LGBTQ: Suicidal Thinking and Behaviors
In his book, Suicide in America, Herbert Hendin, MD (former Executive Director, American Suicide Foundation) offered this common-sense understanding: With all its sexual and social activity, the “gay life” provides no more than an alienated and isolated existence for many homosexuals. Continuity of relationships between two homosexuals is rare, although many homosexuals spend a lifetime seeking it. For those who do seek it, any relationship that offers that possibility is apt to be intensely over invested rather quickly. Since such relationships usually lack social or family support, rejection or disappointment signifies not merely abandonment but despair over the inability to escape emotional isolation. A report speculated: … more than one third of suicides in the total population were committed by homosexual men – figures that put them at least two to three times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. Researchers conclude, “Increased re...