Cause or Effect? Mental Health Among Gay Community

Yesterday whilst I was busy moving back to Northern Ireland I did sit down with the Observer while on the ferry. However, this one from Tracy McVeigh did stand out in light of a conversation me and Mícheál had had the previous evening.

It is looking at the issue of mental health in the LGBT community that will appear in this month's Attitude. The article suggests that rather than homosexuality being a result of mental health as was an officially held stance until the 90s, it is a result of societies failure to provide for homosexuals. One killing quote is:

"Imagine if we expected a young heterosexual girl to get her first lesson about relationships in a singles bar."

For the fact is that young gay men or lesbian women only really get the chance to meets others with their sexuality in that setting or online. Or at least with any certainty that the question is not going to be taken the wrong way. A heterosexual can happily go up to somebody they fancy and tell them so without fear of any repercussion except rejection. An LGBT individual has to take a chance of a random person they fancy. First they come out to that person by asking, that person may take an adverse reaction to the suggestion that they themselves are gay, which might result in violence, name calling etc. instead of just rejection.

There is also a pointing out of the word 'gay' amongst young people to mean that something is bad. The issue arises when someone who has grown up hearing that usage suddenly realises later on that they are the word which those around them have associated with equally bad all this time.

All this insecurity on many different levels leads to the fact that there are so few out role models that people can look up to. If even someone has confident as David Laws feels the need to have kept his sexuality private and Gareth Thomas only recently had the confidence to come out himself, it shows that even the most confident people are going to be open about their sexuality without mix.

However, from personal experience even some of the most confident, outspoken and outgoing gay people I know have some level of mental instability. It's not what made them gay but it is a result of the pressures and expectations that society places on them.

Do click on the link above and read Tracy's article in full it is well worth a read and something that even straight friends of LGBT individuals should read to enable them to maybe understand what their friends are sometimes going through.

Goodbye Mrs Robinson

So long, farewell, you're departures overdue.
She won't be missed by you, and you and you.

Yes Iris Robinson is to quit public life stating depression as the reason.

Now I wouldn't normally make like of anyone's mental health but Iris has hoisted a petard of her own making in her utterances on the subject of mental health. Remember back in 2008 when Iris said:

"I have a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is that he tries to help homosexuals - trying to turn away from what they are engaged in."

I wonder if she is now working with him in his offices?

Of course as Iris points out she is just one in four of the population who "struggle with mental illnesses at one level or another". That is people with a genuine reason for going to see one. Not for the reason that is 2008 she advocated that about one in ten of the population needed to see one. He lovely psychiatrist friend would have had quite a healthy practice if that were the case.

She has said that "the stress and strain of public life comes at a cost and my health has suffered". The thing is that the stress and strain of living a gay life can lead to mental health issues, but majorly these are caused either by not accepting oneself for who you are, which is normally brought on by being surrounded by people around you who consider it to not be right.

As I said earlier I don't cast aspersions at anyone's mental health, regular readers who have read my letter to my sixteen year old self, have probably already put two and two together and I'll be awarding ticks later. So I do wish Iris a full recovery from her depression. I also hope that through this experience she may also learn that some of the things from her public life are utterances that may have led others to a similar state.

Update: In response to one message I have recieved already, depite being educated in Iris's Strangford constituency I will not be putting myself forward as an Alliance candidate to replace her.

Update 2: I see that Iain Dale has linked to this blog post and it is causing some misunderstanding, not from Iain, but from his blog readers. Therefore to verify I'm posting here the comment I have made on Iain's comments.

"I see that [some commenters] have taken my comments in the wrong way.

"As I do say on my own blog I don't take people's mental problems lightly, the reason as hinted at are that I did suffer depression at a young age due to the repression of my sexuality as one who grew up in the Northern Irish culture.

"I do genuinely wish that Iris makes a recovery, but I'm fully aware that recovery from a bout of depression and recovering from depression are two very different things. Indeed just like some people are recovering alcoholics so some people are aware and coping depressives.

"However, as I also know both the stresses of a live involved in politics and also of the stresses of a live being told you are abnormal because of what you feel. I wasn't handing out a scolding but pointing out the juxtoposition of Iris's public statements effect on others and the end of her public life."