Being Seen in Full Color: LGBTQIA+ Identity and Mental Health

Though we’ve made a lot of progress in the last several decades, I feel that LGBTQIA+ identity, mental illness, physical disability and body size are pieces of the human experience that culturally we still aren’t always comfortable seeing, naming, or talking about.  For me personally, they also at times have felt like aspects of my identity that I needed to hide or mask, or for which I need to provide an apology.  For me, and perhaps for a lot of other folks, that pressure is a constant, additional barrier to navigate on our way to wellness, community, comfort, and connection.  

I’ve experienced depression requiring treatment twice in my life, the first time in my 20s.  It took people who loved me saying “Hey, you don’t seem like yourself”, in order for me to recognize what was happening and talk to a medical provider about it.  I was prescribed medication which had a quick positive impact; later, after some contributing physical health factors were resolved, I successfully weaned off that medication.  

More recently, when a combination of life events left me feeling underwater with sadness, worry and anxiety, I again needed friends, loved ones and a counselor to gently tell me that I didn’t seem myself.  Again, I was able to utilize prescription medication and find improvement in my mood and energy, but I also remember being tearful in my physician’s office and finding it difficult to talk about what I was experiencing or to acknowledge that I needed help with it.  Both of these experiences required people who could really SEE me, who loved me, nudging me to ask for what I needed.

I came out as a lesbian in my mid-30s. It took a lot of practice in the world to get comfortable in my skin and in being SEEN.  I worked in places where an LGBTQIA+ identity wasn’t so much penalized as just … regarded as something people maybe shouldn’t talk about.  I remember the first few times I told a story or made a comment that named my orientation, and how it felt to see where it would land and how people would react.    

firsthand is a place where I’ve had opportunities to BE seen, and to try to SEE others, in ways that feel life-changing to me.  I have colleagues who are open with their hearts, their stories, their identities, their talents and their questions in ways that make me better.  

James, Guide Team Lead at firsthand Knoxville, Tonya, Senior Director of Community Operations for firsthand TN, and the author

We support individuals who allow us into their homes, their families, their situations, and their worries - and I believe they allow us because, not in spite of, the ways in which they see us as real and flawed humans with our own journeys and barriers and paths to recovery.  

How many ways does it change the world, change our communities and neighborhoods, when we are vulnerable, transparent and authentic, and when we get to be seen as our full selves? How many ways does it heal our spirits and our hearts when we SEE each other and allow ourselves to be known and seen?  This is big stuff.  I’m grateful every day that I get to be in it with this community of co-workers and individuals we support.