Anxiety in LGBTQ Community: How to Decrease Unhelpful Anxiety in Your Life
Anxiety. That thing that we’re all familiar with and yet somehow that awareness doesn’t completely lessen its impact on our lives. At it’s best, it helps us evade danger. But at it’s worst, it persuades us to second guess our relationships, diminish our self-esteem, and limit our view of the present by trying to predict the future before it happens. This has particular consequences for folks who are beginning to navigate the world, going through any number of life transitions, or exploring their gender or sexual identity. In particular for queer folks navigating life in present day, anxiety is always humming in the background.
Anxiety is a way our nervous system lets us know there is danger or threat near and that we should prepare to protect ourselves. Where this was evolutionarily sound logic when we were evading lions, tigers, and bears, parts of our present culture and society may not resemble those same primal threats. However, that doesn't mean our nervous systems are outdated. Our protection responses remain necessary. Today, it’s the threats of danger that have changed.
For queer and trans people, there are mounting external threats to our very existence. They take the form of systemic, ecological, legal, local, communal, familial, and poor health outcomes, and can show up as harm, discrimination, or violence. (Take for example the anti-trans legislation proposed in various states throughout the United States this year.) This is a lot for us to try to make sense of, both logically and emotionally, especially for anyone who already has their plate full with the ins and outs of day to day life (not to mention we are all still surviving a pandemic).
Because our brains and bodies are wired to take in these experiences so that they inform how we survive in the future, this may mean that we’re internalizing negative messages of our self worth, making supple ground for guilt and shame to increase one’s anxiety. It is a well known fact that repeated exposure to homophobia and transphobia has impacts on one's self-perception and breeds internal stressors known as internalized homophobia or internalized transphobia. Combined, these external and internal pressures overwhelm our capacities for dealing with problems in healthier ways.
All of these experiences wreak havoc on our nervous systems, and because of that, we’re left with symptoms like excessive worrying, poor sleep, irritability, muscle tension, difficulties with concentrating, and becoming easily fatigued, to name a few. While our brain and body’s responses to stress and threat may do a fine job of keeping us from danger, there are symptoms that persist even when we have logically determined we are not in situations of danger.
To deal with these symptoms, folks have had to get creative to aid their own relief from anxiety. It is important to acknowledge that the history of psychology and therapy in this country was one rather inaccessible to queer and trans folks as our identities were once viewed as afflictions to be cured. Because of this, the more accessible name of the game became finding comfort and relief. For some, this takes the form of using substances, sex, or food to achieve temporary relief. However, these solutions come at a price that can also build on that anxiety one was seeking relief from in the first place repeating a cycle of problem, temporary solution, repeat.
Folks seek to disrupt that cycle through a myriad of ways. This can look like leaning into community, developing a spiritual practice, or establishing a relationship with a competent and affirming mental health professional. Compassionate and affirming mental health support can bolster the resources many already access to address their anxiety, namely the desire for anxiety to have less control over their lives. Today, compassionate and affirming mental health care can be a crucial component for many working on healing their anxiety. In addition to those healthier, creative ways that we engage in our own relief from anxiety, affirming therapeutic support has become more accessible to queer and trans folks seeking this level of support through funds, databases, and community centers dedicated to providing care to queer and trans folks.
Joining groups, programs, or collectives that interest you can help channel your anxious energy into an effort you care about. This can be a lovely way to connect with like minded people, and discover new resources and perspectives other than your own. You help build your support network, and in turn build with others.
Discovering a creative outlet for expression can be a great way of connecting with something tangible, that you can build, draw, write, dance, or create can help you connect with something outside of those anxiety riddled thoughts. Of course, the goal is not to create masterpieces, but to create for creations’s sake. If your body and mind welcome it, share with others!
Lastly, develop coping skills that engage your mind and body. Whether it’s meditation, yoga, or gardening, give your brain and body a good enough break from being on high alert from stress. This can help you slow down, which is a helpful antidote to the urgency that anxiety tends to make things.
All in all, anxiety is an issue that limits our connection to the present. It fills us with negativity we’d rather avoid. As we navigate the external and internal pressures of life, it helps to have a few resources in our toolbelt to form a different connection to the present– one where we can ground in sustainable strategies and skills that bring us connection, comfort and relief. Therapy with an affirming and competent therapist can be one of those helpful resources.
By: Dinah Hudson LCPC
If you’d like to work with one of our Therapists we are currently accepting clients and you can reach us at Our Office. We provide a free 15 phone consultation to determine if we are a good match for one another. For more information on anxiety treatment check out our website at www.chicagopsych.org