skit: Trauma

I've been thinking about pain and how it manifest itself. Specifically in the LGBT community. I've been wondering if the oppression has lead to mass depression and other mental health issue that seem more prevalent in the queer community than in the normal populous. I have wanted to do research on this for some time and it is a subject of great interest to me despite it not being in my field of study at all. I wonder if other queer people fantasize about cutting themselves even though they know its wrong. I wonder if it is an abnormal amount of people like it seems to be. Or if my life just attracts sadness? I keep finding that the more queer people  I find the more "damaged" people I have in my life. We are like super hero's with tragic back stories each one of us minus the cool powers or money. I've been wondering if our drug problem isn't a drug problem its just a way to numb ourselves of the pain. I don't think we are alcoholics either. I think we are self medicating for hurt that is to complicated for words. A hurt that is easier to drink than it is to say. Rejection, self hatred, religious persecution, bullying, violence, lack of government protection, lack of rights, discrimination, oppression and etc turned in to drinking, partying, drugs, casual sex, mental health issues, eating disorders, self mutilation, and perpetuating hatred within the community. I think we just choose bad coping mechanisms.  We took actions that were already part of our culture and made them part of our self care process. It took something bad that we did in moderation and exacerbated it to the point of a community nightmare. That nightmare continued to grow and then started creating problems of its own. The AIDS epidemic for one. More recently our terrible hook up culture where it seems we all forgot how to love. Our high suicide rates. Our high overdose rates. Why are we hurting ourselves more? It is like we are rapidly bleeding out and nobody is trying to see were all the blood is coming from. Instead we numb ourselves to the pain, which will make pain harder to find and stop. Why isn't anyone trying to figure out where the pain is coming from? I want to be able to point to something and say yes that is where it hurts. If we can figure out where it hurts maybe we can find out why we are hurting in the first place and fix that. Instead of trying to stop drinking or doing drugs lets take away the need for it. Can we let ourselves bleed for one second? We first must rip the band-aid off to begin to actually deal with the trauma.