UTCi mean we talk about how we are in full authoritarian state and late stage capitalism and the men with nuclear weapons are all fucking insane so i think it's pretty fair we have existential dread. i have whittled down my content to a few to stay tuned without being consumed. even though the patterns of history remain extremely predictable i feel like this turning is unique because of our constant access to information, albeit becoming completely corrupt. unfortunately i think it will all burn because it inevitably has to, and then rebuilt. my hope for this future is all i have. it fucking sucks watching this happen tho "do you think you could speed things up?"- inigo montoya
wulfferine
2025-09-19 22:24:42 +0000 UTCI can relate to this video hardcore, Backstory time I came out as Trans about a month ago and even though I had a strong moral compass before, having it now is just making things a bit more sour in terms of how I view other people sometimes. Like a friend of mine threw out 10 years of our friendship because they couldn't do the bare min and call me preferred name and pronouns. The part I relate to hard is being hyper aware of my own and others privilege because a lot of people from my friend group that has a friendship with me and the person who is transphobic just said " I'm sorry I tried to talk to him about it but that is how he is" and then just go on being friends with a bigot that is actively denying one of their friends the right to be their true selves. It pisses me off so much, it feels like everyone is so scared of change and so loyalty driven that they'd still be friends with Nick Fuentes today because "I've known him since middle school" it is some straight malarkey
PolkaDotty
2025-09-19 21:50:25 +0000 UTCI'm a noticer, too! 🫂
Stacy Walker
2025-09-19 21:47:31 +0000 UTCHispanic viewer checking in. You say the shit we can’t 🙏🏽. I also don’t want white people to feel guilty but I do want them to feel angry that they’ve been fooled to believe in racism that serves NO ONE. It only serves the top of the top, and it’s like…doesn’t it piss you off? Don’t you care that forced assimilation to whiteness in the US has erased all culture and identity? Stop hating POCs and marginalized people. So I enjoy watching your rants and when you talk shit to these people 🤣.
Madison Diaz
2025-09-19 20:39:05 +0000 UTCTalk about hitting me in the feels with the self punishment. Mine is more catastrophizing things ie a bad day of work will make me feel like I'm definately getting fired tomorrow but the tools I learned help pull me out of that nose dive. Thanks for sharing!
Terry Mickail
2025-09-19 20:03:47 +0000 UTCI enjoyed Superman too. I have a three year old son and I have introduced him to the Christopher Reeve Superman and the Epic theme song that they remixed into this new one. He tells Alexa to play the theme all the time. I thank you for being chronically online so I don’t have to. Your video distillations of sour eroding democracy help me stay informed.
Adam Montana
2025-09-19 19:42:53 +0000 UTCI know for myself if anyone were to check in and ask if I were OK I would question why same thing.. which is why I don’t do that to other people. I’ll still reach out and check on them without asking directly.
Kat
2025-09-19 19:39:57 +0000 UTCIt’s good to see you laughing in a video! Thanks for sharing more about your personal experiences.
Jaime L
2025-09-19 19:36:26 +0000 UTCTo the core question, I think keeping sanity in the day-to-day of this hellscape is a really important topic right now that people need to hear. I’d definitely think about making a People Pleaser episode on this. On a more personal note, I appreciate what you do. Speaking as a chronic and compulsive story teller who’s a little too self righteous for my own good, I see you. And through your music, your art, your commentary, I feel seen by you. I hope you don’t hang it up for a long time, because what you do (the lot of it, not just the politics) matters.
DiamondClovr
2025-09-19 19:30:56 +0000 UTCSame. Felt the same. Actually made the choice to not have children when I was about 13 years old because I hated the way I felt the world going. Back in 1981. I’m so glad I made the right decision.
Carilyn Done
2025-09-19 19:27:27 +0000 UTCHey there, long time fan, new Patreon subscriber, and a therapist. One thing I’ve been saying for the last year is that the playbook has changed, and we simply cannot expect the same self actualization/healing/success/whatever that we did pre *gestures wildly* all this. It’s okay if the best you have is to survive and bear witness. It’s okay if your “best” has declined over time, including the last year. It’s even okay if this creates big scary feelings and thoughts and you wonder how to survive it all. That all makes sense in response to something that is nonsensical, and you are absolutely not alone if this feels true. We are all surviving a collective trauma, even if we’re not saying that. The moral injury is ever present. Keep doing you, however that looks like. Sending vibes of gentleness, solidarity, and presence 💙
Ashley
2025-09-19 19:22:46 +0000 UTCAustin, thank you so much for this video. It was good to hear where you're at and yes, I feel the same. My mental health could be better but given the circumstances, it's understandable. I might be in a little bit of shock though, and maybe that's why I'm feeling ok, or maybe it's denial. I do know we're fkd, but I feel it from like, a distance. I think you were one of the first people I found on tt, with the silly skits and songs and I've loved the transformation as well. You say what needs to be said. I appreciate you.
Julie Sergent
2025-09-19 19:16:47 +0000 UTCNooooo, no judgement of your appearance. I respect you and I respect myself. Since my own mental health is fragile, I do just want you to be okay. To not go crazy watching the world right now would likely mean you're one of the bad guys.
Channel Dave
2025-09-19 19:03:59 +0000 UTCI don't think it's possible to really be okay, given these circumstances. All you can do is manage, like you said. And I'm glad you're managing and I'm glad you're doing everything in your power to be that mouth piece. Thank you
Sethicus
2025-09-19 19:03:25 +0000 UTCWhy do I care so much for what is happening all over the world?! Am I that broken?!?!
Sejl
2025-09-19 19:03:24 +0000 UTCMy mental health is horrible. And I don't even live in USA!!!! 🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️
Sejl
2025-09-19 19:02:42 +0000 UTCI’m so thankful for your content. When I feel like the assholes outnumber decent people I can always watch your stuff and know that I’m not alone. Definitely make this a people pleaser.
Matthew Zampiello
2025-09-19 18:58:44 +0000 UTCFor me Austin, I see you. Youre a lot like me with justice, and not being able to just walk away from this. I get it. But we must stand for each other. Protect each other. In a lot of ways thats what you are doing. You've saved me in a lot of ways and I appreciate you. I check in because I know how hard this is. I struggle with not going crazy and I know it's not easy for you. Im here for you too like you've been here for us. Youre a gat damn gem my dude
Anthony Ocean
2025-09-19 18:51:38 +0000 UTCYou are special and unique; just a couple of the reasons why so many of us love and appreciate you and what you’re doing. You speak to so much of what we wish we could say out loud. For real. Thank you Austin!
Mo Lindley
2025-09-19 18:39:42 +0000 UTCI assure you, at least from me, you dont look crazy. Unless you mean crazy awesome. 😆 you kick ass brother! We love you.
Anthony Ocean
2025-09-19 18:38:07 +0000 UTCHonestly i’ve been struggling with being informed and keeping myself sane. I am so passionate, but i have to pace myself, and i hate that humans have limitations in that way. I’m glad you have patreon, i hope you don’t lose your other accounts/ability to outreach. Thanks for speaking out. the situation with charlie kirk’s wife making even more money off “charity take care of my children” is so sickening it makes me super outraged.
Bunny Tattoos
2025-09-19 18:33:52 +0000 UTC
