 Welcome to All Things LGBTQ Plus Youth Edition. It is Thursday the 24th of May. My name is Julia Gacerda. I use they, them pronouns. I'm Oliver Caldwell. I use they, see, he pronouns. And we would like to press this episode with a trigger warning. Yeah, we're putting a trigger warning on this episode because we're going to be discussing sensitive topics such as suicide and possibly self-harm. Okay. Let's get into that. Yes. Spicy topic. Sorry. Okay, so we're going to start off by talking with the leading causes of suicide in the LGBTQ Plus community. And one of the biggest ones that I'd like to talk about first is not having family support. Yeah, family support is essential in any situation for kids because it's very important for your home to be a safe space where you can express yourself and feel comforted and like you're surrounded by people who care about you and support you. So it's very harmful and stressful for kids to have families that don't support them or aren't there for them or don't realize what's going on. And LGBTQ Plus youth who have experienced family rejection are around eight times more likely to have reported a suicide attempt, which is a horrible truth, but not having family support can do a lot of damage on your mental health. Yeah, so this is a good time to say that if you are a parent watching this to make sure that you're always checking in with your kids and supporting them. And regardless of what you know or what you're educated about or what you understand about your kid, it's still very important to support them in all areas. Yeah, that's one of the sad leading causes of this. And another one of the leading causes that I think would be good to discuss is internalized homophobia, which can also lead into self-hate as well. Yes, internalized homophobia and transphobia are, that's a pretty big and complicated topic to discuss, but essentially internalized homophobia means when you are like maybe unaware of it or maybe partially aware of it, but you're homophobic or transphobic and that can sort of like leak into your definition of yourself, I guess. So if you realize you're LGBTQ and you have some like internalized homophobia from being around people who are homophobic or hearing ideas that are offensive, then you can sort of develop false ideas about yourself that you might not even know you have, but it leads to a lot of self-doubt and self-hate and that kind of thing. I think not even just in LGBTQ, plus community, I think the biggest cause of suicide is self-hate and feelings of worthlessness, which are obviously horrible feelings and no one in this world is worthless. But internalized homophobia is one of the biggest things cause imagine if you hated this huge part of yourself, it couldn't, you almost wouldn't be able to function. Yeah, yeah, it's a very depressing thing that homophobia and transphobia are so present in society that they get into- It can draw people to thinking of life. Yeah, I think, yeah, just self-hatred and self-doubt in general is an issue. I think what we've talked about before is that a lot of the time people think of like mental health issues and depression and suicide and self-harm coming from the outside, from external forces, but that a lot of the time it really just comes down to yourself and how you react to things and it's not your fault if you have like a mental health issue or anything like that, but it's very much from the inside. So you can be in a terrible setting and react to it well or you can be in like what people would consider an ideal household or an ideal setting and you can still be depressed or suicidal. Yeah, it really does not matter what's going on in your life or how people view you. It's really just how you view people. Your family can be the most supportive and people could adore you and love you, but even with that, that doesn't really matter in the scheme of things because as long as you hate yourself and feel those awful feelings, then no matter of pep talks will make you feel better. Yeah, that's important to recognize, but at the same time that means that if you're struggling with all those internal things, it's very important to have positive external forces because like it's not gonna make it worse if you have a supportive family of course and it probably is going to make things worse if you have like a bad surrounding or you're being bullied or your family isn't there for you so it's important to have good surroundings but also to recognize that when it comes down to it, it's internal. Yeah, you do hear a lot about these like stories of kids who were bullied to committing suicide or that also kids that you don't really hear much about who weren't bullied, they didn't say anything going on yet they were still, they were one of the unlucky few who were just touched by that mental illness and I think mental illness could be something that we could really go in depth in the show especially because of how prevalent it is in this community because bullying could most definitely make it more likely and bullying is very common in this community especially being an LGBTQ plus youth. Yeah, yeah I think mental health is something we're gonna be talking about quite a bit in a sort of series of episodes covering different topics within that realm so this is a good one to start out with because this is a very prevalent issue and especially with bullying that we're talking about, LGBTQ plus youths are a lot more likely to not go to school because of safety concerns and because they're being bullied and because they're afraid of something bad might happen to them and that could also eventually in the long-term lead to this kind of self-hatred and suicide. Yeah, another thing that's really unfortunate about that is that if you're not going to school regularly enough you're first of all not getting your education which sucks but also. Which you were paying for without getting it. Yeah, which also you might be socially isolating yourself because if you're forced to stay home or you feel you can't go to school because you're unsafe then you're also not spending time with your friends and not like making those connections and developing good relationships with people at school which is something that's essential. And not going to school also doesn't have to be like a kind of safety thing. I have myself taken days off from school because I couldn't handle being around other people. I was so anxious and uncomfortable I just had to get out of there. And again that's not an external thing. It's internal yet people will ask me like are you being bullied? Do you feel unsafe? And I'll answer no, no, no. But they assume that I must be. Just because I needed to take a day. Yeah, people assume that it's always like a physical safety reason but sometimes it can be more like emotional safety or just like not being able to handle whatever happens at school. And I think we're going to cover in a future episode we're going to go more in depth about like mental health days and why they're important and tips for how to do that. I would also talk about the fact that although suicide is a lot more common in the LGBTQ plus community, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death for all ages in America. It's a very almost common kind of thing. And not just in this community, it's everywhere. The fact that it is everywhere is just kind of almost disgusting, the fact that people feel like it's necessary to take their own life. Yeah, I think that's why it's just essential to have like support systems and recognize that teens and kids and people of all ages can have and do have mental health problems and struggle with things. And I think probably a lot of communities tend to tell kids and just society in general tells kids that they're like too young and we've talked about that kind of thing in past episodes. Yeah, but that goes for mental health too cause a lot of adults think kids are like too young to know what's going on in their heads. People also had to shy away from talking about suicide and mental health like media becoming slightly better with shows but not very good ones. Yeah. I think, and people tend to think it's like a taboo kind of thing to talk about and that's almost kind of the exact opposite cause if you talk about it more people wouldn't feel so isolated when they do have these thoughts. Cause having thoughts like this are kind of, it's almost normal. Yeah, it's definitely normalized. It doesn't make you weird in a sense. It's just people don't get that everyone has these kinds of things cause it's not normalized and it's not shown in media. Right, yeah. But on the flip side of that there's also very problematic shows like 13 Reasons Why for instance. I could go on for hours about that. Yeah. A lovely show. Yeah, the second season I think just came out and a lot of people are watching it and oblivious to the fact that it's really sort of romanticizing suicide. It's really like an adventure plot. Yes, and I think I've talked to my own friends about like I have friends who watch that show and I've talked to them and told them like you can't support this because it's glorifying these terrible things and it also shows a bunch of very problematic stuff on screen which is like not okay at all because kids can get access to the show just through like Netflix and watch it. So, sorry I'm trying to give you some of the problematic things that's shown on screen. It's been, they had people on the show explaining to them like we had professionals and they specifically said, do not show the suicide on screen because it leads to more people, they see it and they want to almost, it's like a copycat effect. It's an actual thing where if you see someone else doing this you kind of get the okay to do it and it happens just as a psychological thing. Like if you see someone crossing the street without the light on you'll follow because you get the okay and then that can be applied to these bigger things where you see this girl who did these tapes and she hurt herself and you and other people have been now think, oh that's a good way to do it. I'm gonna write out all these tapes and I'm gonna turn it into a revenge plot. Yeah, I think you can almost think of it kind of like product placement in like TV shows and in movies where companies will put in their products in the movie and then people will see it and maybe not consciously but they'll be more aware of it. You walk down the store aisle and you recognize that product from the show. Yeah, exactly. So it's the same sort of thing in this show if they're showing things like suicide and self-harm on screen then kids are like maybe they'll watch it and be like revolted by it but maybe later they'll think about it and think like that that's the thing that kids do and they'll be more aware of it and they'll subconsciously be like internalizing all these bad thoughts and I think that's something people don't understand because I've heard people say like 13 reasons why is good because it's talking about important heavy topics but it's important to bring these. I do think we need those to show that the topics should be brought up but not in a better sense. They put a few warnings on two of the episodes, two of the episodes that visibly showed rape which I watched, I watched the show out of pure curiosity because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and I understood what all the fuss was about after I watched those two episodes. I did not want to see that even with the warning it was not enough. It shouldn't have been shown in my opinion. Yeah, I think it's just ridiculous that they think that people are justifying showing things like that on screen and even making the show in the first place by saying that they're putting warnings or bringing up important topics and it's important to bring up these topics but not like that, you have to bring it up with just facts and making sure to talk about the fact that it's not okay because kids are just seeing the show out of context and maybe there's a few warnings but it's presented to them in a way that seems like this is a normal show about normal teens who do things like this. I also got the whole school talking about the girl who committed suicide Hannah Baker. Got the whole school talking about it and it was this huge thing and that could be a mischievous kid like oh if you want to get noticed do this. Yeah, yeah. And also if we're gonna nitpick the show it wasn't a good character, they weren't any good characters either their motivations made no sense. It was just a very bad show. I watched the whole thing. It's both unrealistic and also a little, not a good show. Yeah, so there's honestly no reason to watch it so if you're thinking about watching it, don't and if you're already watching it, please stop because you shouldn't be like promoting. Oh it's like shading me right now, I'm sorry. But you shouldn't be like supporting a show like that or anything that glorifies suicide but that's important to bring up. I don't know what bugs me the most is that people are calling it like bold and new and it's like it's just like this new amazing thing that they're showing and I'm like first off suicide is not new, not a new thing and also it may be it's bold but it's bold in a bad way. Yeah. It's like they're getting a little too bold, a little too confident like you gotta bring it back a little bit. Yeah, suicide isn't a trending ploy. It's definitely not a marketing ploy. You can't show, you can't use this to get a new, like to get an audience that's not okay. Yeah and that's honestly probably where most of their views come from is people who hear about the show and then think like what's all the fuss about? Like you were talking about and then watch it and you're supporting it and so they're basically using it as just like a way to. I'm not. I was curious. I'm not throwing shade on you. You are throwing shade on me, you're throwing much shade. I'm sorry. Yeah. Heavy topics. True. Trying to make light of both of you jokes. But yeah, I think it's just pretty much summary of that show. Don't watch it and suicide isn't trendy and cool and a good idea or a good way to get attention just, it's not. And I don't want to linger on this too long for like I'm more to say. They turned it into a rent ploy. Also they never even touched on mental illness. Exactly, she didn't have a mental illness or if she did it wasn't diagnosed and it definitely wasn't discussed so. If they maybe, maybe, if they had put that in and made it like a mental illness awareness thing and they absolutely didn't show those horrible things, it had so much potential to be such a good show. Yeah, I think. I really think it had potential. But I think regardless it could have been harmful like either way because even just like that's the risky thing about talking about this kind of thing. This could be harmful or nothing like that now. Yeah, if you bring it up it's good to raise awareness but it's also like you do that with the risk of giving people ideas. Yeah, so moving on from this, I would love to bring up what kids love to say nowadays. Go kill yourself. Kids love to say that. I've been told it many a times and I would love to hear your thoughts on making it into a joke. Yeah, I think it's really awful but kids make jokes about all sorts of things and think that just because like oh I was just joking that it's okay because even if you're bringing it up in like a humorous way it doesn't make it any more okay and whether you're talking about yourself or someone else it's like that's not in any way. There's no reason you should ever say something like that. Maybe if you are actually contemplating that's kind of stuff then yes, talk to someone about it and that's totally okay. No, it's different. It's much different from saying like oh I have this hard cast I want to kill myself or oh you annoyed me go kill yourself or oh I like to have my room, I like to organize markers I must be OCD or something like that or oh my mood changes I must be bipolar. Yeah, I hear that kind of thing, there's jokes about all sorts of stuff going around all the time and. It's actually depression, it's a very prevalent one that I hear a lot. People use the word depressed as a very everyday kind of emotion describing word I guess whereas it isn't. Traditionally that was kind of what it was. The word does technically mean sad but now it's kind of coming into this more that language changes as we said it's coming into this more it's a mental illness and now it's kind of like it's not okay. Yeah people use it as just kind of like oh I have depression I'm so like like they'll walk into like their least favorite class and be like oh I'm so depressed this like gives me depression or this gives me anxiety or something and. I've heard people like there are people who like hate they're like oh I hate small talk I'm so socially anxious and like maybe you're anxious maybe you're awkward but you don't have social anxiety you don't have social phobia. Yeah. Maybe you do I don't know but from the people who I've heard say that who I know for a fact don't it drives me up the wall. And it's also like it's hard to sort of decipher who's serious and who's not and that makes things so much harder trying to find like your friends help because if half of my friends say like oh I'm gonna kill myself as a joke and the other half says that and they're like serious and they're like bringing it up in a way that like the only way they can through humor then I can't decipher which is which and I don't know who's safe and who's not and when people are serious and say it sometimes I'll like people say something like oh I'm so OCD or like my OCD is acting up and I'll be like hey you can't say that because like this is a real thing that happens and I'll be like no I actually have this so it's so difficult to figure out what's real. One of my biggest fears is that someone will talk about wanting to tell himself in a humorous manner because I use humor as a kind of a way to talk about what people do. Yeah a lot of people do. And I'll laugh and that's my biggest fear is that I'll laugh and I'll make them feel worse and I just I have wished that it was something that people just stop joking about it I wish that so much. You also find this in the community people joke about like I think we talked about the word gay being used as like a joking kind of insult and stuff like that. Yeah that happens a lot. With these words that should not be turned into that. Yeah I mean there's some kids who use the word gay as an insult but they also like they're not they don't think of themselves as homophobic and they don't think they're being homophobic by using gay as an insult because then if you ask them about it they'll say oh yeah I'm fine with gay people but like you're growing around and calling your friends like gay because they told you how they're feeling and like oh no if you're male you can't say how you're feeling because that's gay. That can also be a cause of suicide too. Yeah exactly. Toxic masculinity is sucky. Yeah the stereotypes and feeling like you have to fit into them which is a good segue into that topic actually. Oh yes. Thank you all. Stereotypes and feeling like you're forced to fit into them but then not actually fitting into them that can lead you to think like oh you don't fit in oh you aren't right you don't fit into this like social norm that was created for you. Or there just is no social norm for you because like you're just outside of any box and incapable of fitting in. Like I feel like a lot of non-binary people are both like exempt from having to feel like they have to fit into male and female but also feeling like like now there's no place for us like what do we do? Like we don't have to necessarily. But now that you're in a non-binary stereotype is a rise. Yeah definitely. Which is like a short haircut that's kind of like long on the top you know what I'm talking about. Not yours. Not yours. Like the floppy one you know. And these stereotypes are like and now that's like you kind of it's kind of like you don't want to fit into any of the stereotypes but now these stereotypes were made as people who don't want to fit into these stereotypes. Yeah. So like this constant endless cycle and then that can lead to not fitting not feeling you fit in not feeling you have friends isolation and isolation can lead to worthless feelings and then. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why that's not so good. Yeah. I think toxic masculinity is also a huge problem because it's just like men and masculine people are made to feel as if they can't express their emotions. They can't be feminine. They can't like be decent human beings because that's gay or you're not like a manly man. If you like they can't hug their guy. Yeah. Like what? Like if you hug someone suddenly everyone's talking about how you're gay. And it's like okay like you can't do that because if a girl hugs another girl nobody's going to call her gay. Must be like oh how cute. Yeah. Exactly. Friends. Yeah. So that's a huge problem. And I think that leads a lot of boys and men and masculine people to feel like they can't talk about important topics and important feelings with other people with their families because there's a risk that like whoever you talk to will just tell you to like man up or whatever which is just so harmful. I've been called to man up. What? Yeah. I can't, I can't, what? Yeah, that's a, it's just ridiculous that people are made to feel that way because that just leads to like stuffing all your feelings up and not being able to share things that you need to talk about. There are so many things that could potentially lead to suicide in the fact that it's like the 10th leading cause of death in the US is so, so depressing. Kind of revolting in a sense. Like it's just the fact that people feel that, people feel the need and that they feel like they can't get help or that other people drive other people to do that. Yeah, or just that it's so like joked about and normalized in a bad way in our society that it's presented as an option. So people think that it's like okay to do it. And then like, even like going to therapy for it, it's a bad reputation cause like, oh it's only for like crazies and stuff like that. Yeah, a lot of people think of like, oh if you have to see a therapist, like oh boy you must be like not so great in the head which is just awful because like you can go to therapy no matter what your mental situation is. Like I know people who go to therapy who like don't have a diagnosed mental illness or just like have what a lot of people would call like a perfect life and maybe like if, even if you're completely mentally stable and fine, it's still good for people to be able to talk about stuff in like a professional setting. Especially cause they feel like they can't talk about their emotions exactly around other people. Yeah. Professionals so and then, but since they can't do that and now therapists can dance like bad rep, they can't really, it just leads to you crying in your closet a lot. Yeah, what do you like, what are you supposed to do when society is telling you not to talk about your feelings with your friends, but also not to go to a therapist because then you're crazy. Like when you're not presented with any option, but to just sort of wallow in your own emotions, which is not healthy at all. Which is why people should be encouraging other people to like get help and be able to talk to people and create safe spaces for people to discuss. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, heavy topic, you know. That there's so many causes and that's so, so many things could lead to such horrible actions. Yeah. And it just... Yeah, I think that it's just important to remember that, like it's okay to ask for help and it's okay to talk about this stuff and it's important to find people. It's okay to feel whatever you are feeling. Yeah. And no matter what it is, it's fine. Yeah, it's a fine people who will like support you and even if they don't necessarily understand what's going on, just like find people who are like understanding or sympathize or comfort you, all that. Whether it be family or friends. Yeah. And give me anyone, like as long as they're kind to you and they understand, exactly. They're a piece of good outlet, it really is. Like I go to it and it's fantastic. Yeah. I'm able to, you know, talk and actually this person actually has prior knowledge to this. They're not just some friend I'm renting to you and then loading all my feelings on. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, so it's good to try to find resources wherever you are and there's a lot of good, like if you talk to your school social worker or guidance counselor about like if you... Just like hotline is also available. Yeah, hotlines. And there's always like financial help for a lot of therapists. So if you feel like, well, I can't pay to go to therapy, like you probably can if you can find the right source of financial help. You can find that kind of like great program. There's just be... There's resources everywhere. If you look hard enough and it's sad that you aren't just presented with them, but yeah, it's important to find those and create your own and find people to talk to. Before we wrap this up, let's pause. Yeah, we need to. We need to talk a little bit more about hotlines. There's a suicide hotline and then also the Trevor Project, which I believe is an LGBTQ plus based one. Yeah, it's 6, 5, 2. Which is helpful, especially because of how high it is in this community and how common it is to self harm or to attempt to take one's life or to actually succeed in taking one's life. Yeah, do we have the numbers for those? Do we have the number? Because that would be kind of essential. I think we can probably just find that out because apparently we didn't come prepared and put that on the screen so that you guys can have those resources to use if you need to or to send to a friend or family member or whoever needs it. But yeah, that's important. There's also text lines where you can just, if you don't feel comfortable or like calm enough or whatever to call someone, then you can just text with someone. You just text a number and there will be a real person there to talk to you about your problems and pretty much just be like, have a little therapy session with you in your moment. You also don't have to use these hotlines when you're on the verge of community suicide. It doesn't have to be like, oh, I'm gonna kill myself right now. I need to call a hotline. It can also just be like, I've had these thoughts at one point or another and I would like to discuss them so I can know whether or not I need to be seriously worried or what's going on with me. It doesn't have to be a, I want to do it right in this very moment, which is, some people don't really get, they think of the O'Souza hotline only for people who are about to do it, but it's not, there are places you can go if you're not about to do it, but you also just, you have thought about it. Yeah, so if you're considering texting or calling a hotline, don't hesitate because if you're thinking about it, chances are you could use it and they're not gonna be mad at you for texting or calling if you're not totally sure. Like if you just call and talk about that you've had thoughts before or you're struggling with the idea of it, you don't have to be on the verge, as you said, but they won't mind, they won't get mad at you if you call, so go for it if you're thinking about it. It's literally no job to answer the calls, they won't get mad at you. Yeah, so it's like don't be worried about calling or afraid about it and I think there's a lot of like, yeah. Now we're gonna wrap this up. Yes. This will, where we're going to do more episodes surrounding mental health that will be up at some point. Yeah, I think our June, it's May, right? Yep, it's May. Our June episode is going to be about another mental health-related topic and we're helping to talk about issues such as self-harm and mental health days and possibly some other stuff in the future, so stay tuned for that, that'll be a little series. This has been All Things LGBTQ Plus. Thank you, you the decision. Thank you for watching and we'll see you in June. Bye.