Care Star David (A Survivor, a Proud LGBT Ally)

The Care FAM is beyond proud to have David, I have personally known him for years and his journey has been so powerful. We were in the same school and I left early, but I always knew he was brilliant as a student and now even as a human being. I always knew he would do great things and I am so glad to see this positive outcome. For all those who suffer from bullying, for who they are our hearts reach out to you, if he could do it so can you.

Who are you? Given where you are today, what was the most challenging experience you have had so far and how have you changed the situation around? (If you have struggled with mental health, please do share, so that someone like you could be inspired).

My name is David (you can find me on IG @myhappygayworld :) ) and I consider myself a kind, caring, energetic, positive, energetic and intelligent human being. I am quite proud of who I have become and I am aware of my strengths and weaknesses very well. In terms of my life, my childhood has not been particularly happy. Being a part of a conservative society and raised in a strict manner wasn't helpful at the least. My childhood has been full of bullying and physical and emotional torments that have haunted me for a very long time. I have suffered from depression, anxiety and suicidal behaviour and the only thing that kept me going were my hopes and dreams that everything is going to be better someday and I am glad that I believed in those hopes because life is now a million times better than before. I must say that the most challenging experience for me (and it wasn't one time but existed over a span of years) is that I always had to fill someone else's shoes and if I didn't do that, I would have been turned inside out due to my failures and I would never ever forget that. I am sure the readers would agree with the emotional turmoil that you go through because of this. However, all these experiences have brought forward a sense of maturity and hopefulness within my personality that I am very grateful for and the only way I could turn the darkness around was just by hope, a strong hope that I am going to lead a happy life that I want someday.

Your mental health journey and how much has it impacted you in your life choices and decisions?

As said previously, I have suffered from various mental health problems and you would be surprised to hear that all my past has contributed to my choices and decisions very positively, when life brings you down, you have two choices, you either give in and be the one life wants you to be or you fight and get up and emerge stronger and prouder and I decided to do the second one. Every single decision of my life I have made based on my difficult past geared towards a brighter and happier future and isn't that what all of you crave for? I am grateful for my experiences because what they gave me were clarity and maturity and I felt extremely proud when I possessed those. At the end of the day, I have one saying that I have always believed in "YOU are the only person responsible for your own happiness" :)

Your tips and guidance for anyone reading this

Once again I will reiterate my previous statement - "YOU are the only person responsible for your own happiness". Life is not smooth for a lot of people and it will never be since the future is uncertain, but what matters is how you react to a certain situation. I always believed that a human being is fully responsible for his/her own actions and must own the consequences as well. Hence, at the end of the day, however complicated life seems, just ask yourself "Am I happy?" Deep down, you know and we all know when we are not happy. And also remember that nothing is perfect, so we are always allowed to be negative, to be sad, to make mistakes because that's how we learn (from the past), at the end of the day we are all capable of doing something in life and we just aim for it, doesn't matter if you achieve your goals or not, but it does matter what journey you take. "You either win or you learn, you never lose", Right?

Your views matter, what do you feel could be added to make the participants of the project(care family) stronger? #becausewecare

Advertising the various positive stories and also maybe giving an option to download this on the laptop and writing and scanning and uploading it perhaps as well might do good.

Would you recommend the project to others?

Yes, I would