Let me be clear: I fully support #LGBTQI young people - and older ones :) and want to end teen suicide in ALL populations. My particular population interest is African Americans, particularly women and the cultural competency in mental health and wellness. Sistah Mental Health and Wellness supports all women... ALL WOMEN! We are seeking to end the mental health disparity among diverse populations and becoming culturally competent.
It is nice for anyone to say to treat people as individuals and for the most part, clinician can and do. I am not a clinician. I am just a strong advocate and sufferer of mental illness who has found my path to improve my mental health and wellness and I just want to share a few of my thoughts to whomever reads this blog.
I am straight. I do not know the pains, trials and tribulations that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Intersex (LGBTQI) people face. I mean NO disrespect and I would love to help as a supporter. But I do know enough about mental illness from my experience as an African American woman to empathize with similar difficulties. And hope that some of what I did to overcome my issues can be adopted and overcame by those who suffer from mental illness in the LGBTQI community.
When I read about Mr. Clementi, I am enraged. I am angry because he did not have to die because he was expressing his love with another man. LOVE = LOVE! It is so hard find love anyway and to restrict someone's happiness in that love is wrong...
Fact is no matter how brief that time of love is, let people--let humanity flourish in it. Let love be! It is NOT ours to judge...It is ours to watch blossom! That is the way of the Spirit of Life on this planet... Let is be!
With that said, as social media explodes and as contact with people globally expand, cyberbullying increases. The way we talk to each other electronically lacks common civility and etiquette. Face to face we will not speak to people like that normally. But, under the veil of an avatar, anything goes. And we as a people think that is humanity! That the behavior is the norm. That it is how we treat one another, that it is compassionate.
Well, it is not!
I grew up under an educator's household. My mother, grandparents and several friends were Teachers, Professors and College Presidents. If anything I learned in the totality of my life is life-long learning, each one, teach one and always community service. I have dedicated most of my adult life to community service and teaching people. But recently, I have learned that SERVICE and common courtesy is gone with the way of people being chivalrous...
I am NOT only talking about men, but women, too! Helping people with hefty loads. Going the extra mile to make sure the entire job is done and complete. As my mother says, "it ain't worth doing if you don't do the whole thing..." Always do your best!
What does this have to do with LGBTQI and mental illness?
LGBTQI have been so ostracized forever that they left the community and created their own communities. Rightfully, so. In the early 1970's the protests in San Fransisco by Mr. Harvey Milk and others improved living conditions for openly gay adults. Over time, there has been evolution in the LGBTQI communities with campus groups, and huge activities expressing one of the most intimate parts of humanity and that is the freedom of sexual expression with whomever one wants.
To be overt about it, some people enjoy wearing wild clothing or lack thereof doing suggestive and aggressive intimate activities that "freak out" the straights. Growing up, I did not see much of that so I was clueless. Recently as an adult, I have gotten a quick course on human sexuality and gender equity. Thank God I am smart because if I was an idiot, my mind would be chewed up by now... I think being smart and being around open minded people helps my compassion for humanity and if anything EVERYONE wants to feel loved and valued.
What I have learned with my strong Christian upbringing and undertones is that for the most part LGBTQI want what everyone else wants: PARITY AND EQUITY!
So what if they want to get married... Good! As my Lesbian friends tell me, they get "toasters"
So what if they want to serve in the military openly... Dammit they already do! And they are doing excellent jobs, so why can they not be open about their sexual preference? Because s/he might kiss someone on the battlefield of the same gender? Come on, that is not their fear when bullets and bombs are flying...
I am sure there are other HUGE issues that I am missing and I do apologize. And my concern is for the young people, mental health and wellness and cultural competency.
Then I read about the Mean Girls of Morehouse College in Vibe Magazine.
Long story short, Morehouse College is an all male Historically Black College and University in Atlanta, Georgia. I graduated from Spelman College, an all women's HBCU that is across the street. My husband graduated from Morehouse College as well as his father. While I was at Spelman College, my mental health condition fulminated and that is when I decided to seek professional mental health care. I was 19 years old.
Most African American young people do not even recognize basic symptoms of mental illness, including suicidal symptoms. Then they do not know who to talk to when they need assistance with the ruminations of their mind. Racing thoughts are very common in people who worried a lot, have anxieties, mania and drug addictions. Without a positive outlet, such as fitness, meditation, cognitive therapy, etc. or combination, the ruminations become ingrained and actually cause erroneous thinking, illogical conclusions, impulsiveness, possibly brain damage all leading to depression.
It is thought in some neuropsychiatric circles that it is once someone arrives to depression, the thoughts of suicide fester. It is combined with rapid cycling of thoughts and the potential to commit or attempt suicide increases.
Most young people have characteristic symptoms of suicide and they express it on social media sites. I know, I have seen it.
For LGBTQI young people, many of whom are already coming from a "racial cultural purview" and oppressive sexual/gender culture, the racing thoughts they are managing as a coping and compensation mechanism are just overcome when that "one more stressor" is added - "The straw that broke the camel's back"... And the self-esteem is so pliable, built on a house of cards collapses.
When Mr. Clementi died, his "coming out" process was incomplete/had not really started and he was beginning to find his sexual freedom of expression. His "straw" was an invasion of privacy by a roommate, then it was posted on a social media site for the world to see. His self-esteem must have been so suppress due to cultural reasons that his whole "house of cards" of his mind outright collapsed and the only erroneous conclusion he could come to was suicide...
I know...that was me, but as a straight Black woman...
I do not think it is necessarily about the sex or having it. I think for me it was pre-existing conditions rife with promiscuity in erroneously believing I could find love externally...
Culturally, in the late 1980's Black women were beginning to be objectified as nothing more than "turds". Useless, shiftless--a growing misogyny against that "Angry Black Woman". I had young men tell me I was beautiful, then when I "gave" them what they wanted, I got dumped. I believed in these men, that love conquered all...like the literary "Mary Sue" trope. That was before I learned a new way to Love and it was NOT from my Christian upbringing - it was from a cultural purview I never thought I would find and that is the Tantra...
My beliefs is sex and sexuality was oppression and suppression...
Tantra's beliefs in sex and sexuality is DIVINITY and EXPANSION! LOVE WHAT IS!
But that was nearly 15 years after I graduated from Spelman College.
About Morehouse College today: most of these young people have NO ONE other than that 90 year old grandmother who LOVES them, if that. Family structure is absence due to POVERTY and INJUSTICE! These kids were born in 1992 - for me that's Rodney King and LA Riots!
This weekend I saw the Atlanta PRIDE parade. And while I saw a range of ages of people, the young people I did see led me to come to the conclusion that these kids were REARED in this culture. So how would they know anything other than what they feel...
Then in SOME people's family, upbringing was abusive. MANY of my gay male friends lament about the physical, and some sexual abuse they have suffered as young people. ABUSE = MENTAL ILLNESS! REPEAT ABUSE = MENTAL ILLNESS!
Lastly, acceptable behaviors - in my house, you back talked, you got hit. Corporal punishment was to keep you in line. You learned not to say it anymore. Is that right? MANY young people these days NEVER have been spanked, much less had any adult discipline them. In most family structures, even LGBTQI one's there is family structure. But young people without that structure are prevalent in the African American community. We are not just talking about single parent homes - we are talking about grandma is the single parent with 4-5 other young people who are either kids or grandkids on a subsistence income... Basically, "Christmas Missed Us..." And that is the best grandma can do...
So when you have poverty and injustice in a dysfunctional family structure with abuse what kind of child will you have attending your college?
A college like Morehouse able to accept and work with all kinds student is not equipped to handle these kinds of young people in these behaviors. It does NOT make it right, but fact is Morehouse needs to come clean on that issue alone. Sure they can do what is clinically acceptable and intention to treat and all the Joint Commission's guidelines. AND these kids, formerly labeled as incorrigible - money has not been given to help Morehouse by the government...
So while we pussyfoot around saying LOVE IS... Reality states that is only in the Caucasian communities...
So while we pussyfoot around saying Marriage Equity... Reality states that if the government had early childhood development for ALL families we would be in a more advanced position. But when our immoral moral police tea bag our freedoms, then we can never advance...
I will be honest: while I can see statistically LGBTQI young people have an increased risk of committing suicide, I think that the social determinants of health are at play here and while Social Health Justice figures in a large role for seeing this increase risk, I also think a solution is bolstering EVERYONE'S community and that is a role for our Federal Government - meaning taxes...
People have not allowed LOVE for one another based on their "Christian" principles with all this deregulation from schools to health care. If we were healthier and more educated - let us hope that these issues become surfeit...
Shout out to The Trevor Project for all the LOVE!
