This Barbie Runs on Lexapro

Suicide and Depression with the LGBTQ+ Community

Each Christmas for twenty-five years, my family has done “Gifts to Jesus.” During this time, we write a letter to Jesus and give him a birthday gift. Such gifts include qualities or behaviors that we wanted to surrender to Jesus. The first gift I gave Jesus at the age of six was my “badnis” (spelling has not been my strong suit). The following year, at the tender age of seven, I gave Jesus my sadness. 

Like many LGBTQ+ people, I have struggled with depression and anxiety for as long as I can remember. I hadn’t yet discovered the magical properties of the Feelings Wheel to express that deep sense of depression and grey that covered my life, so I settled for the next best word: sadness. And I wanted Jesus to take it away. 

Mental Health for LGBTQ+ People

Depression and suicidal ideation have a high prevalence in LGBTQ+ spaces. But correlation does not mean causation. Just because a person is LGBTQ+ does not mean that their same sex attraction, gender incongruence, or queerness is the root cause of their mental health struggles. Rather, a greater source of mental health issues is treatment by others. And it isn’t just treatment of LGBTQ+ people on an individual level, but on a community level too. 

LGBTQ+ people experience collective trauma, meaning that the traumas that happen to people who are LGBTQ+, even in other locations, leave a deep and personal impact. An example would be the Pulse Night Club shooting in 2016. LGBTQ+ people also experience generational trauma, not because our parents struggled with some kind of sexual sin that made us queer; no, the trauma experienced by LGBTQ+ people throughout history impacts us today. Examples of such traumas would be the AIDS/HIV epidemic and the treatment of LGBTQ+ people in Nazi concentration camps. Intersectionality matters as well. For LGBTQ+ people who have other marginalized identities, such as being a woman, BIPOC, AAPI, an immigrant, or neurodivergent, their mental health struggles are amplified. 

Additionally, LGBTQ+ people are more likely to experience isolation on both emotional and social levels. Many LGBTQ+ people know the feeling of being rejected by family or, at the very least, questioned as though we did not know our own experience of our attractions or gender incongruence. The perception of rejection alone causes many LGBTQ+ people to compartmentalize their sexuality or gender experience. This can look like having different versions of yourself. One version attends church or Thanksgiving dinner, another shows up in LGBTQ+ spaces, but the full self never appears. This splitting to receive love and validation leads to poor mental health.

It is important when looking at mental health in the LGBTQ+ community to look specifically at the mental health struggles of our transgender and gender minority siblings. LGB youth think about suicide three times more often than heterosexual youth, and with family rejection, are 8.4 times more likely to attempt suicide. And for our transgender siblings, forty percent have attempted suicide at least once. (Bridget Eileen Riveria, Heavy Burdens) The mental health experience for LGB people is often a battle, but for our transgender and gender minority siblings, it is harder. 

“The pain of dysphoria that I was desperately trying to run from, along with the weight of societal rejection, once pushed me toward despair and even suicide. But when I stopped hiding, named my reality before God, and invited Jesus into all of it, I discovered that His love and mercy met me right there. Out of that place, He has turned what once felt like only shame and struggle into a way of reflecting the Gospel more clearly. My hope for the Church is that it would recognize God is not afraid of our realities, but steps into them with us and makes them shine with His light.” –Dee (they/them)

The Church: Crushing It or Crushing Us?

Many churches are working hard to love LGBTQ people well with their time, money, resources, and with unconditional love. I see this every time I attend Revoice or serve on a Posture Shift panel. However, the Church has not always been “crushing it” when it comes to loving LGBTQ+ people in a way that protects our mental health. Instead, it can feel like they are crushing us. 

There are so many ways the Church has hurt LGBTQ+ people. Bad theology around prayer and suffering, double standards, rejection for using identity language, and not being able to be fully known in small groups without fear of rejection or worse. LGBTQ+ folks are told to be patient when it feels like the Church is asleep when we need them most. We often have to teach our pastors and straight friends how to love us well, and then have so many conflict resolution conversations about how they are hurting us, all for the sake of their education. It’s exhausting. In many traditional churches LGBTQ+ people are encouraged to be celibate or in a mixed-orientation marriage, but are offered little to no support to do this healthily. My personal favorite is when people want to love me, just as long as it doesn’t actually cost them anything. 

Jesus and The Church

“Despite a lifetime of rejection from the Church, I cannot escape the reality of the importance of the Church. Despite my desires at times to die, I cannot escape the loving hands of YAHWEH. Despite my moments of hopelessness, the Lord always restores my soul.” –Jesse (he/they)

I was journaling my pain away after a straight person I had considered a friend and ally had decided to take a stance of not having a stance on sexuality, but still wanted to love me and support me. A lot of this decision was connected to wanting to date a straight guy who has an affirming theology. I wrote that I felt like I had been told, “I want to love you, just as long as it doesn’t cost me anything.” Jesus responded, “I know that feeling.” 

Jesus knows these feelings…

LGBTQ+ people experience rejection for using identity language or are not able to be fully known in small groups. Jesus knows this feeling. Jesus could not tell his closest friends that He was the Messiah until the right time, because they were not ready to hear it. I am reminded how Peter, BFF of Jesus, rebuked Jesus when He was speaking about His coming death and resurrection. Jesus was rejected by His hometown and had to walk away from them, and His own family did not really understand that He was the Messiah until the resurrection. Jesus knows the feeling of people not understanding you and rejecting you because of this.

Bad theology is used to harm and shame LGBTQ+ people, and Jesus knows this feeling. Jesus had the Pharisees following Him around, waiting for any possible mistake to take place so that they could catch Him. I know many LGBTQ+ people have felt this serving in the church before. Jesus was accused of breaking Jewish laws, blasphemy, associating with sinners, and working with Satan. Jesus knows what it’s like to have bad theology used against you and have people following you, waiting for you to mess up. 

When LGBTQ+ people receive little to no support from the Church in our walk of obedience with celibacy or a mixed-orientation marriage, Jesus gets this. Jesus asked His disciples to support Him by keeping watch in the garden. He knew He was about to die on the cross and wanted His best friends to keep watch while He prayed. Jesus was so stressed that He was sweating drops of blood. And in His hour of need, they fell asleep. When Jesus called them out of it, they fell asleep again. Jesus knew the feeling of asking for support and having those closest to you let you down. He gets what it’s like when it feels like the Church is falling asleep when we need it most. I wonder how much I do the same thing to my transgender and gender minority siblings. 

Friends betray, people will claim to love you, but only as long as it doesn’t actually cost them anything. Jesus knows these feelings. He was betrayed by Judas and denied by Peter. And honestly, sometimes I betray Jesus. Sometimes I even want to love Jesus, just as long as it doesn’t cost me anything. And yet, He calls me Beloved, Delight, and Daughter of Joy.

“To live in a world that tries to snuff out your light can be exhausting. But take heart, there is hope in the incarnate Savior who has come to deliver us. For He said, "Come to me all who are weary with heavy burdens and I will give you rest". In my own struggle with suicidal ideation, the Lord has drawn me close to His loving embrace and heart and kindness. He has shown me that I was created with dignity, worth, and love, even though the world (and devastatingly sometimes the Church) tried to erase those truths and erase me from being. The Lord, who is love, showed me that as trans people we have a unique and beautiful and needed perspective of the already, but not yet of our bodies and the new Heavenly body that is to come. There is so much hope, life, beauty, and truth in the loving embrace of our beautiful Creator, Jesus Christ, for us right now! –Remi (he/they/she)

So what do we do? How can our communities do better to protect our LGBTQ+ siblings?

1. Normalize talking about mental health. Depression and suicidal ideation impact so many of us who are LGBTQ+, and there is a stigma around this, especially in Christian circles. Yet, it doesn’t have to be a scary thing to talk about. When we can talk about depression and suicidal ideation openly and without fear, it is our greatest weapon and coping skill because it means we aren’t alone. 

2. Stop playing Captain Save Everbody. We LGBTQ people love to rescue someone…I mean, how else are we going to feel loved and needed? But that is not a weight we are meant to carry. We cannot save other people from their depression or suicidal ideation. What we can do is sit with one another in the pain, actively listen, and acknowledge each other’s pain. And if you keep trying to take on responsibility for someone else’s mental health, I will come hit you with a Feelings Wheel pillow. <3

3. Use your toolbox. No, not the kind that every lesbian has in her closet; this is a toolbox of anything that helps with managing mental health. That can include therapy, medication, friends, pets, coping skills, helpful distractions, safety plans, K-Pop Demon Hunters, healthy boundaries with the news, etc. Don’t feel ashamed to need medication. This Barbie runs on Lexapro.

4. Mute the group chat. I find that many of our group chats have triggering stories being shared because many in our community are facing different kinds of trauma related to being LGBTQ+. But because LGBTQ+ people experience collective trauma, we might be negatively impacted by what someone is sharing. It is okay to mute the chat. I have to do this when I’ve had a heavy work week or my nervous system is feeling dysregulated. It helps me take care of myself and puts boundaries on something that could trigger me. 

5. Check in. When people in our community are going through a hard time or need additional friend support, check in with them. In my life, this looks like calling my transgender and gender minority friends after they attend a wedding because they often have worn something that triggers their dysphoria, and I offer distraction and prayer. I’ve then had friends call me when I’ve been feeling depressed and just wanted a distraction.

6. Play together. Having worked with young children doing play therapy, I have come to realize how much play and laughter are healing and a much-needed distraction in the midst of deep pain. Our community is very familiar with all the pain and the trauma there is in this life, and so it can be easy to get stuck in this, at least for me it is. But Jesus is so playful and funny, and He actually wants to play with us. 

Where’s Hope?

You probably had no idea, but the world feels like a dumpster fire right now. So, where is hope? Can we even have hope in a dumpster fire? For quite some time, my hope has been in the Church, or at least my church. It’s been dependent on who the pastor was, or what we were talking about, how well I felt loved, and even who is in the White House. It made my hope fragile. And it crumbled when those pastors left suddenly, friends became Side A, and my church let me down. So, where is hope?

Yep, it is the Sunday school answer! Jesus! 

My hope is in the fact that my Redeemer lives. As cheesy as it sounds, my hope can only be in Jesus. And I see that hope, the power of the Gospel, each time I see our community act like Jesus. I see this when we pray for and bless those who curse us, when we love in costly ways, and when our transgender and gender minority siblings continue to say yes to Jesus when the Church says no to them. Jesus has been reminding me that the Church is not a place, but a people, and Revoice is a people; therefore, WE ARE THE CHURCH–and it’s pretty fruity. 

I was recently talking with God about how the world is a dumpster fire, throwing myself a pity party (table for one),  and feeling distant from God. I yelled at Him: “God, where are you?” And this punk, y’all know, He’s such a punk, shows me a GIF of my favorite show, Game Changer on Dropout, where the host of the show says, “I’ve been here the whole time,” in a sassy and playful way. I started cackling. God always knows how to cut me out of my pity party to remind me of the truth in a way I can actually hear it. Our God has been with us this whole time. And He knows exactly what it is like to feel all that we experience. We need only lean on Him, even in the dumpster fire.