acceptance Archive

Femme Bisexual Invisibility and Passing

I am a femme cisgender bisexual with invisible psychiatric disabilities. While I date a man I pass as straight. While my disabilities hide out in my brain I pass as non-disabled. With a migrant worker grandmother and a caucasian father, I am a white-passing Latina. This precarious intersectional identity allows me all of the goodies of straight cis white privilege while alienating me from activist solidarity. Trump would have me deported. Jeb condemns my former marriage. I am between worlds.

Pansexual Erasure vs Support

“Stop trying to be so different!”
Erasure has never hurt so much.
Now I know how my pansexual brothers and sisters feel.
Erasure. Phobia. Hatred. Confusion.

Needs

Recently I started an Intensive Outpatient Program for people with eating disorders. In group therapy one of the care providers said that humans want 3 sorts of things, power and control, attention and acceptance, and security and certainty. Something along those lines, anyway. And she told us our eating disorder tries to provide one or more of these things, and thats why people feel they need their eating disorder. It fulfills a purpose for us.

Faith and Sexuality with Bipolar

New to a wholehearted identification with the LGBTQ community, new to thinking of myself—knowing myself—as gay, my skin was as thin as paper when it came to perceived attacks on my identity. I felt as vulnerable and exposed as in the months after people learned I had a mental illness, so many years ago. I felt naked, like by coming out I had stripped away some vital protection that came with people thinking of me as straight, or even bisexual—capable, at least, of feeling sexual attraction to men—and that now I walked around people with an intimate part of me laid bare. To be gay, bi, pan, asexual, or queer in some other way is so much more than sex, but that’s what I felt like everyone in my family and close circle of friends were thinking about when they talked to me. I felt so incredibly revealed.

A Legacy Deferred

Note: I have not used any real names in this article. However, the people, places, and events described are real (to the best of my recollection).

Most people spend their lives actively seeking to create their legacy. For most people it is by having children, being good parents, and then good grandparents. For others it is the accumulation of wealth. Inventors have left indelible marks on our history and culture as well. Politicians and generals guide nations through both war and peace. For my childless, staff-grade officer Uncle “Michael”, though, there seemed to be no legacy after his senseless death in Iraq in 2003. Until now.

My Partner With Borderline Personality Disorder (Hanners)

It is my pleasure to introduce the newest series, “My Partner With…” to QueerMentalHealth.org. Relationships can be a challenge for anyone, though they can be especially difficult when they are impacted by mental health issues. It is my hope that we can help others understand how to approach a partner’s mental health concerns. I’m starting this series off by talking about the issues that come up for myself and my partner, who has Borderline Personality Disorder.

If you were to get all your information about Borderline Personality Disorder by going to online support groups for partners of people with this condition, you would learn the following:

  • Borderlines are always abusive
  • Borderlines are always in denial
  • Borderlines never take responsibility for their actions
  • Borderlines will love you one minute, and hate you the next
  • Relationships with borderlines are notoriously unstable

Today, Like So Many Others, Is A Great Day

Editor’s note: This story mentions some severe triggers. Please be careful about reading this story if you are easily triggered by the topics mentioned in our trigger warning.

Trigger warnings: Abuse, including torture and child sexual assault, forced confinement, rape, violence, bullying, and hate crimes.

Yesterday/today was/is a great day. A day to celebrate. Any day that slaps me upside my head and and asks, “WTF you bitching about?” is always a great day!

Involuntary Invisibility: How It Hurts LGBT*Q People Mentally

We clearly have this need to see ourselves in and to identify with some of the images we’re being shown daily. It satisfies two of our humanistic needs: to belong and to have self-esteem. If we do not see ourselves represented in politics and the media, we might not feel included; we might not get that sense of community we need. Furthermore, if we do not see ourselves in these images and are being given the message that these images are the “right” or the “normal” way to be, we will most likely have a lower self-esteem.

Coming Out and Breaking Down

After I sobered up, I started realizing pretty quickly that I was at least as attracted to women as I was to men. Not that I didn’t already know that, but now I knew it in a way that I could feel. It wasn’t about having loaded sex with anyone I could get my hands on anymore. It was about feeling things in my mind and body and relating to them.