Safe Spaces

LGBTQIA+ People and their community experience as diverse a range of life challenges, complications, challenges to personal development and growth as the next person. Anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, sex and intimacy, stress, grief and bereavement. We also understand that being part of this community has its own particular set of challenges. Minority stress, discrimination, coming out, risks to acceptance/belonging, self-worth and esteem, high risks of substance abuse vulnerability, sexually acting out and compulsive behaviour, as well as all kinds of challenges to personal development, growth, thriving and flourishing. Safe spaces, gender identity recognition and supports for Transgender people are particularly important given current concerted global efforts to limit, reverse or reject freedoms of information, safety, rights and supports to the Transgender community.

These experiences, which are particular to LGBTQIA+ people and their community, are in addition to the daily grind of life. That is why I feel it is important as a person offering support to this community, my community, that I am visible and out as a gay man. It does not mean I understand every aspect of what it is to be LGBTQIA+, it does not mean that I am an expert on your life, an expert of your experiences. Conversely, it is not imperative that an LGBTQIA+ person attends an LGBTQIA+ counsellor or psychotherapist. It is a choice. My aim is to provide a safe space of collaborative exploration, mutual respect and transparency. Hiding parts of ourselves is something we learned, we had to do to survive being different. I hope to create a space with you that negates the need to hide so that you feel safe, welcome and able to talk through every aspect of your unique, personal and private experience.

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The paragraphs below are a 'work in progress' - a bit like we all are. Continuously developing, changing and growing...more to come on Coming Out, Counselling for the LGBT Community, Families & Friends, Identity, LGBT Isolation, Depression, Anxiety Stress. LGBT Relationship Counselling, Bereavement, Sex & Sexuality, Addictions, Internet & Porn and Social Media Apps & Sex. 

Am I Gay?

More people than you think ask themselves this question at some point in their lives. Something slips into your awareness that you hadn't noticed before. A noticing of something different about you. At 8 years of age, at 16, at 50 - maybe even as early as you can remember. Realising your sexual preferences (that is, who you are attracted too) is one part of the complex process in the development of your sexual identity - or in other words - it is part of growing up. It doesn't happen overnight. At first you might notice something different about you; that you are different to the other boys and girls. Later as your body begins to sexually develop you might notice other differences, things like being drawn to another boy in your class, or that your heart races when she choses to sit beside you at lunchtime. Little indicators that can cause great shifts in who you are and how you feel about yourself.

The RoadMap to You

Are you curious to ask yourself - who am I? Curiosity can be experienced with fear and doubt. The unknown is often experienced like this, if you think about it. We assume that the unknown is filled with potentially negative outcomes and possibilities (what if I admit that I am gay, what if I come out, what will people think of me, will my family accept me?) because we don't have the answers. The unknown is scary.

Imagine being lost in a new city; you are capable of finding your way around but being lost feels scary and uncomfortable; you feel vulnerable. So what do you do? You get a map to inform yourself, you take time out to figure out where you are, you try one direction and end up doubling back to where you started, you try again and begin to get a sense of the place, it begins to feel familiar, less unknown and maybe you will ask for help before finally, after trial and error you arrive and you know exactly where you are. 

Possibly the most difficult part of realising and growing into your sexual identity is the potential feeling of isolation that comes from trying to figure this all out. What does it mean if I like guys? Am I wrong to want to be with a woman? Why do I feel this way? Does anyone else feel like this? Can anyone see what I am going through? Will they hate me if they figure me out?

Undercover

So we hide what we are feeling. Thoughts and uncomfortable emotions are pushed to the back of our minds. Covering it up. Trying not to feel the shame, the fear, at times the disgust that comes from thoughts we can't control. Thoughts that we have been told are unnatural, sinful and wrong. Even in the context of a modern, multi-cultural, multi-religious, democratic society that is Ireland today, many young people who are growing into their individual identity experience their differences and preferences as wrong, socially unaccepted, immoral and rejected. Not everyone experiences this, but many do.