Being a teen today is hard work. On top of puberty, changing social landscapes, difficult parents, and the quest to discover yourself, there’s a whole layer of life online to navigate. Social media demands a curated, share-able version of you and then lines it up next to everyone else for comparison. If that’s not hard enough, you’re probably also worrying about classes, climate change, and–depending on when you’re reading this–a global pandemic.
All of that would put a strain on anyone’s mental health.
While ages 13-19 are difficult for most, they pose specific challenges for the LGBTQ+ community. LGBTQ+ youth don’t always have the freedom to express who they are to friends and family, and it can be exhausting to keep a facade up. When LGBTQ+ teens do share their identity with others, that doesn’t always guarantee acceptance, love, and peace of mind. This can cause emotional problems. If you’re a teen and part of the LGBTQ+ community, Peer Health Exchange is here to help you tend to your mental health.
Facts and Stats on LGBTQ+ Mental Health:
One struggle you might face as an LGBTQ+ teen is finding spaces where you can express yourself freely. In 2017, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation surveyed 12,000 youth between the ages 13 and 17 and found that only 24% of LGBTQ youth felt they could “definitely” be themselves at home. Plus, 78% of LGBTQ youth not out to their parents had heard their families negatively comment about other queer and trans people.
At school, things aren’t much better. Mental Health America reported on their 2014 Bullying Factsheet that “LGBT youth are nearly twice as likely to be called names, verbally harassed or physically assaulted at school compared to their non-LGBT peers.” Additionally, they shared that while non-LGBT youth identified classes, exams, and grades as the second most important problem in their lives, LGBT youth labeled bullying #2. The main problem in LGBTQ youth’s lives was unaccepting families.
All these stats come down to this: whether you’re learning from home or at school, just existing as an LGBTQ+ individual within our current society can take a toll on your mental health.
In 2019, The Trevor Project surveyed 34,000 LGBT youth across the U.S.. They found that 39% of these respondents had considered suicide in the past 12 months. The rate was even higher for transgender and nonbinary youth–54% of whom had considered suicide, and 29% of whom had attempted in the past year.
Mental health issues impact many teens. The CDC reported that the percentage of high school students who “experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” grew from 26.1% in 2009 to 36.7% in 2019. However, mental health problems disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ youth. For example, the CDC found that students who “had sexual contact with people of the same sex” were more likely to consider suicide than their heterosexual peers.
If you’re a queer or trans teen, this information probably doesn’t surprise you. What adults are discovering through surveys and research, you know by looking around your classroom and scrolling through your TikTok feed.
Types of Mental Illnesses:
While you likely already understand the extent of the mental health problems within the LGBTQ+ community, it’s also valuable to have a baseline understanding of the different disorders. Most people know about depression and anxiety, but the table below provides more detail and preliminary information on other disorders.
Mental Health Resources for LGBTQ+ Youth
If you’ve looked at the table and realized that you may be struggling with one or more of these disorders, what can you do? First, click on the links in the table for more in-depth information. After that, a good place to start is learning about the resources available to you. We’ve got you covered!
Crisis Resources
If you’re dealing with suicidal thoughts or an emotional crisis right now, below are some suicide prevention resources you can access immediately.
Resources for Support:
If you’re not in crisis, you still may need immediate mental health support. Options are available. Volunteers on the LGBTQ+ spectrum staff the LGBT National Help Center. They offer a variety of call and chat options, including a weekly youth chat room. You can use this service to talk about things like coming out, gender and/or sexuality identities, family and school issues, safer sex information, and more.
If you need help finding a healthcare provider, Peer Health Exchange has guides to health resources in a variety of cities around the U.S.. If you’re just looking for more LGBTQ+ friends to relate to, TrevorSpace is an international community of LGBTQ+ youth aged 13-24. You can join to freely share your identity and participate in discussion forums and interest-based groups. Never doubt the power of a supportive, loving community to lighten your mental load!
Finding a Queer-Friendly Therapist:
Therapy is another wonderful resource to help you manage your mental health. Unfortunately, a whopping 54% of surveyed LGBTQ+ youth who wanted mental health care did not receive it within 12 months. Black, Latinx and Asian American youth were less likely than their White peers to get the care they wanted.
Cost was the #1 barrier to access. If you want to find a therapist but aren’t sure if you can afford it:
- Start by finding out what your insurance is.
- Visit the company website to look for therapists in-network–your insurance will be more likely to cover these providers' cost.
- If you don’t have insurance, don’t worry. You can contact therapists directly and ask if they have sliding scale programs.
Besides cost, identity can also affect LGBTQ+ youth’s access to counseling. According to the Trevor Project, 16% of youth who wanted but did not receive counseling identified worry that counselors would fixate on their sexual orientation or gender as a barrier. This was true of one-third of all nonbinary and transgender youth who didn't receive the mental health care they wanted. Access to queer and trans therapists is key for LGBTQ+ youth struggling with their mental health.
The good news is that if you want an LGBTQ+ identified therapist, you can find one! If you are looking for a queer or trans therapist who is also a person of color, the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network is a great resource for you. You can conveniently search for local providers with their Google Maps feature. They also run a mental health fund to provide queer and trans people of color with financial assistance for therapy. GLMA and AGLP are also great databases to help you find LGBTQ+ health professionals.
Even with all these resources, finding the right therapist takes time. Once you've identified a few options, check their websites to see if they offer free phone consultations. During the phone consultation, you can ask them how they approach counseling and ensure your goals align. Take five or ten minutes to write some questions down before you call. Here are a few to get you started:
- What does a typical therapy session look like?
- What is your approach to therapy? What evidence backs it up?
- How do you decide how to address a patient’s problems?
- Do you give patients homework? What’s an example of this?
- How will I know if I’m better?
- How do you monitor progress?
- How do you cultivate healthy patient-therapist relationships?
- Are you familiar with [insert an issue you are facing or an identity you hold]?
Feel free to ask potential therapists questions specific to your identity and mental health problems. If they don’t ask what your pronouns are, ask for theirs and share your own before making assumptions. While a potential therapist might look super great on paper (or internet page), what you're looking for is someone who makes you feel comfortable, who you feel you can build a connection with.
Caring for Yourself:
Until you can schedule a visit with a therapist, understand that you are not alone in what you are going through. There is an entire community of people who love and accept you. If you don’t have access to this community right now, focus on looking out for yourself. The way you treat yourself has a big impact on your mental health. Small changes to your daily routine can drastically boost your well-being.
Daily Practices to Improve Mental Health:
If you’re not sure where to start, check out Peer Health Exchange’s YouTube channel. There, Peer Health Educators post videos about small steps they take to improve their wellbeing and mental health every day.
One Health Educator, Courteney, shared a firsthand account of how she adjusted her daily routine to boost her mental health. In June of 2020, she was struggling to balance tending to her mental health while fighting for the Black Lives Matter movement. She decided to map out an updated routine in her beloved bullet journal. Her schedule included walking her pup, doing yoga, protesting for BLM, working, signing petitions, eating pizza, and Facetiming her boyfriend.
Another important part of her routine was the boundaries she set with social media. Because Courteney felt drained by her phone’s constant flow of videos and stories about protests, she set aside a specific time to sign petitions and post information online, but otherwise stayed offline.
Wasan, another Peer Health Educator, faced different challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an extrovert, he found himself missing the ability to socialize freely. He created a video detailing how to take care of yourself in a crisis. His recommendations include:
- Reconnecting with old friends
- Playing video games with friends online
- Using the app HouseParty to stay in touch and celebrate birthdays
- Regularly checking in on friends and loved ones
Jolie shared how she managed her responsibilities (college and a new job catering at a hospital) during a crisis. While she can’t do everything she loves to do anymore–like auditioning for shows and rehearsing–she shared a list of alternatives activities you can do to keep your mental health in check:
- Writing: Not only is writing a great way to get your thoughts out, but you can also produce something creative like a story or poem.
- Singing: Anyone can sing, no matter their skill level. It’s an awesome way to de-stress, express yourself, and have fun.
- Meditation: A wonderful way to self-reflect. Meditation is a tool you can customize for your needs, but one way to use it is to reflect on what you want from your present and future.
- Reading: O.K., so the content on streaming platforms really is endless, but sometimes your eyes need a break. And with reading, you can create a movie in your head.
Takeaways for LGBTQ+ Youth:
Managing mental health is not easy. It’s O.K. if accessing resources available to you, finding a therapist, and coming up with a daily routine sounds too overwhelming. You don’t have to undertake all these suggestions at once. Try picking one way to care for your mental health, and then take one step to get you there right now. You could text a trusted adult to find out what your insurance is or look for an old notebook to eventually plan a daily routine in. Tomorrow, do the next step. Soon enough, you’ll have set your future self up with safety nets for when you’re struggling.
Caring for yourself is not always fun, but it’s worth it. Thank your past self for helping you survive to get to this point, and think of how proud your future self is of you for advocating for your wellbeing and getting the help you need. Being an LGBTQ+ teen is hard, and you’re doing great!