Reflecting on National Coming Out Day & World Mental Health Day
At Queer LifeSpace, we focus on providing a safe environment for fellow members of the queer community to explore and process the complexity of their lives. Even though Monday was officially known as ”World Mental Health Day,” for all the clinicians and clients at Queer LifeSpace, every single day is Mental Health Day. And for those celebrating today’s “National Coming Out Day,” we honor the intersection that Queer LifeSpace holds between these two important and overlapping life experiences.
According to Psychiatry.org: “LGBTQ individuals are more than twice as likely as heterosexual men and women to have a mental health disorder in their lifetime. They are 2.5 times more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and substance misuse compared with heterosexual individuals.”
Those of us in the queer community know that all too well. Learned from personal experience, observation, or stories shared by others, it’s safe to say that most of us have witnessed the mental side effects of being queer in a culture that often actively tries to suppress us, restrict us, control us, or even harm us.
In some ways, it feels like we have made great strides in the last several decades. Some aspects of the queer community are more integrated than ever before with the mainstream. However, in other ways, it feels like we’re backsliding. The constant onslaught of news about toxic legislation, violence, and discrimination…how could it not have an impact on anyone who is paying attention?
In honor of “World Mental Health Day” and “National Coming Out Day,” we urge you to honestly reflect upon your life. How are you really doing? How are you weathering the storms of an era with so much uncertainty? How are your friends and your community? How is your body, your physical health? There is self-care, and then there is Self-Care: doing the work to help you understand and cope with complex life experiences.
Take care of yourself—however you can, and as much as you can. Not just today. But every day. Push back against the societal waves that want to box us back into a binary, homogenizing, and confining involuntary existence. And always remember, Queer LifeSpace is here to help.
Sincerely,
Chris Holleran
Co-Founder & Clinical Director
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