Anyone else feel they've lost a sense of time during the coming out process

Yeah, I think this is pretty normal. Growing up in a really conservative environment, there is a certain expectation of how life is expected to unfold. I think it's called heterotemporality? There is a lot of cognitive dissonance because lgbtq+ people experience life events in a different order and at different stages than straight people.

 

Closeted, once I graduated college, I felt trapped in time. Like everyone else’s lives were moving forward and mine was trapped in this one same place.

 

I feel like I wasted a lot of time not coming out. If I met my younger self, I would have said admit your gay already and over forward.

 

I'm 32, I came out to my family almost ten years ago and none of them believed me at all except my brother who I suspect doesn't totally believe me. Only one person really believes me and he's someone I've been intimate with. Even some of the people I've been intimate with seem to think I'm not truly LGBT. I'm largely rejected even by the gay community who doesn't seem to want me. Have I lost a sense of time because of that? I guess so, ten years went by fast. I'm pretty much ready for the grave at this point. I don't expect to live very long, probably not past 50, given my family history of heart attacks. Then again that's only factoring in my Dad's side of the family. I don't know.

 

This is exactly how I've felt since I graduated college. It has been 15 years and I still feel like that bumbling kid.

 

I can relate, it was the realisation that i have been postponing for years and years being raised in a conservative environment and married off at a very young age to a person who was abusive and not having given a choice in pretty much anything in life. It took me till I reached 30 to come to this awakening and then lost time for a good 4 years where i shed the life i did not want while coming to terms with where i want to be and who i want to be. I can say I lost time during the life i did not want making myself numb then lost time where i was struggling with myself and only came out of it three years ago.

 

I definitely relate to this too. I feel like I wasted so much time and energy battling with myself instead of really living. Pretending to be someone else for many years definitely bled out into other aspects in my life and stopped me from pursuing things that I now wish I had done. I remember I went to an LGBT counsellor and they said that I would never allow myself to do anything that I wanted to do, which is so true, because while I was denying myself my sexual desires, I denied myself all other desires for life too. I never had any life goals or hopes for the future because sadly I thought that I wasn't worthy of anything that I wanted.
I look at LGBT youth nowadays and kind of berate myself for not coming out earlier and accepting myself and having all the advantages that comes with that but I think what's true is that most of us had to deal with a lot of shame which was really really tough to get through and depending on your culture and background it could be even more difficult.
I also remember my counsellor saying that some people get through their whole lives not knowing who they really are. It takes a lot of courage to face up to your true self and when you eventually do there is so much power and strength in that. I am so much more confident and happy in myself now than I have ever been, so instead of regretting I try to look forward and I am so much more excited now for my future than I ever have been. 'Don't look back, you're not going that way'