- Suicide watch: support the Polarised Project - 20 May, 2014
- Panic – A Sufferer’s Guide - 9 May, 2014
- Polarised – LGBTQ Mental Health Project – Fundraising - 30 April, 2014
Warning: This article contains reference to LGBTQ suicide which some readers may find distressing.
To donate and support the Polarised project please visit the following address: www.indiegogo.com/projects/polarised/x/7224104#home
There is a silent epidemic within the LGBTQ community. It’s raging like a fire, singeing the streets of Soho, licking at the rooftops and bricks, scorching them an unseen black, awaiting the next young person to drop into its clutches, and scream to no-one.
LGBTQ people are 10x more likely to commit suicide than heterosexual people, whilst 34% of Trans* people have attempted suicide.
Numbers and percentages on a page are hard to relate to. It’s nearly impossible, especially if you’ve never been there, to gauge the tastes, the smells and the sounds of what it might be like to attempt to take your own life. A simple number on a page can’t come close to the sounds the pills make as they crunch out, individually, from the packets. Percentages go no way to conveying the stench of your own bleach stained vomit, or the very specific shade of grey you assimilate with the next morning.
That’s why I have launched the fundraising campaign to make the Polarised documentary.
To look at experience. To brush aside lazy caricatures and stereotypes and climb in between the covers. It’s about immersing people in the smells, the tastes, the feelings and the sights of a world so often left in the dark. It’s about living the world we seek to describe and exploring not only why it is that around 50% of the young LGBTQ* community suffer from ill mental health, but what it’s like to be one of that number. Polarised isn’t about us. It’s about you. And the people you love, and the people they love. It’s about the nitty gritty, the inconsequential detritus that shapes our lives. It’s about the raised heart rates, the screams, the cries, the laughter and the despair. It’s about dancing and running, rain and sunshine, snorting, fucking, smoking, squirting and falling through the rapidly opening cracks in society.
We’re looking to raise £5,000 over the next couple of months. This money will go towards editing, equipment, travel expenses and other production costs. We aren’t seeking to make any money from this, and all of our time, and the time of many of our nearest and dearest is being given for free for one simple aim – to give a voice to the voiceless experience of thousands.
And now it comes to you, wonderful people of the internet. If you can DONATE even £1, that would be blinding. If you can donate more, amazing. If you can’t donate, but want to show your support, please share around the campaign page.
In the meantime, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and check out our website to find out more. We are looking forward to bringing you exciting news and tidbits from the filming, and inviting you all the London premiere come autumn.
