Articles & Testimonies

A Message to the Unaccepting Parents of Gay Kids

by | Dec 10, 2012

Family Rejection + Religious Rejection  = Self Rejection

Self Rejection  = Depression, Addiction, and Suicide 

The Solution is Unconditional Love.

A panel of 26 leading researchers, clinicians, educators and policy experts, assembled by AFSP, has released a comprehensive report on the prevalence and underlying causes of suicidal behavior in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adolescents and adults.

The report appeared as the lead article in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Homosexuality, published by Taylor & Francis, a leading publisher of academic journals. As of September 2011, it was the 18th most downloaded article in any of the publisher’s several hundred journals.

Titled “Suicide and Suicide Risk in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Populations: Review and Recommendations,” the report makes sweeping recommendations for closing knowledge gaps about suicidal behavior in LGBT people, and calls for making LGBT suicide prevention a national priority.

“With this report and recommendations, we hope to move LGBT suicide prevention squarely onto the national agenda and provide a framework for actions aimed at reducing suicidal behavior in these populations,” said Dr. Ann Haas, lead author and senior project specialist for AFSP. “It’s time for the federal government, suicide prevention agencies, mental health professionals, policy makers and LGBT organizations to join together to bring this problem out of the closet and work toward effective solutions.”

Key Findings and Recommendations

Although multiple studies point to elevated rates of depression, anxiety and substance abuse among sexual minority people, the panel found that these problems, by themselves, do not account for the higher rates of suicide attempts that have been reported by LGBT people. Thus, the consensus report identified stigma and discrimination as playing a key role, especially acts such as rejection or abuse by family members or peers, bullying and harassment, denunciation from religious communities and individual discrimination. The report also highlighted evidence that discriminatory laws and public policies have a profound negative impact on the mental health of gay adults.

Click on the link below to view report:

AFSP Review and Recommendations on LGBT Suicide and Suicide Risk

Raising Awareness and Prevention

                                         

Title:     Mother’s Evening Prayer

Author: Mary Baker Eddy

O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling’s faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye
Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall:
His habitation high is here, and nigh,
His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

O make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear
No ill,–since God is good, and loss is gain.

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing;
In that sweet secret of the narrow way,
Seeking and finding, with the angels sing:
“Lo, I am with you alway,”–watch and pray.

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain;
No night drops down upon the troubled breast,
When heaven’s aftersmile earth’s tear-drops gain,
And mother finds her home and heav’nly rest.

[The end]
Mary Baker Eddy’s Poem: Mother’s Evening Prayer