I’m sorry for the delay on wishing everybody within the LGBTQ community happy pride month, but like recently stated on my earlier entries, my laptop in currently not working. So posting entries have been extremely tricky to do so. Nevertheless… HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!! This is very special month for me, because I am a bisexual. If you don’t know what that is, that means I am attracted to men and women.

I have been a proud bisexual since the age of 16 (currently half of my life). It’s funny, because around 13 years old I thought I was a lesbian until that point. Definitely confused about my sexuality around 10 yrs old. So only about a third of my life I thought I was straight, but even the first 10 years of my life, I knew something was up, just lack the knowledge of it all. An extremely brief story of my journey of finding my sexuality.

Besides sharing my pride and support for my fellow LGBTQ community, this actual has to do with mental health. You’re probably thinking, “Uuuuhhh… What? Bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” To you I say, NOPE! In the most Michy-est ways I’m about throw some straight up knowledge on mental health within the LGBTQ community. So grab a paper and pen, because you’re about to be educated fool!

Depression affects LGBTQ people in a higher rate than heterosexuals. It’s even worse for the young rainbow babies. Suicide is the third highest thing that are killing our youths. The lesbian, gay, and bisexual kids from the age of 10 to 18 are twice as likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers.

Unfortunately, 55% of LGBTQ youth feel unsafe at school, because of their sexual orientation, and 37% feel unsafe because of their gender expression. The verbal harassment is has gone up 74% and 55% were base off of their gender expression. It gets worse with 16% were physically assaulted, either punched, kicked, or injured with a weapon, because of their sexual orientation, and 11% of them experienced this type of assault because of their gender expression. A hostile school environment not only affects a child’s performance in school, but also, their mental health.

And that’s only in school. Imagine if the child doesn’t have a supportive home place environment to go to? Most likely these kids ends up running away. What’s more troublesome 40% of the young homeless community are LGBTQ. Homeless youths are at a greater risk for discrimination, victimization, and mental health issues than those who aren’t homeless. These kids has a greater risk on mental health issues like:

• behaviors that contribute to violence, such as carrying a weapon or getting in fights
• behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries, such as driving without a seat belt or driving drunk
• tobacco, alcohol, or other drug use
• risky sexual behaviors, such as not using birth control
• depression
• suicide or suicide attempts

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults also have higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders and are at a higher risk for suicidal behavior than heterosexual adults. Depression in lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults is usually rooted in discrimination and victimization from childhood and adolescence.

If you’re lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) and you struggle with anxiety or depression, let’s start by putting things into context. By that I mean let’s think through powerful life experiences that fundamentally impact your sense of well-being. Somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or transgender people deal with anxiety and depression at some point in their lives. That rate is 1.5 to 2.5 times higher than that of their straight or gender-conforming counterparts.

Now, I can go on and on about facts on how lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are in higher risk of mental instability, but we didn’t even touch on the subject of treatment. Approximately 8 percent of LGB individuals and nearly 27 percent of transgender individuals report being denied needed health care outright. Which makes it even harder to gain the opportunity to see a therapist and/or get meds for their mental illness.

This is very discouraging. We need to do better. I don’t only mean people within the LGBTQ community, but all of us. We are more than our sexualities, we are human, and every human beings deserves love, kindness, patience, understanding, and of course… great mental health. If we unit, we can do better for humanity and our society. We just all have to it together by adulting on day at a time.

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