Humans First, Therapists Second: Therapy in Heavy World

Feb 4

I want you to hear this, your mental health isn’t separate from the world you live in. It’s not just about biology, therapy, or coping skills. It’s about the systems, relationships, and spaces you move through every day, your schools, workplaces, healthcare, politics, culture, and more. If you are feeling stressed, anxious, sad, or overwhelmed right now, that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. It makes sense. Living in environments that don’t always offer safety, equity, or belonging is exhausting, and your nervous system reacts accordingly. This is especially true for folks who experience marginalization. Research shows what many of us already know from lived experience:

LGBTQIA+ adults are 2–4 times more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and trauma-related conditions compared to heterosexual, cisgender peers (NAMI, 2023).
Autistic individuals who are LGBTQIA+ face even higher rates of distress and unmet healthcare needs compared to neurotypical, cisgender populations (Warrier et al., 2023).
People of color often have less access to culturally responsive care despite equal or greater need, and systemic discrimination adds an extra layer of stress (SAMHSA, 2022; APA, 2021).
About 1 in 6 children and teens in the U.S. has a diagnosable mental health condition, yet many don’t get the support they need, particularly kids of color or from marginalized communities (CDC, 2023).

These aren’t just numbers. They are patterns that remind us - distress is often a reasonable response to an unfair world, not a personal failing. When you come here, you don’t have to shrink, hide, or adjust yourself to fit the world’s expectations. You don’t have to leave your identity, your beliefs, or your feelings at the door. Our job is to meet you where you are. That may look like:

Recognizing how systems like racism, ableism, transphobia, authoritarian policies shape your experiences
Holding your emotions as valid and understandable in context
Seeing the ways you have survived and coped as adaptive, not broken
Centering your autonomy, identity, and lived experience

Therapy works best when your experiences are witnessed, not debated, when your reactions are understood, not pathologized, and when your humanity is at the center. Healing doesn’t mean ignoring the world. It means finding ways to move through it with clarity, community, and empathy. And we are here for that, every step of the way.

References

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). (2023). Mental Health Inequities Among LGBTQ+ Populations.

Warrier, V., et al. (2023). Elevated rates of mental health conditions among autistic LGBTQ+ adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. PubMed.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). (2022). Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Mental Health Care.

American Psychological Association (APA). (2021). Stress and Health Disparities: Contexts of Racism and Discrimination.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2023). Children’s Mental Health: Data and Statistics.