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can you maybe help me work through some thoughts?

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by baristajedi, Dec 16, 2019.

  1. baristajedi

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    Hi there :slight_smile:

    I'm writing this because I'm starting to give myself some headspace as much as I can to process some things I never actually really got to process. Since the moment of coming out and then making all the decisions, especially the divorce, I have just been thrust into a whirlwind of things, many difficult things keep getting thrown in the mix and I've not had enough opportunities to really process each massive thing I've been doing, I just keep moving forward trying to tread water. So I'm working through a lot of those things now.

    I have a lot of feelings i need to write about and work through. I’ve only left myself a few minutes to write at the moment, so I wont be able to get that deeply into things. But I’ll give it a start anyway.


    So. alright there’s so much to work through in terms of emotions and introspection.


    I still have a lot of grief inside, grief from being closeted, it was so painful to hold in such a massive part of myself for so long. And to be afraid to feel it, and to be afraid to even let my heart open and let in the emotions of intimacy, romance, sexual attraction, sensuality, intimate connection. It was so scary to feel. So scary to be sexual, to acknowledge how women make me feel, so intense and overpowering.


    It’s so painful to think about how that felt.


    It’s so painful to think of all the connections i tried so hard to make work.. my daughter's dad, all the important guys in my life before then. I really tried to make them work…


    The broken feelings. The sexual abuse, the dirty feelings i had about myself.


    My gender, my understanding of my body, my expression and the ways i felt natural in myself.


    I have never really worked through the pain of totally breaking apart my marriage. The devastating feeling of breaking up our family. The pain of considering the alternative of never being myself and having the opportunities to experience love and intimacy and real connection.


    And now the disconnect from my family at home and my life growing up. That also feels painful.


    I think i still have a lot of crying and processing of my feelings to do. I'll have to stop here....but if anyone has some helpful ways to work through some of this with me, please share.
     
  2. nbd

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    That is so hard to process, there is so much there! I think that discussing it helps, rather than bottling it up. Whether that's here, in therapy, with a trusted friend or all of the above is up to you.

    Something that helps me is trying to live in the moment as much as possible. To experience the pleasure and pain in daily life. To accept it as my current feeling, that it will pass into something else, and to move on from there. Sometimes that helps with my anxiety.

    It does sound like you have a lot of pain to process and loss to grieve. Be kind to yourself and give yourself time.
     
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  3. baristajedi

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    thank you nbd, you’re right, this is a lot to process. I do have a therapist and it’s really helping me. i think you’re totally right as well about living in the moment. I’ve been doing well with that mostly, I feel happy in general because of that, I do some meditation and quiet my mind. I’m also really happy about a lot of elements of where I am right now.

    I think right now I’m not going through a particular painful period, I do have periods of difficulty which feel overwhelming, but at this moment I finally have a bit of calm and good headspace so I want to take this time to work through the unhealed wounds.

    What seems to happen in my life since I’ve come out is that I have this pattern of having a really hard thing to deal with and I push my way through it, create some things to manage or resolve the thing, and I get to a place where I can catch my breath a little but not really much time to process that thing, then something really big and difficult hits me and I repeat. I see now that that pattern might keep repeating for a while, so I really want to take time to work through some of these difficult feelings, work on healing, and also work towards a plan that allows the most stability in the most long term way possible.

    I’m going to finish this response here and then come back in a moment when I get into the warm and write more :slight_smile:
     
  4. baristajedi

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    So... first I should say thank you for listening, you specifically and anyone else on here who takes the time to read, I appreciate this space so much (this forum) and everyone on here. I’m going to try digging a bit more deep into some of these things. I wonder if anyone can relate.


    So I’ll start with being closeted and the wounds from that. I feel like a massive start to healing has come with living authentically, being open about my identity, expressing myself more like how I feel on the inside, and having intimacy with women. There’s a lot of catharsis just in living as an out queer person. I say queer because I’m talking both about being gay and about being nonbinary.

    but then I also feel a lot of the time that I’ll never make up for that lost time, not truly. It’s always there inside of me, an unlived, unfulfilled part of myself will always live inside me. I feel like there’s some part of this that’s about just making a choice to perceive that fact differently but I’m struggling with it. I feel like no matter how much I walk through the world living out my life freely, I will always feel a hole where that wasn’t how I lived before. It’s a lot like death in that way because I don’t think that can ever be recovered.

    I’m trying to see how to take on some kind of healing to that loss because I think that I have to accept that it exists, I don’t think I’ll ever lose the grief.

    I’m going to try to talk a little bit also about the divorce. I love my ex husband so much. The more time that goes by the more sure I am of how much he really means to me, how much that life we had together means to me. I do feel a lot of joy in seeing us both move forward and also in knowing that all 3 of us, myself, my ex and our daughter, we really are still a family. That feels beautiful. But I built a home and a family with him and I think I will always have a piece of my heart in the family we built that looked and felt the way it was before the divorce. Even just writing this i feel the tears.

    I am so certain that every step towards living more as myself, including the divorce, they are all so good for me and right for me and right for our family so there’s no regret in that choice. It’s just purely and simply grief. Because it’s something I absolutely love and something I’ve lost. Even though not really, because we are still family.

    anyway, I have so much joy in being out, being myself, I really do feel very happy, so I hope that’s coming through in my posts, I’m in the right path, and I’m so lucky and feel so good being able to be me. But I know I need to mourn the loss. Otherwise I’ll never feel healed. I think also mourning it will help me live out the life that’s totally authentic. because I have fought and I’m still fighting for my authenticity in being gay and nonbinary. But part of my authenticity also includes the loved ones I have like my daughter’s dad and our beautiful family.
     
    #4 baristajedi, Dec 17, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2019
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  5. Regaen

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    Maybe it's more grief over what could have been? I get that a lot sometimes. Christmas is pretty bad actually. Most of the time I'm fine, and then little things will hit me, and it'll snowball into a larger thing that I need to accept.

    I'd say that recognizing that you're happy to be out is a great place to start. Of course you love your ex, he's half of what made your daughter, and you have time and investment with him. Part of it might be that you feel grief not over 'losing' them, but rather, the loss of a possibility? That's the way I felt when I first came out, at any rate. I didn't lose anything, but certain paths had closed off for me, and it just overwhelmed me for a while.

    Therapy does help. I've been to three therapists, not for my sexuality and gender but for other issues, and the talking just helped so much. It's fine for emotions to be a confusing mess. We all go through times like that. In time you'll be able to look back and not feel pain, but understand that it was a learning experience.
     
  6. Peterpangirl

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    I can relate to your feelings so much.