In the late eighties and just after, you only “had therapy” if you were close to someone with AIDS, had AIDS or had received an HIV+ diagnosis and told you were about to die. It seemed we weren’t affected by other diseases aside from the dis-ease of being a gayer, we had no other mental or physical health issues. In 1998, a decade on, I was invited by EUROPRIDE (that year in Stockholm, Sweden) to present my own series of seminars I started in London in 1994 called QUEER LOVE QUEST, to be the first Gay Personal Development Programme ever to be part of the official Europride festival itinerary. The tide had turned and a claxon of gay issues like homophobia, ageing and addictions were being addressed in an open political way. Thatcher had long gone, Nu Labour was the flavour, combos had arrived and our freedoms began, but without that vile attack by Thatcher, we would still be simpering and apologising, sitting on the fence.

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Many different forms of therapy exist, but the purpose is the same, FREEDOM from the past and present habits, resentments, toxic shame and guilt. Watching ITV’s Loose Women the other day I was shocked that half the panel saw therapy as “self -indulgent “. Codependency has often been described as a pattern of behaviour where you lose your own sense of self while caring for, parenting, worrying, rescuing or taking too much responsibility for others. Along the way we have been told that others come first, so I can see that within this context caring for yourself would be “self-indulgent”. Prompted by some gay activists we have been told for so long that we are just like straights now and should not have “gay issues” anymore, we are just humans not defined by sexuality. Unfortunately the “issue” is still that you can’t walk down an average street holding your same sex partners hand in complete freedom. Until we can do this with ease we have no cause to wave a flag. Until we can safely get off a bus and not hear homophobic abuse from feral youth or be beaten to death for standing our own ground we will not feel free. In order to handle these outside interferences therapy can teach you to feel free from attack, free from the judge and jury in your head, and free to live in the world of extras. I call it this because when you reduce a habit, or change an unhealthy routine you find extra time, extra interests and extra pride in yourself.

So while you fiddle with your mouse mat consider where you feel FREE today – is it on grinder for a spontaneous shag, or having a purse of disposable income, a chance to be yourself in a relationship, to speak honestly avoiding people pleasing, or do you think that you still have “issues” that cost you more than money. Maybe you think that being political is only for activists, that your voice and vote don’t count. All forms of therapy create awareness and in a lot of cases a realisation that we are not as free as we think. The usual escape routes we encounter encourage procrastination and denial. Are you going to sit back when a vigil takes place in Trafalgar Square, to fight against energies that hate your very existence? Are you going to stand in a bar or make a stand in a square? While you ponder that, consider the 36,000 that marched that winters day in 1988 for the right for YOU to feel free and ask yourself how political you are, what you do about it and how loud your voice is. The recent events in East London have spurred the young into reality, marching, shouting and proclaiming against hate. To do so with such vigilance is a combination of freedom and therapy. Join them and see how therapeutic it is. Then wave the freedom flag.