Welcome to QueerMentalHealth.org! We are a community-based support and resource site for queer people with mental health issues. We welcome anybody including (but by no means limited to) people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited, intersexed, queer, questioning, and allies as well.
We are always looking for new writers! If you want a safe space to write about your mental health issues, you have come to the right place. You are welcome to join the Queer Mental Health Writers' Team. You may be credited or anonymous, with names or details modified to protect your privacy, and the privacy of others mentioned in your work. Check out the details at http://queermentalhealth.org/write/
We are currently having technical problems. We are trying to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Writers, your articles will be published as soon as the problem is resolved. New writer applications will be processed as soon as the article queue has been cleared. In the meantime, hang onto your hats! Writers should still […]
Wow, it’s been 5 years already since I created QueerMentalHealth.org!
Trigger warning: Involuntary restraint, abuse from hospital staff.
I was passing by an elderly man in a wheelchair, and he grabbed at my arm. I shook my arm free and pulled away from him. All of a sudden, two nurses and a tech were yelling at me, telling me to go to my room or sit down. Admittedly, after they said that, I became quite defiant, but not a danger or threat to myself or others.
Imagine never being alone, and still being lonely. Its just as empty in my chest as it is full in my house. Always people coming and going. Talking, yelling, laughter. Noise, it has just become noise to me.
Trigger Warning: graphic description of psychotic episode, violence
Does it change your view to know that I live with schizophrenia, and when the police came, there was no evidence anyone had broken in, no blood, no man? That’s where it gets tough. This experience, and other similarly intense experiences, are discounted because the general population doesn’t see them as ‘real’.
Trigger Warning: Descriptions of violence, mentions of suicide and gun use.
As I watch mass shooting after mass shooting play out on CNN and Obama’s recent town hall on guns, the same themes play out over and over. The mentally ill are consistently blamed for gun violence as a convenient scapegoat to avoid facing the real culprit for gun violence: toxic masculinity and the sheer ease and availability of gun ownership in America.
The thing of it is, my sister’s death has taught me that fat shaming from the outside world is, astoundingly, the very least of my problems, even though it affects my friendships, relationships, the quality of care I receive on literally any platform, and my chances of getting things like jobs and housing, regardless of my references and qualifications. I have been realizing in the past year and a bit that the worst damage is the damage I now do to myself: internalized fat phobia.
Trigger Warning: Description of bulimic purging.
Romance
This is not romantic this is not beautiful
Fuck anybody who tells you it is
Another year has gone, and sadly, so have way too many people. Transgender Day of Rememberance is the day where we remember those who have lost their lives to transphobic hatred. Please take a moment to remember them, and to recognize that the vast majority of these victims were women of colour.
Hanners Blackthorne,
Creator, QueerMentalHealth.org
Trigger Warning: Art involving themes of sexual assault and self-harm.
A painting i made while thinking about how NOBODY FUCKING BELIEVED THAT I WAS RAPED BECAUSE PEOPLE IN AUTHORITY NEEDED PROOF…
