‘I was made to feel like an alien’: Why LGBTQ+ people of colour need to talk about mental health
racism and marginalisation – you can see why people on the intersection of race and sexuality need tailored and specific support.Recent research suggests that young queer people are twice as likely to experience mental health issues, and experiencing this alongside culturally specific pressures from family or communities, the threat of estrangement, or even pressures to conform to certain racial stereotypes, can have an enormous impact.As part of Pride Month, Metro.co.uk has spoken to LGBTQ+ people of colour to hear their experiences of mental illness, and get their perspective on the kind of support they think is needed to make these struggles less pervasive: ‘I have struggled with my mental health for as long as I can remember.
Anxiety has haunted me since my early memories and I remember vividly as a child asking my mum what it meant and how it felt to be depressed. ‘It just never got better.
A lack of representation in media and generally in life is something that has affected my mental heath too, it’s hard to feel “normal” when there’s no one to show you that you are.‘Aged 30, I finally decided to get a counsellor to chat through my low mood and anxiety as I had had enough of it taking over my life – but it didn’t last very long and I lost faith in the only organisation that offered therapy at a price point that I could afford. ‘I had a non-binary counsellor and was excited that they would understand some of the challenges I face in life – until they started asking pressing questions about my ethnicity, and how I felt about them as a white person in a position of trust.
