World Mental Health Day: Queer Mental Health Is Shaped by the World Around Us
World Mental Health Day often comes with advice about sleep, exercise, breathing and taking breaks. Those things can be useful. But queer mental health cannot be understood only through individual habits.
Our wellbeing is shaped by whether home feels safe, whether work respects us, whether healthcare listens, whether money is tight, whether we can access community and whether we have to hide parts of ourselves to get through the day.
You are not failing at wellbeing
Coping skills can support a nervous system under pressure, but they cannot remove discrimination or repair an unsafe service. If you are exhausted, anxious or low, the answer is not always to become better at tolerating what hurts.
Name the pressures around you as well as the feelings within you.
Choose one small act of care that does not require productivity.
Ask for an adjustment, boundary or pause where that is safe.
Stay connected to people who do not require you to edit yourself.
Seek support before you reach breaking point; you are allowed to need help.
Mental health support should fit the person
At Be/Here, person-centred support means we do not arrive with a fixed idea of who you should become. Trauma-informed support means we pay attention to safety, choice, trust and the impact of what has happened around you.
Our paid therapy helps fund free mental health skills workshops for the LGBTQIA+ community. That is part of how we try to make support more accessible while keeping it rooted in the people it is for.
See our free workshops and community groups.
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