Coping with the stress of providing mental health-related informal support to peers in an LGBTQ context

Abstract

Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender diverse, or queer-identifying (LGBTQ) people provide informal support to peers experiencing mental ill health. This reflects both the high prevalence of mental ill health in their communities – often a product of discrimination – and barriers to accessing formal services. In this article, we explore how LGBTQ people who help peers with their mental health seek to cope with the stress of providing such support. Drawing on interviews with 25 LGBTQ people in Melbourne, Australia, we consider how community members being ‘leant on’ engage in self-care practices and seek help from their communities to cope with the stress of their support roles. We demonstrate that participants’ ways of coping, even when similar, can vary in effectiveness and often come with limitations. Thus, we conclude that LGBTQ people providing informal support to peers should be better assisted to do so, in ways that acknowledge the diversity of support provided in LGBTQ communities.

Keywords:

• LGBTQ mental health
• LGBTQ health and wellbeing
• coping
• stress
• informal support
• informal mental health support
• peer support

Acknowledgements

We thank the LGBTQ community members who generously participated in this study for sharing their lived experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

We thank North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network for funding this research and members of the study’s community advisory board for their valuable input.