I Love Me Not No More
For years I have preached Jesus' two commandments, "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul mind and strength and the second one like it, love your neighbor as yourself". I preached that and meant it. It wasn't until I felt God pushing me out of the closet that I realized that I had also spent a lifetime of hating myself, because I was different and had to do all I could my whole life to not let anyone know who I really was.. different... queer.
In this self-hatred, I learned to live in shame and pain. I thought I had shoved it under the rug far enough that it would never some out, but it needed to come out.
Risk of suicide for queer people extends well into adulthood, researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found in a new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study is notable for its large sample as well as breaking down results by age and race, which is often overlooked in studies about LGBTQ health.
Using data for adults ages 18 to 64 in the U.S. the National Survey of Drug Use and Health from 2015 to 2019 – which had over 190,000 participants – the researchers were able to break down demographics not just by gender and sexual orientation, but also by race and age.
Examining the data about suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts to determine a level of suicide risk for different groups, the researchers found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults had between three and six times more risk for suicide than straight people, even when the data was adjusted for race, age, education, children, income, and other factors.
For queer men, 12% to 17% said that they had suicidal thoughts in the past year. Queer men were about four times more likely to say they had planned a suicide the past year compared to straight men, but that risk stayed the same across age groups.
But queer men ages 35 to 64 were at a much higher risk of attempting suicide compared to younger queer men.
For queer women, between 11% and 20%, depending on age and race, had suicidal thoughts in the previous year. Queer women were about four times as likely as straight women to say they planned or attempted a suicide in the past year. Their risk of suicide decreased somewhat with age.
I was reminded of the simple lovers game of holding a flower and going through the ritual melody of "she loves me, she loves me not... or for some, he loves me he loves me not". My thought for the book of learning to love self is more like "I love me, I love me not..." And so applying a purposeful double-negative of "I love me NOT NO more" (two negatives equal a positive) is an expression of no longer will 'I love me not'. I will learn to live a life of loving self, so that as I love my neighbor, I am actually coming from a place where I value love enough to practice it on myself first or better put, prating loving self, because I am worthy of love too.
I thought about suicide several times in my life. I don’t imagine I got very close, but i do have a tattoo on my left wrist to remind me that loving self is far more important than quitting life.
The tattoo I have on my left wrist is that of a semicolon followed by a heart beat and a heart. The semicolon represents the continuation of a story in a different direction rather than a person which is the end of a story. The semicolon symbol here is rather than suicide being the end of ones story, life can actually take a different turn and contain a new purpose to live. The heart beat represents life and living a life rather than a flatline, which is no life at all. And the heart represents learning to live a life of love of self - all of this after the semicolon or the change of life action.
If you ever have such thoughts, my number is in my website or Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 988 or Text GO to 741741 to reach a trained Crisis Counselor through Crisis Text Line, a global not-for-profit organization. Free, 24/7, confidential.