Gay people are turning to strangers on Grindr for mental health support instead of doctors

[iamziz]

Gay people are turning to strangers on Grindr for mental health support instead of doctors

 

 

As a decline in mental health funding takes its toll on LGBT+ people, some members of the community are turning to anonymous strangers online for help.

In January, the independent charity The King’s Fund found that “since 2012/13, funding for mental health trusts has increased by just 5.6 percent compared to an increase of 16.8 percent for acute hospitals.”


There is a lack of prioritisation for mental health services across the UK and funding is not increasing at the same rate as it is for other kinds of care.

Compounding this, the London Assembly reported last year that “around 40 percent of LGBT+ people experience a mental health issue, compared to 25 percent of the wider population.”

The lack of prioritisation in mental health funding is likely to have an unfair impact on LGBT+ people across the UK, perhaps leading to them seeking help in more clandestine ways online.

 

The hit movie Love, Simon recently showed us the power of online anonymity in the LGBT+ community but this potential extends beyond dating and into mental health support.

I launched a research project called “Finding Simon” in order to document not only my story but the story of hundreds of other anonymous strangers and their struggle to speak about their mental health.

The interview process so far has taken place through Grindr, anonymous chat rooms and even Reddit. Everyone interviewed maintains their anonymity throughout and the project has thrown up some harrowing truths about the state of LGBT+ mental healthcare.

 

Finding Simon
When I was 16 I began to struggle with depression without realising it. The toxic masculinity I grew up with meant that I had repressed a lot of the emotional fluency I needed to speak about my feelings.

 

I remember when my grandad died I was about to go into a screening of Les Miserables. I got the news over the phone from my mum and I stoically went in and watched the film.

I was overwhelmed with grief, but I didn’t have to tools I needed to understand the complexity of my emotion and my only instinct was to try and instantly hide it. I still struggle to watch the film to this day.

 

Instead of speaking, I began to type out my feelings to a near-anonymous stranger I met in a chat room called Simon. It was one of the most emotionally intimate friendships of my life even though I didn’t know much more than his name. Over five years, I never met Simon but he was the only person I learned to speak to as the anonymity protected me from the stigma of my depression.

After five years, I found myself bleaching my undergraduate kitchen at 6am in the morning, having been there for about eight hours. At the click of a button I severed all ties with Simon. If that crutch wasn’t there it would force me to get professional help, I thought.

 

He probably saved my life, but also prolonged my reluctance to get professional help because this online world was just enough to keep me going without giving me a proper support strategy. Those fleeting moments of connection with Simon were comforting but as I returned back to reality, I could feel the craving for the next time I would be able to return to my anonymous digital world.

 

Professionals
One anonymous man on Grindr tells me, “I feel like when I’m anonymous, or online, I can be myself more. I also have anxiety, so I worry about what people think of me and how they see me.”

This man openly uses Grindr as a platform for being honest about his mental health and sexuality, where stigma doesn’t allow him to talk about them in reality. It is common for isolated young LGBT+ people to find their community online when they don’t find it in their immediate vicinity and maybe this is where our dependance on the online world begins.

 

“I feel I am not living as my true self,” he tells me. “I am unhappy with both my real and anonymous self.”

 

One of the messages I received. (Grindr)

He is unable to express himself in reality and although the anonymity offers him temporary expression, he doesn’t find lasting solace there either. “It’s partly because of my career. I look after people, so I don’t want the stigma,” he says.

 

Incidentally, the man works in healthcare, but finds that he cannot access help within the very system he works in.

 

If mental health professionals are slowly being replaced by Grindr, there are two options. We can either ensure mental health funding is prioritised, or we need to see online platforms like Grindr and Twitter take responsibility for their users’ mental health.

 

Beyond the Binary
In the commodity culture of the 21st century, the immediacy of online connections can sometimes prove essential.

 

In an anonymous website submission, a trans man tells me, “I deal with anxiety, depression, and borderline personality disorder, all of which have been strained through my identity crisis / gender dysphoria. It was through using Tumblr and Twitter as a young teen where I discovered that habits and behaviours of mine were not commonplace, but were not just ‘me’ things.”

 

Source: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/08/18/gay-lgbt-mental-health-grindr-therapy-anonymous/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Buffer&utm_campaign=PN

 

 

[Guest fazzy794]

This is just alarming. On the bright side, people are trusting strangers now. There must be love amongst us.

[lonelyglobe]

Wrong, apps like Grindr are properly going to give u more mental problems than offering a solution.

[Guest Blank]

Because they have no bf or friends to speak to

 

At the same time to use the app as a hook up 

[Guest Anonymouse]

One anonymous man on Grindr tells me, “I feel like when I’m anonymous, or online, I can be myself more. I also have anxiety, so I worry about what people think of me and how they see me.”

 

Actually, even the straight world is like that too. That's why you have men having kinky sex of all types with women and got found out.

 

It doesn't have to be Grindr, it only has to be anonymous. We all know that LOL, how we and our gay friends get kinky and slutty when there's no one we know who report it to our acquaintances. That's why some people would never visit our local saunas but go hog wild in overseas saunas. Then they can declare that they never visit saunas and never got found out, hopefully.

 

It's so common that we all take it for granted, don't ask don't tell even amongst gay friends.

[Kimochi]

We hold it on much until we have to explode. And by this grinder application its easier to chat and share information, so why not? 

 

And if you have group chats offering such same category it will be same too just like BW topics. But as usual, many father fuckers just like in a normal world, good and ill behaviored people. 

[Guest Hahahaha]

You must be kidding me... Grindr is the place where mental problem gets worse than better. Lolll. Catfish... Hi intro seek... Is it cos I'm (insert discriminatory words)... Loll

[Kimochi]

32 minutes ago, Guest Hahahaha said:

You must be kidding me... Grindr is the place where mental problem gets worse than better. Lolll. Catfish... Hi intro seek... Is it cos I'm (insert discriminatory words)... Loll

Everywhere you get all sorts of people. So its just your luck and what you are looking for. Yes you get father fuckers and good people too. Its just like here. Its who we want ourselves to be. And its also the ratio of father fuckers to well mannered.  We all play a part. 

[Steve5380]

We should feel blessed by having the internet.  If gays turn to Grindr for mental health support instead of doctors,  it is still better than NOT having anywhere to turn instead of doctors. 

Doctors for mental health?  Perhaps...  but it's not an exact science.  I remember much bullshit in the psychiatry of the past!  (lobotomies?  )

[Discrete2020]

Not everyone has the resources to seek the services of a professional (and sympathetic) therapist...

 

The next best thing could be something like this book: The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World

 

"[California-based clinical psychologist Alan] Downs coined the phrase to refer to a very specific anger he encountered in his gay patients – whether it was manifested in drug abuse, promiscuity or alcoholism – and whose roots, the book argues, are found in childhood shame and parental rejection. “Velvet rage is the deep and abiding anger that results from growing up in an environment when I learn that who I am as a gay person is unacceptable, perhaps even unlovable,” he explains. “This anger pushes me at times to overcompensate and try to earn love and acceptance by being more, better, beautiful, more sexy – in short, to become something I believe will make me more acceptable and loved.”

 

[...]

 

Downs’s argument is that feelings of worthlessness can be created in childhood quite unintentionally, and these lead gay adults to search for an unachievable perfection. “We have created a gay culture that is, in most senses, unlivable. The expectation is that you have the beautiful body, that you have lots of money, that you have a beautiful boyfriend with whom you have wonderful, toe-curling sex every night… none of us have that. To try to achieve that really makes us miserable. The next phase of gay history, I believe, is for us to come to terms with creating a culture that is livable and comfortable.”

 

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/feb/20/gay-men-depression-the-velvet-rage