Heyy everyone!
Happy Pride Month to all my lovelies 🏳🌈
As you all might be aware, the month of June is celebrated as International Pride Month all over the world! It is celebrated with great grandeur both online as well as in real life.
However, there are a lot of struggles that people of this community go through on a daily basis mentally, which isn't spoken about as much as it should.
Today's post is a slightly different one. I had a fun interaction with a friend of mine from the community speak about the mental struggles which really opened my eyes! I wanted to share a couple of them with you guys to spread awareness on this extremely unaware topic.
Right from coming out of the closet to dealing with people talking about you behind your back, all this adds up to a lot of mental burden which often has dire consequences. Over the years, the LGBTQ+ community has confronted extreme prejudice, discrimination and violence due to their sexual orientation. Prejudice and discrimination have both social and personal impacts. We as the next generation need to learn about all this and help eliminate the taboo about talking about it and start accepting each other.
Disclaimer: Not everyone may have faced this, these are just a few my friend and a couple people from the community have suffered to which I just want to get attention to.
This is one of the most common problems how many may have faced once they realised who they are. Coming out to family, friends and the world has been a traumatic experience to a lot of people as they cannot judge how the world will react. While lot of people of this generation have learned to accept each other, people of the older generation still have primeval beliefs. The anxious feeling and worrying of how one might come out affects the daily life of many people-not to forget if they might accidently mention it and the other doesn't react as they would have estimated.
It is one of the biggest challenges faced by the community which we as individuals must help supress.
Through poor experiences as youngsters and teens, people of the LGBTQ+ community learn how to anticipate and expect rejection and judgement from their households, friends and communities. They come to understand that they may be different from what's considered "normal". A lot of human beings face rejection and violence from within their circle. Living with such various situations, it challenges their emotional well-being and foster anxiety over rejections and abandonment.
Isolation because of unsupportive families or friends could be very common and compounds to plenty of mental struggles.
Once a person comes to know of the fact that they are part of the LGBTQ+ community, what one experiences is a huge bomb of confusion. "What am I? Am I gay? Am I bisexual? Am I pansexual?", was a thought that struck them the day they realised this. This thought can often muddle one's mind and may meddle through daily life activities. This often leads to mental health illnesses. One can identify as one orientation when they come out and later realize that they are something else-it's fine. We have to normalize that. Stop pressurising people into labelling themselves.
A lot of may be guilty of doing this at least once in our lives-I'm not saying in a negative way, but we have all spoken at least once about someone when they came out. 1 out of every 3 people have badmouthed a person who was strong enough to come out, own it and be proud of it. Whether it was jealousy of them being the centre of attention or the feeling of not being courageous enough to do it yourself-the reasons go on. Either ways, it is extremely down in the dumps to ridicule someone this way.
Another cause is being made fun of. They are teased and bullied for being who they are; it is very common. This along with the added tension of what might be going on at home or in their friend groups and academics is one deadly combination and can lead to various mental challenges.
To add to that, they are often mocked for not keeping up with the "stereotypes" of their sexuality.
For example: "Lesbians always have to have a masculine haircut and are tomboys"
NO! IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY.
Every individual is a different person and DOES NOT need to keep up with stereotypes to prove that they are of that orientation.
In conclusion, try being an ally and help one be proud of themselves and not have them think over ramifications over what could have or would happen. Support them when they feel neglected, be a good human.
No one should be pressurized into coming out-take your own time. Be proud of who you are because,
LOVE IS LOVE.
Okay! That was it for today! Hope y'all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed having my friend on this post. Do let me know in the comments about some taboos or struggles you may have come across in the comments below! Don't forget to share and subscribe for more content, every Friday :)
Signing off,
So I used to be bullied at school cause my height was short and I had a boy cut and even if I complaint my teacher she would say that she will do something but after some time she she didn't take any action! I was scared to tell my parents and I didn't know what to do so I told my brother and I felt really safe and comfortable telling him what happened with me and he took the action to meet my class teacher and handled things out
ReplyDeleteThat's so great! Glad to know it worked out :)
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