Depression and suicidal behavior runs exceptionally high among the transgender population. It’s been many years since my last suicide attempt, and I still struggle to this day, as do countless others.
No one should feel so terrible that ending their life feels more desirable than having to endure another day of overwhelming, indescribable emotional pain and suffering.
We can improve things by creating awareness, discussing the realities of transgender suicide, and working together to ensure everyone gets the support and help they need.
Just letting someone know you’ll be there for them can literally save a life. You don’t need to have the answers. You only need to listen, and assist in finding helpful resources such as a support group, and/or therapist, etc.
Every life is precious!
Never underestimate the power you have to literally save a life, simply by being there and making yourself available. Reaching out to someone just to ask if they’re ok costs nothing, and can mean the difference between life and death.
Just one minute and done?
These short “Gabi Talks” videos are intended to inspire discussion, promote community involvement, entertain (depending on topic), and help people feel better informed for having participated in the conversation. Keeping the videos to about a minute or less greatly improves the potential for viewers to watch the video in the first place, and see it through to the end. According to YouTube metrics (for my videos longer than 1-minute), most of the audience has stopped watching after first 20-30 seconds. So, it doesn’t matter if anything good was packed into the video beyond that point if people aren’t sticking around. Viewers tend not to join the discussion if they didn’t make it through the video to begin with (not including those who chime in with a snap judgement based wholly on the title or thumbnail, that doesn’t add to the conversation in any meaningful way, because welcome to the internet).
Why the silly cat filter on such a serious topic?
As with all of my other cat-filter-laced short videos to date, this comes from the same source, recorded the same day back in February, 2018. It was originally an hour and a half Facebook Live video called “Gabbin’ with Gabi on a Friday Night” in which I interacted with viewers live, riffing on whatever topics came up. My intent was to get a group discussion going about more serious topics, but things kind of went all over the place, including having fun with some of the video filters available. I just happened to stick with the cat filter for about 2/3 of the live video stream, during which time both silly and serious topics were discussed.
Regardless of the silly cat filter, I felt the clips of discussion used in this short video were still worthy of sharing in the hope of raising awareness and inspiring important discussions that may literally be life-saving. So yeah – it’s a very serious topic, and I have a silly cat filter applied (that I lack the technical skills to remove post-production), and so I’m hoping people continue to find value in the meaning of the video, and not get caught up in appearances. There’s WAY too much judgement and drama about appearances already. Let’s focus on the topic and do what we can to reduce the pain, suffering, and isolation so many transgender people deal with day to day.
Namaste
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Gabi Talks – Transgender Suicide (60-second video)#Depression and #suicidal behaviors run exceptionally high among the…
Posted by Gabrielle Hermosa on Saturday, July 7, 2018