Chris Olsen is ready for his close-up. That makes sense, given he's an influencer with more than 14 million TikTok followers. But it's not just his physical close-up he's ready for.
The 28-year-old New York resident just released his memoir, "I Think My Therapist Hates Me" (Simon Element, 305 pp.). The titular therapist does not hate him, but readers are in for a surprise if they've skipped over any of Olsen's candid videos about his addiction or relationship woes. "Therapist" covers his mother's alcoholism and descent into his own; his boarding school situationships; his coming out as gay; his parents' divorce; his rehab during college; and his ascent into social media stardom peppered with heartbreak.
At 19, he didn't consider his intervention,
and subsequent rehab stay, rock bottom. Sure, he was wetting the bed and not remembering conversations, but he hadn't even had a legal drink in the U.S. Looking back, he says, "I'm like 'That was a rock bottom, babe.' Like you did not need to go any lower. It wasn't cute. There wasn't fun being had anymore."
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♬ Jacob and the Stone - Emile Mosseri
Chris Olsen asks 'Am I being real enough?'
Olsen understood he had a genetic predisposition to addiction not only because of his mom, but his dad's side of the family. "Writing it definitely recontextualized the family system of it all," he says, and reliving it was harder than expected.
"You're processing them in a completely new way once you're writing them down while trying to remember every thought you were having at the time, too, while you're also having new thoughts about it," Olsen adds.
He frequently lets us into his life on social media – family, friendships, celebrity sightings and romantic relationships that have blossomed and broken down.
In showing all that, he's endured many cheap shots at his expense, including comments about how "annoying" he is. In 2024, he alleged people were leaking his nudes or finding them online and sending them to him as blackmail (all 50 states and Washington, D.C., have passed legislation against nonconsensual pornography, or revenge porn, as of June).
Olsen says he tries to be as real as he can be, though "there is a bit of performance happening because you want to give people the best version of yourself." He frequently finds himself "getting lost in the loop of, 'Am I being real enough? Am I performing too much? How can I give the people who I've created this relationship with the realest version of me?' And within that thought process, I think the longer I sit in it, the less me it becomes."
Chris Olsen's memoir 'is not just a trauma book'
Why stay online when the mean comments proliferate? "That is the logical question," he recognizes, though "I would rather like have it and and take the punches than let the punches win."
Yes, he could shy away and fall apart. But "that is actually, in a way, this reverberation of my addiction speaking," he says. "That person wants to not feel anything anymore, but I know there's nothing good that comes from that, and that isn't a conclusion to any story.
"The only way forward is through," he continues. "I think I've just known that every tough moment I've been through in my life, as hard as it's been, I have always made it to the other side, and that's true for you too. That's true for anyone who is hearing this or who's reading the book."
Also, he wants you to know that just because it sounds like a depressing, devastating read doesn't mean it is.
"It is not just a trauma book," he says. "It's a full picture. It's a very full picture of the 28 years, or 26, that we're able to cover in that book."
That's the real close-up he's ready for: The full picture of who he was, is and who he's becoming.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: TikToker with 14 million followers details addiction, 'rock bottom'
