In the Spectrum

Imagine if wearing makeup put your life in danger. Or what if using a public bathroom, or the simple act of holding your significant other’s hand, made you the target of verbal and physical abuse?

 Those in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community endure this on a daily basis, and studies have shown it takes a serious toll on their mental health.

 Although the nation’s view on such issues as gay marriage has shifted drastically in the past decade, clearing the way for many people to be more open about their lifestyles, a paradox still exists when it comes to sexual orientation and disorders such as depression and anxiety.

 According to the 2016 Annual Review of Clinical Psychology (ARCP), these maladies are up to twice as likely to appear in the LGBT community than among heterosexuals.

 In response to this, counseling and therapy centers specific to the needs of LGBT individuals exist in many major cities, including Chicago. The Center on Halsted and InstraSpectrum Counseling are two of the city’s most prominent LGBT psychotherapy practices, characterized by regular personal interactions between client and therapist. Dr. Ian Bonner, the executive director of IntraSpectrum, believes the work done by counseling centers like these is invaluable to the community.

 “For a big chunk of the people who come here, this isn’t the first place they’ve tried to have psychotherapy,” Bonner said. “People have had bad experiences elsewhere. Some have had perfectly good, well-meaning therapists who were trying to be supportive and affirming, but didn’t have either the lived experience or professional experience…to really relate to some important things.”

 IntraSpectrum, in the Andersonville neighborhood, has a staff of LGBT therapists who are paired with LGBT clients based on the clients’ preferences, needs and availability. Troy Gibson specializes in helping clients of color and also thinks LGBT folks need therapists who can relate to them on a personal level.

 “I think it’s necessary to have safe spaces for the [LGBT] community, especially regarding mental health, because mental health is already stigmatized,” Gibson said. “I think it’s necessary to have spaces like [IntraSpectrum] to normalize the clients’ experiences and find a community that supports them, that they might not be able to find elsewhere.”

 There are several factors that contribute to poor mental health in the LGBT community. One is the general discrimination still present in much of American society, even if it’s not as overt as it used to be. This contributes to “minority stress,” which Bonner believes is especially harmful.

 “Minority stress is the very real lived experience of life being harder” because of your identity, Bonner said. “That stress aggregates and causes mental, emotional and physical symptoms over time. Some people have grown up or lived in such a state of minority stress for so long that they don’t even know it’s there. They don’t know they’re stressed out all the time because they’ve never felt any different.”

Studies show discrimination is still rampant in American society. Fifty percent of gay men surveyed reported experiencing some form of discrimination in the past year, and 24 percent of bisexual men said the same, according to a report published in 2014 in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. Gay and bisexual women were treated similarly — 54 percent of lesbians reported discrimination in the past year, as well as 17 percent of bisexual women.

Another reason for high levels of mental illness within this group is the lack of support they receive from their loved ones. The ACRP reported that many LGBT youth are hesitant to come out to their parents and friends for fear of rejection, and Gibson said he’s witnessed this first hand.

 “There’s fear related to [LGBT] identities, because society unfortunately doesn’t accept LGBT identities,” Gibson said. “There’s a lot of fear about…rejection, fear of prejudice, fear of [job] termination. I think that definitely contributes to higher anxiety, higher suicidal ideation and higher depressive symptoms.”

 These fears are warranted. Rejection by parents can and does lead to homelessness for LGBT youth. Forty percent of the population served by homeless shelters and “drop-in” centers in the U.S. identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, according to a 2012 survey by the Williams Institute. A 2009 study published in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology also found that youth who experience rejection or discrimination from loved ones are eight times more likely to have suicidal thoughts, six times more likely to be depressed and three times more likely to cope using illegal drugs than their straight counterparts.

 Some have asked, are there mental illnesses unique to the LGBT community? Not necessarily, according to Bonner and Gibson. However, there are stressors LGBT individuals face that heterosexual people do not.

 “One thing that’s unique to LGBT populations specifically, even from other minority populations, is that it’s an identity that’s still stigmatized and not shared by your family or your immediate friends,” Bonner said. “So relational issues – dating, friendships, even parent-child relationships – are particularly different. Sure, there’s straight people who have bad relationships with their family, but disproportionately… [LGBT people are reminded that] trust and unconditional love are not givens – these are things that can be revoked.”

 Luckily, there are ways to reduce the amount of prejudice society shows toward the LGBT community. Perhaps the best way is community outreach, which is an emphasis at IntraSpectrum.

 “Going out into a community where people may not know that we exist or may not know where to get these [mental health] resources, gives them access to things they may have never seen before,” he said.

 Outreach also serves to educate people about subjects they may be willfully or unintentionally ignorant about.

 “Andersonville is a wonderful little bubble of a neighborhood, but there’s just so much that people don’t know or don’t have access to,” Bonner said. “If anyone’s interested in better care for anyone that they work with who might be LGBT…maybe we’re not going to see those people as clients, but maybe we can make change in the community to spread knowledge and tolerance.”

The Journalist Dilemma

Armando Sanchez while calmly sipping coffee in a cozy café can describe the smell of burned flesh in the air after a house fire. During his job as a reporter and photographer for the Chicago Tribune, those are the kinds of tragedies he has to cover every week.

“I wouldn’t say it’s run-of-the-mill, but there are some things you get sort of used to,” he said.

Sanchez, 30, has seen the worst of Chicago’s violence over the course of his career. He’s photographed shootings, waded through blood-soaked crime scenes and seen families grieve in the streets for lost loved ones. This can be mentally grueling at times, he said, and he isn’t the only journalist who has to contend with stress caused by the job. In a 2006 study, it was discovered that journalists such as Sanchez who are exposed to “traumatic situations” during their work have a higher than average risk of developing mental illnesses such as anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 

There are also late nights, early mornings and demanding deadlines Sanchez has to contend with every week, but it’s worth it to him. Photojournalism has been a dream job of his since he was a high schooler in Austin, Texas.

“My mom told me, ‘Your sister’s really good at this. Maybe you should get into [photojournalism],’” Sanchez said. “I wasn’t really sure about it. I played golf and was a theater tech. And then one day, when I was a junior, I decided to try it. I went in head-first and absolutely loved it.” 

After interning at the Chicago Tribune in 2012 and graduating from Western Kentucky University soon after, he freelanced in Chicago until he heard about a residency opening at the Tribune. He applied and got hired, and has been there ever since.

Sanchez also photographs sporting events and takes scenic shots of the city, but the more gruesome stories he covers sometimes leave a lasting mental impact.

“There are a lot of moments I remember every day,” Sanchez said. 

During the course of his work for the Tribune, Sanchez has tried to avoid building up “emotional callouses” — while he wants to separate himself emotionally from the graphic stories he covers, he strives to do so without becoming cold and stoic. According to him, self-care is especially important.

“At some point, you have to take care of yourself a little bit,” Sanchez said. “I make it a point to have a routine that I stick to that makes me feel physically and mentally healthy. Whether that’s doing something just for me, or going for a run, or talking about it with other people. If you keep something in, eventually your psyche builds up and you might not realize it … You have to find a way to let the valve release.”

Sanchez said he attended therapy for a few years to alleviate stress when he first started his career as a photojournalist. Even though it wasn’t necessarily linked to his job, it has helped him cope.

“I think that kind of helped train me better than most [of my colleagues] to be able to handle my emotions and stay calm,” Sanchez said. “When you’re in these moments where people are upset and there’s really gruesome things happening, that can be hard.”

Sanchez has colleagues who are affected by their work, as well. He said the Tribune is very understanding of the mental stress some of its reporters can be under when covering particularly unpleasant stories, and he knows he has a support network around him in the newsroom to get him through the worst days.

“I think mental health is important in journalism, or in any other field that can be stressful,” Sanchez said. “[The Tribune] is a really supportive place. A company can only help you so much, though — it’s really about the reporters around you … I feel like I can walk up to any one of the photographers I work with … and they’d be more than happy to be supportive of me and listen.”

The one photograph Sanchez said he thinks about most often is an image of a white woman comforting the distraught son of a murdered black woman after a shooting in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. He took the photo while he was working a 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift for the Tribune, and he said it has impacted him more than any other photo he’s taken.

“The guy was so upset … he ended up just passed out in front of someone’s house, just crying,” Sanchez said. “And this woman came over … and she bent over and was trying to show him compassion. I wanted to capture it because … I don’t think it’s what people imagine when they imagine Chicago gun violence. It’s about the community and the people who are there … it’s about humanity.”

Sanchez said, he loves his work and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. 

“I knew [when I started] it was going to be the kind of challenging work that I wanted to do, versus the kind of work that just pays the bills,” he said.