It is a sad fact that a lot of the teenagers get depressive when identifying themselves as gays and more often than not, their suffering is ignored by those around them. Several years ago depression was not even considered a real affection and patients were not able to receive medical treatment. Now we know how it works and how to treat it, but it is still a big issue for a lot of people. Especially when talking about LGBT members, it has been noticed that many of the teenagers, in fact the large majority of them, have inferiority complexes and they constantly tend to comply to the norm.
This will make a teenage boy who will manifest gay tendencies, to feel less of a man than other heterosexual boys around him. This is because society promotes the ideal masculinity that consists in the figure of an authoritarian and strong man, both physical and mentally. The type of leader that smells like testosterone and everybody dreams of becoming. This image is especially endorsed through stars, singers, actors and so on, that a teenager ends taking as role models. It will come as a shock the fact that they will find themselves unable to manifest the same behavior and their mental state will quickly degenerate. Aside from this, they are forced to go through school bullying and a 2009 survey identified that the large majority of the gay teenagers face harsh situations in school. It appears that:
- 8 out of 10 teenagers had been verbally abused
- 4 out of 10 had been physically abused
- 2 out of 10 had been physically assaulted
- 6 out of 10 constantly feel unsafe at school
The consequences are pretty serious in many cases, and another study determined that about 10.4% of homosexuals experience depression, while heterosexuals only meet 7%. These numbers are also confirmed by the analysis of the impact of these affections on the life of the individual. It has been found out that:
- homosexuals use as much as 3 times more illegal drugs than their heterosexual counterparts.
- they are 3 times more likely to engage in unprotected sex
- 6 times more likely to become depressive at young ages
- 8 times more likely to go through suicide attempts.
The major problem here, though is the fact that when analyzing these teenager’s personal lives it has been discovered that, aside from being bullied at school and it the society, they fail to receive the proper support in their family. Psychologists declared that provided they would have received familial support, their self confidence would have been at higher values and they would have been less susceptible to depressive behaviors. The conclusion is simple – depression in gay teenagers is a mere product of the society we live in and the obvious solution to that is to educate people.
But everything is done in small steps and before you can educate those around you, you first need to educate yourself. So pay more attention to your child and his needs and explain him the various aspects of the sexual identity. Your support will help him get through the difficult moments of the puberty and will raise his self confidence, while also keeping him away for any potential depressive outcome.
