Those who felt disconnected from the LGBTQ community during Donald Trump's presidency were more likely to experience negative mental health outcomes compared to those who had an average level of connection to the community. In an unexpected finding, those who felt very close to the LGBTQ community were also more likely to experience negative mental health outcomes compared to those with average level of connectedness. ...
  • socialjusticewizard@sh.itjust.works
    71·
    1 year ago

    I’m puzzled what’s surprising about this.

    I’m not LGBT, or American, but seeing people online suddenly talk openly with a great deal more vitriol and hatred about my friends, and even my child, caused me a fair bit of stress.

  • SJ_Zero@lemmy.fbxl.netEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I think this makes some sense intuitively, in two ways.

    Forget Trump for the minute. He’s an idiot. Just like the establishment news outlets that fastidiously pored over every tweet, he’s a dying relic of a long gone age desperately performing to try to keep relevance, and they’ll both be dead soon.

    Let’s just think about social dynamics for a second.

    Someone who is completely disconnected from people like them? Yeah, they can have negative mental health outcomes.

    Then you have a bit of a connection, and that’s good! You feel better, you’re around people like you, talking about stuff you care about, you have some connections and you also can keep some toxic people at arms length.

    Then you have too much of a connection, and it’s worse than nothing! Yeah, there’s people like you, but you’re constantly around the most toxic people, and you don’t have the space to keep them at arms length.

    I’ve experienced this myself. I was all alone once, and it was killing me, and then I made some friends, and it was much better, but then I didn’t have the skill set to manage my relationships, so I started getting taken advantage of by toxic people in that group. It wasn’t until I learned to stick up for myself and select who I wanted around me that were worth spending time with, and that’s when I was finally good long-term.

    Also, related to the first thing, if you’re deeply into an inherently political community like that, it becomes really easy to get blinders on. The world has an unlimited amount of news, and our brains are wired to pay attention to bad news because in the world there’s lots of things that can harm us so ignoring bad things is a good way to die in the wild. In the connected world, you can end up in a feedback loop where you see bad news and share, and your community members each share bad news, and suddenly all you’re ever seeing is bad news. That’s where having some autonomy and not being too close to a community like that can be a benefit, because sometimes you just need to go out for a walk, get some fresh air, see the flowers blooming in the trees, and realize that the world isn’t papered over in bad news like it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking it is.