OC Pride #FBF

This past June, I went to OC Pride with my group practice. We set up a booth to give away free goodies and see if people were interested or looking for a therapy resource to market ourselves. First off, it’s nice to see so many people attend and be able to express themselves. I saw people wearing cosplay, fashionable colorful clothes, drag and other wonderful things to express themselves.

I noticed  a lot of people who came to the booth and a lot of them really enjoyed therapy-related things and were interested in mental health. There were even people interested in resources for themselves or even loved ones who needed an LGBTQ+ space for mental health and the importance it is. I’m happy that a lot of the community were very for mental health awareness and seeing the merit of having a space to navigate themselves and looking towards support for mental health.

Overall I think it was a great experience and it made me wonder how I can reach out to help our community outside of pride for mental health. I’m thinking I’m a bit more inspired and even thinking of how I can even cater to other spaces and revamping my API LGBTQ+ space and bringing more awareness to that.

Pride really reminds me of how much of a community we are but also how important it is to also make spaces for different spaces in our community who need specific resources and who want more representation. As a mental health clinician or other people in the field I really encourage other LGBTQ+ BIPOC and other minority LGBTQ+ clinicians and professionals to help create spaces for others within the community to be seen and be able to connect with others. There is so much diversity within the community and I think it's great to acknowledge individuality and create more community.