Coming out, for the lesbian, can
be a time of intense stress and anxiety. Once the decision is made and
action taken, quality of life seems to increase. Several studies point
to higher self esteem, higher levels on happiness scales and greater
social support than their heterosexuals report. Making the decision to
come out is difficult for some, and for others, not so much. The key
seems to be plugging into a supportive community where authenticity is
supported and valued.
The more widely a woman disclosed
her sexual orientation the less anxiety, more positive affectivity, and
greater self-esteem was reported in recent research. Degree of
disclosure to family, gay and lesbian friends, straight friends, and
co-workers was related to overall level of social support in a recent
study, with those who more widely disclosed reporting greater levels of
support. Participants who more widely disclosed their sexual orientation
were less likely to engage in anonymous socializing, had a larger
percentage of lesbian friends, and were more involved in the gay and
lesbian community.
A study found lesbians reported
equally strong levels of mental health as their heterosexual sisters and
higher self-esteem. While it’s not clear why lesbians displayed higher
self-esteem, the authors speculate it may be that lesbians are more
educated and mobile than their heterosexual sisters. As a consequence,
the lesbian sisters may be more likely to join supportive communities
that allow them to bolster their self-worth, the authors hypothesize.
Another study reported in the January 2001 American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
(Vol. 71, No. 1), tested a structural equation model related to
“outness” on 2,401 lesbian and bisexual women. In this work, researchers
found that the more “out” lesbians and bisexual women were–as measured
by self-identification as a gay or lesbian, number of years out and
level of involvement in the lesbian or bisexual community–the less
psychological distress they reported. These findings held true for a
range of racial and ethnic subsamples including African-American, white
European, Latina, Asian-American, Native American and Jewish women.The
study–conducted by Rothblum, Jessica Morris, PhD, a private practitioner
in Northampton, Mass., and Craig R. Waldo, PhD, of the University of
California, San Francisco Center for AIDS Prevention Studies and AIDS
Research Institute–is the largest on lesbian mental health to date and
is one of the only to look at the relationship of being out to lesbians’
mental health, Rothblum says.
Getting to “out” can be a time of
stress and isolation. Supportive mental health therapy that allows the
lesbian to process beforehand what her options are and how coming out
will affect her in the long term is healthy and helpful. Such positive
findings in research invalidate older assumptions that lesbians and gays
experience a higher level of mental health problems than heterosexuals.
This research is affirming and encouraging that lesbians who go through
the process of coming out authentically can experience a high quality
of life, plug into a supportive community and obtain happiness. The
findings also support the idea that therapy that facilitates the
coming-out process is good for lesbians’ mental health. “Such
affirmative psychotherapy, provided during the coming out process, may
prevent or buffer against subsequent mental health problems,” the
authors write.
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