Mental Health
Like doctors and pilots, I didn’t make up the principles that govern LGBTQ mental health — we have merely discovered them and now use them daily to safeguard lives. I pray with my feet every day that Latter-day Saints will come to fully understand these discoveries too. We are all part of one body in Christ. May we see that each part however different is equally needed by us.
It can take as much or even more courage to seek help for depression, anxiety, or trauma as it does to come out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. There is help though, and Rich Keys encourages anyone to seek it by sharing his own struggles and successes.
While the holidays are a time of celebration, they can also mean additional stress for anyone. For LGBT Mormons and their families, the holidays can be particularly stressful. We can combat stress by recognizing the cycle of stress and stress-induced habits, keeping perspective, and avoiding judging ourselves and others. We can learn to manage stress in a healthy way.
I can tell you without a doubt, that what we are doing is definitely making a difference. It is through small and simple things that great things come to pass. Within chaos theory there is the idea that “a butterfly flaps its wings in California and creates a monsoon in China,” and so it is with Affirmation.
Gay youths are much less likely to attempt suicide when they live in communities where they feel they have some support, either through gay/lesbian groups at school or simply because more same-sex couples live in the area, new research has found.
Reading the various reviews of the new LDS Church-authorized book, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, prompts me to stand as witness for another tragic killing of a group of people in our community for which — when we have the benefit of history — we will be deeply ashamed.
from The Salt Lake Tribune May 2007 It was as a father —not a public official— that Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff spoke Thursday at the unveiling of a statewide…