When and how did you know?

Well, I pretty much knew my whole life. Liked girls since the age of 7, but didn't know how to put it in words. When I turned 14, I just realized...ah so that's what I am.

 

I didn't accept that I was a lesbian until I was in my mid-thirties. I admitted to myself when I was about 31 that I liked girls but thought I was just Bi. Then I got to thinking this year and finally admitted to myself that I don't actually like guys and the reason I married one was due to feeling like that was the right thing to do. Even growing up in a very liberal house that pressure to be straight was strong. I joined the Navy during the don't ask don't tell period. So even going to a gay bar could have ended my military time. Looking back though I really had all the signs that I actually was a lesbian in my teen years. I'm scared and excited all at the same time. Scared because it is going to hurt my husband very much and I do love him. Coming out of the closet is going to hurt him politically and thus his career. Excited because I have hope that I might find someone that I connect with and want to be with.

 

I only just figured it out a few months ago, but looking back, there have been signs for years. I feel like it was a slow gradual understanding that eventually hit like lightning. It was shocking, because I had always thought I was straight. I was terrified at the realization. It was kind of a two-fold realization because it was like "Oh, crap! You're not straight" but it was also "How did you not figure this out years ago?" I think I was fighting myself on it, like once I knew myself I thought "This makes complete sense" but I was also in denial, like I didn't want to give up being straight.

Over the last few months, once I began to understand myself more, I eventually accepted it and became satisfied with it.

 

I knew I was different from other boys pre-puberty but didn't understand that my attraction to other males was sexual as well as emotional until puberty kicked in and once I had an actual same sex involvement did I understand what being gay, queer,homosexual was all about.
All my sexual encounters were homosexual until I was 25 when I started experimenting sexually with women and confirmed to myself that I could never be comfortable or honest in a heterosexual relationship.

 

Very slow in my case, I was in a bisexual phase for years. In retrospect I could have known already when I was 13 or 14 years old. But at that time I didn't even know bisexuality existed yet. And then when I was about 15 I had a huge crush on a boy who was bi. So although I then definitely knew bisexuality existed, I thought, well, it does exist, but I'm young and since I'm definitely into (more feminine) boys too (I was so heartbroken I lost more than 10 kilos when I discovered things wouldn't work out with this boy), perhaps I was in a phase. So I thought I was in a bisexual phase until I was 34 years old. I think it was not only due to the being in denial part, but also due to the shifting attractions between males and females. At some point I just realized I was 34 years old and that phases usually don't last that long.

 

I was pretty clueless till I was 20. I had a girlfriend for a year, then spent a LOT of thought on why it wasn't what I expected or wanted. It was pretty scary to first have the "maybe I'm gay" thought, but it only took about a week to be scared AND excited.

 

it goes like this
age 9-10 i think im gay(?)
age 11-12 HARDCOREDENIAL
age 12-13 oh no im bi
age 14- nope im pretty gay. wHy?! why here, why now. can i be a little straigh- NO.....fine

 

If I think back, I can remamber afew times in my teens when I thought I might be bi. At the time however, I was really scared of being gay. Not really sure why looking back, I didn't have a problem with gay people, I just didn't want to be gay myself. So basically I just pushed those thoughts away and forgot them (yay repression!). It wan't till about a year ago when I was 22 and fresh out of college, that I finaly let myself consider it as a possibility. But even them I only thought about it for about a week before burying the thoughts and moving on (more repression!). I think it might not have been as burried as I thought however, because I decided to play a bi character in a D&D group last winter, "just because." Playing my bisexual tiefling paladin still somehow didn't make me question, but it did get my lesbian DM interested in my sexuality enough to ask me if I was gay. I admitted to her that, while not gay, I did find some guys attractive, and that's when it finaly sank in. I think saying it out loud was what I needed, because that's when I really began questioning myself, analyzing my feelings, and finally (with the help of this website and its awsome members) started to come to terms with the fact that yes, I am, in fact, bisexual.

 

It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the first time I ever caught myself while I was looking a girl's body the way I had always thought I looked at men. My stomach sank, I muttered "Oh shit, do I like girls?" to myself in the car, as my mind let the gay floodgates open for the first time! I've spent a lot of the past year thinking, hoping that it wasn't true, considering every possible consequence both good and bad, but bottomline is I am attract to girls and not boys. While I don't feel as much shame anymore and I know I will to come out soon, it can still be hard to deal with at times. But I am excited to live a honest and happy life! I must have been in some hardcore denial, because there's NO WAY I hadn't been checking girls out for the first 20 years of my life; I just some how never realized I was doing it.