This is the time of year to reflect on health with September Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, October both LGBT History Month and National Bullying Prevention Month, and with World Mental Health Day Oct. 10, Coming Out Day Oct. 11, Mental Health Awareness Week Oct. 2-8, Oct. 6 as National Depression Screening Day, and Oct. 15 as National Latino AIDS Awareness Day.
As LGBT people, we need support services especially in our youth. Many LGBT community members use support services throughout their professional lives and into retirement due to employment discrimination, marginalization and humiliation at work and the impact of such discrimination on our relationships. Support mental health services are especially important if one has other health issues, such as HIV or cancer.
In my personal situation, I considered suicide and homicide after my explosive encounter with Sen. Jesse Helms in July 1994. Fortunately, I got help through my church, my health care provider and through support groups at the Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C.
My high profile C-SPAN broadcast gay bashing by Sen. Jesse Helms in July 1994 had several immediate negative personal and career effects. My car was vandalized with a broken window and obscene graffiti. I received late night telephone calls. Some of the calls were hang- ups; others were death threats. I got nasty notes left on my desk at work and nastier anonymous letters in the mail.
As a result my sleep suffered and fatigue and stress developed. I had bouts of shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting spells, headaches, rapid heart rate, and, finally, panic attacks. My physician referred me to a psychologist who, after several sessions, diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder. I wanted to kill myself and I wanted to attack Helms in his Senate office.
The source of the disorder was not just Helms but the tactics he had used to obtain my government personnel folder, medical files and tax filings. The anonymous notes and calls I received made mention of personal information. I was correct in assuming this information would be publicized and used to professionally penalize me at work. It was a hugely stressful period for me that resulted in a failed suicide attempt on the floor of my shower at my apartment.
I used a combination of several therapies to combat the anxiety that disabled me and entangled my mind in a complex web of stress. I used meditation. I tried yoga. I practiced breathing techniques. I sat in countless hours of stress therapy with professionals in Washington, D.C., New York and San Francisco. I came to an understanding of how my negative experience with Jesse Helms had affected my life and my thinking. I had to learn to train my mind to deal with the past stressful experience and with future such experiences.
Eventually, I read books about writing as a way to relieve and manage stress and stressful situations. I sat with computer and began to write about anxiety, stress, my emotions and my relationships. I identified situations that led to stress and prepared myself mentally for when I encountered them.
For me these situations were places and individuals, especially vicious individuals who said coldhearted and insensitive things about LGBT people and tactics they would use to make them work harder than others and demoralizing things they could say to LGBT employees to instill a sense of inferiority and servitude. I encountered such extreme personality types in workplaces, professional and social settings. I had to develop strategies to effectively deal with these people and my emotions without losing myself in an anxiety state of mental entanglement that could result in panic attack and collapse.
Time did not heal the stress disorder I encountered from Jesse Helms attempting to take my career and livelihood from me. The idea still deeply distresses me. Additionally, I am distressed by the thought someone else might try to do the same thing, though more subtly than the blatantly discriminatory attempt by Jesse Helms documented for eternity in the pages of The Congressional Record.
I found a strong support base of friends, writers and colleagues helpful in overcoming the anxiety that virtually paralyzed me for a period of time. Most helpful for me though are the hours spent at computer and in conversations and speeches with others who were targets of discriminatory employment tactics and cruel workplace treatment that caused them to consider taking their own lives or the lives of others.
If you are in the situation I encountered, please know there is treatment for anxiety and depression. You can recover and have a productive and meaningful career even after a Jesse Helms-style career disaster like I had. What you and your loved ones can never recover from is suicide. That choice leaves loved ones hurting for a lifetime. Write away the anxiety. Write away the anger. Write a different and more successful outcome for your life.
Jim Patterson is a Washington, D.C.-based writer and speaker. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Foreign Service Journal, The Advocate.com, and he is a contributor at TheHill.com He plays a reporter in the award-winning 2015 film “Selma.” JEPCapitolHill@gmail.com
