“Your sexuality is already complicated enough. Don’t think about that. You’ll just confuse people.”

Last Saturday, October 10th was World Mental Health Day. This year’s theme was lived experiences heard: real voices, real change. This theme was chosen to amplify the voices of people with lived experiences and to emphasize that they should be consulted and listened to when creating policies, regulations, practices, and laws. So our Clinic Director, Alex, would like to share their lived experience.

It is the early 2010s; smartphones and Minecraft are gaining popularity, and Lady Gaga has just worn her meat dress on the red carpet. I was in high school and struggling with some mental health issues. I was really stressed about school and getting good grades. I’m in different classes from all my friends, people around me were using drugs, and I’m wondering if I should be doing that to fit in. They were also starting to use social media, and everyone seemed to be posting all the time, and I was wondering if I needed social media accounts. On top of that, my parents and I had never really ever gotten along well. 

So I talked to one of my teachers about this, and they said I could go once a week to the school social worker. This was a nice, middle-aged woman who really wanted to help with my worries, so she became my first therapist. At first, it was somewhat hard to talk to her. I didn’t know what to talk about, or how much to divulge, but it was a nice break from class. So I opened up about my academic and social worries. She was kind and helpful when she heard about my worries, which helped me feel comfortable.

And when I felt comfortable, I started to open up more, and I got more specific about the things I told my therapist, about how my parents and I weren’t getting along, and about how I was pretty sure I liked a girl. It seemed impossible for me to ever date a girl because gay marriage had been legalized in Canada for about 6 years, there was still a lot of social stigma, and people in my high school were bullied for being gay. Eventually, I came out to this therapist as bisexual, and she seemed receptive. 

After weekly sessions for about 2 months, I was feeling pretty comfortable, and I decided to tell the therapist about something else on my mind. I was wondering if I was really a girl. I didn’t feel like a girl. But before I got to tell the therapist about how I didn’t know what it meant to be a woman and how I was wondering if I was born in the right body, she said some simple words that affected me for years. “Your sexuality is already complicated enough. Don’t think about that. You’ll just confuse people.”

Initially, I was really surprised, and I quickly moved on to another topic. After I had some time to process, I was hurt, insecure, and scared. The overall message I got was: you can’t be yourself. That is part of my lived experience, and it continued to impact me for years. She probably said it as a misguided attempt to protect me. And in a way, she was right, sexuality and gender can be complicated, or they can be simple, but to dismiss my exploration was wrong and harmful. While she was trying to protect me or help me, she ended up hurting me. I was hurt, scared and insecure and not just for the next day or week after. I was cautious and behaved tentatively for years. I was already nervous about coming out to her, especially because there wasn’t a lot of societal acceptance, and she confirmed that I was right to be scared, which of course didn’t make me any less queer or non-binary; it just made me scared to talk about it. Time and time again, I’ve seen people trying to protect themselves or others, and they end up causing more harm than good. 

It would have been so immensely helpful if that social worker had said I don’t know what you mean; can you tell me more about that? Or apologized for what she said about my sexuality being complicated enough. If she had been brave enough to go there with me, to discuss my sexuality and gender with me, maybe I wouldn’t have had to spend those years scared, hurt and insecure.

When we shift from protecting ourselves and others, we can try to just be there and be curious. When we’re brave enough to be curious, we get to hear people’s lived experiences, and that’s a beautiful thing! That’s what this World Mental Health Day is all about: listening to people’s lived experiences and then incorporating what they’ve said into the decision we make. Understanding someone doesn’t require us to be experts about everyone’s identity; it is as simple as asking and listening.

Written by: Alex Zebeljan

Edited by: Radhika Dhaipule