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When David was in high school, he watched a YouTube video about another teenager who was disowned and made homeless after he came out to his parents. This injected a lot of fear into David’s life, which he carried with him into college, where the pressures of academia and the loneliness of the closet ultimately led to a suicide attempt. Fortunately, he was unsuccessful and this near-fatal experience led David to having an epiphany: he didn’t want to die. Instead he wanted to live on his own terms and laugh for himself.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:02
I’m David.
00:07
I’m from Toronto, Ontario in Canada.
00:11
Back when I was in high school, I was watching this YouTube video of this YouTuber.
00:17
He was gay at the time.
00:18
When I saw his video, he talked about when he came out to his parents.
00:22
It didn’t really go well at all.
00:24
He was effectively disowned by his parents and he became homeless.
00:28
It really left an impression of… on me, like, the fear of like, what would happen
00:34
if I came out to my parents.
00:36
And so fast forward to my… to when I went to university.
00:40
So I went to a pretty good university.
00:43
And then so I went into to the school’s pre-medical program.
00:47
While I was in the program, it just felt incredibly lonely because, you know, everybody’s competing
00:54
against everybody else for, like, these very few spots to gain to medical school.
00:59
It made me feel like I didn’t really have anyone to turn to or talk to.
01:04
And then, because I was all very closeted, I didn’t really have my parents to talk to.
01:09
One night, I just felt…
01:11
I was so, in a way, fed up with just what’s going on in my life.
01:18
I was just mentally exhausted from, you know, from having to deal with school, deal with
01:25
my sexual identity that I just lost the boat lift.
01:30
It was around like nine o’clock at night and no one was in… no one was in the apartment
01:36
that I was sharing with my roommate.
01:37
I went to the convenience store that’s near my… that’s near my apartment.
01:43
And I walked up to the counter and asked… and asked the clerk there whether or not,
01:48
like, whether or not they knew where the Tylenol was.
01:51
He asked me, like, “Are you okay?”
01:55
And then I, and I lied to him and I said, “I’m fine.”
01:58
And he’s like, “Are you sure you’re not gonna do anything terrible with this?”
02:05
And I was like, “No, I’m sure.
02:06
I just have a cold.
02:07
Can you point me to where the Tylenol is?”
02:11
And he showed me where the Tylenol was.
02:12
I bought the pills and then I walked…
02:15
I walked back to my apartment.
02:17
I took the pills.
02:19
I blended up with…
02:20
I blended up with vodka and I drank it.
02:25
After I drank the solution, I decided to lie on a couch thinking that, you know, This is
02:31
it.
02:32
I’m like…
02:33
I’m about to die.
02:34
I think after maybe like an hour, an hour and a half, it, like, my stomach suddenly
02:40
to… my stomach just suddenly felt, like, incredible pain in my stomach where I was
02:46
just…
02:47
I couldn’t bear anymore.
02:48
I think the pain finally got the best of me and I essentially crawled my way to the bathroom.
02:54
After I puked.
02:55
I was like, Okay, like, I don’t know if this is okay, but I’m gonna call…
03:00
I’m gonna call someone.
03:01
And I called the ambulance.
03:03
What really stuck out from that moment was that, for me, was that, like, it was that
03:10
very intense desire to be like, I want to live.
03:14
After the ambulance brought me into the hospital, I ended up staying there for about three days.
03:20
After that, I got home and I was just…
03:25
I’ve officially hit rock bottom in the sense that was kind of playing back, you know, I
03:32
tried to kill it all myself.
03:35
My stay in the hospital, it didn’t really do well for my… didn’t really do well for
03:39
my grades.
03:40
I did, at that point, decide that school wasn’t appropriate for me.
03:43
So I decided to talk to my school and told them that I’ll be going on break.
03:48
And then while I was on this break, I was just kind of looking around, trying to look
03:55
for some answers to like how… how to get better, essentially.
03:59
But then I came upon this article that was… that was talking about, like, you know, how
04:04
to deal with depression.
04:05
And one of the recommendations was to try to smile for yourself, like, you know, look
04:09
at yourself in the mirror and smile, even if you don’t feel like it.
04:13
So after reading this article, after a few days, I was…
04:19
I was brushing my teeth in the morning and I was thinking about this article.
04:23
And I was like, This is… this is so dumb, like, what is this supposed to… like, I
04:28
don’t see how this could possibly work for me.
04:30
I tried to smile.
04:31
And it was… it was so awkward and I couldn’t help, like, it was… it was so awkward that
04:38
I ended up laughing because it was just so awkward.
04:40
Did that like for quite a while and, and things slowly started to get better.
04:48
So after a few weeks of doing this ridiculous thing of smiling to myself in the mirror every
04:54
morning after I brush my teeth, I suddenly came to the realization that, like for the
05:02
most part of my life, I’ve been really trying to live my life for someone else.
05:07
And soon after I realized that I just…
05:10
I realized that I needed…
05:12
I need a fresh start.
05:13
I decided to transfer from my school that was doing my pre-med… pre-med program in
05:18
to… to another school that was in a bigger city.
05:22
And at that point I also realized that I had a really…
05:26
I was really fascinated with math.
05:29
I got really deep into the subject and I started pursuing…
05:33
I started pursuing a career in actuarial science.
05:36
So soon after I graduated from university I got a job from with my current company.
05:42
During all this time, what really stuck out in my head was… was that video of the of
05:48
the YouTuber that came out and had a terrible time with his parents.
05:52
I remember I was at this dentist appointment and I was ready to kind of go home.
05:56
I was on the phone with my mom chatting and one thing led to another.
06:01
We were kind of bickering and I pretty much said to my mom, like, “You don’t understand
06:08
because I’m gay.”
06:11
And there was there was… there was a… there was definitely like a little bit of
06:16
silence and she realized how big of a deal this was.
06:21
And so she told me that, like, you know “I think we… we need to sit down and talk about
06:26
this.”
06:27
My parents sat me down and were talking about, like, my coming out.
06:30
My dad pretty much just broke down and said, like, he said, “I wish you should have told
06:39
us sooner.”
06:40
With my mom, it took her awhile to kind of get around to it.
06:45
I was just in a little bit of a shock that my parents disowned me because of my coming
06:51
out.
06:52
You know, the relationship I have with my family has definitely improved.
06:55
The best part was I think after a year after my mom got comfortable with everything, I
07:00
brought home my boyfriend.
07:01
After my boyfriend left, my mom had the best line and she said, “You’re just like your
07:07
dad.
07:08
You, like, your boyfriend is so good looking.
07:11
Like you just, all you care about is looks.”
07:13
And at that point I was like, it really just… it cracked me up because it really just made
07:19
me feel like, you know, my – at least on my mom’s end, she really… she really got
07:24
around to this.
07:25
People do get to sown for for being gay, for being trans, for being part of the LGBTQ+
07:31
community.
07:32
You have to live for yourself.
07:35
I struggled with it, I think, for my entire life, pretty much.
07:40
You shouldn’t think that because you’re living for yourself, it’s a… it’s a selfish act.
07:45
It’s not, It’s definitely better when you’re… when you’re living your true identity, I
08:06
guess.
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
***
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The post After Near-Fatal Bout With Depression, Gay Man Learns to “Smile for Yourself” and Live Authentically. [Video] appeared first on The Good Men Project.