Suicide
Affirmation Venezuela held its first quarterly film forum. The aim of his activity is to raise awareness of, educate, and discuss different issues that concern our community that as reflected by popular films. On this occasion, the film selected was by renowned American director and writer, Joel Edgerton, titled Boy Erased.
20 years ago, that was a day of such loss, there are no words to describe it. We hear about the total numbers. And total numbers continue since then. This many killed and injured in this shooting, this battle, this riot, this war, this pandemic, this school, this hospital, this famine. There are so many, I can’t comprehend it.
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.
I am a gay, pioneer veteran that respects my Mormon beliefs but I take it from the pure love of Christ, not from what someone says from a pulpit. It is our actions that state who we are, not our words.
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.
Affirmation President Nathan Kitchen and Senior Vice president Laurie Lee Hall discuss with Mormon Mental Health Podcast host Natasha Helfer Parker the impact of the reversal of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Day Saint’s November 2015 policy on gay families in the church on the LGBTQ Mormon community.
The sixty-year war the Mormon Church has waged on the LGBT+ community has cost people their lives. And even those of us who are survivors have suffered tremendously.
To those in our LGBTQ community: we see you. You are worthy. You are loved. You know who you are and we validate you!
Thanks to a $25,000 grant from the LDS Foundation, QPR Institute training on suicide prevention will be provided to Affirmation leaders and at Affirmation conferences worldwide. Affirmation will also make training on trauma and suicide prevention available online at no cost.