Crossroads at age 26.

Awesome. Your you is telling you who your are and what you want. This is great news.

A big plus for you know how you feel. Break this down to cause, effect. You've identified the effects - anxiety, depression, negativity. Now find a secure peaceful place and ponder the cause. (I think you already know the cause but do this for sometimes other "things" come up. Also try taking long walks by yourself. Get the blood flowing to the the brain. Great thoughts come up during this time.)

If you do as is suggested here by me and others, the time will come when you will tell her. I'm assuming her is your mom. It will just happen and it feels so good!

Ah the hard part. Draining the swamp! What does this mean. Draining the infectious psychological puss from your mental being. How to do this? One possibility, if possible find an LGBT support group. Join the group and open up. More later - (really got to run) Write on my wall to remind me to follow up with more drain the swamp suggestions.

(I've got to go exercise, it's one of my drain the swamp techniques to help my me.)

 

Here are a few thoughts/questions.

First, it's great that you are asking these questions about your sexuality now before you get further into the relationship with your GF. It will get harder and harder over time, so that this will be even harder to address in 1, 5, or 10 years. So it's great that you are doing this now to minimize the pain to everyone involved.

Second, are you still in therapy for your anxiety and depression? Working with an LGBT therapist would be very helpful.

Third, you should identify what you think your sexuality is (straight, bi, or gay), ideally working with your therapist. I'm not sure how attracted to you are to guys based on this.

I would try and separate attraction and arousal because your denial (assuming you are in denial) could be blocking arousal. That is, saying that certain guys are cute but you don't get aroused/want to sleep with them is not evidence that you are not bi or gay. It could mean that shame and internalized homophobia are at work. If you drink alcohol, do you notice guys more when drinking? In vino veritas.

Last, if you think you could be gay or bi, you might want a period of exploring your sexuality with other guys (as others have suggested). This is the best way to confirm your sexuality. You would want to either pause your current relationship or open it up. That for you to work out with your GF.

Unfortunately there is no easy answer here other than for you to do the difficult work of figuring out your sexuality.

 

You seem to have gotten two different and opposing opinions from two different therapists. Were you comfortable with one over another? If you weren’t comfortable with either consider finding another therapist you are comfortable with. It is not a therapists place to tell you what your sexuality is, the only person that can make that decision is yourself. What you can do is use the therapist as a tool to help guide your thoughts and emotions so you can arrive at whatever the right answer is.

If, as you stated in other replies, you are forcing yourself to be aroused, that doesn’t sound like a natural response to me whether you are repressing your sexuality or not. I am a strong proponent of therapy when the right therapist with the right chemistry is found. And from experience that’s not an easy task to find.

Finally, given how strong your conflicting thoughts are, and your own self proclaimed skepticism from prior efforts on EC, I recommend you seek out another professional therapist to work with and have them guide you to do the hard work on your journey towards self actualization. Use EC as a sounding board, but rely on the experience of a trained professional.

 

@Confused25

I read your thread from late January, and you stated that your "attraction to men is way stronger than with women even though i never pursued a man in my life." Is this how you feel today?

Chip chimed in with his masturbation fantasies exercise, which you may want to review. Chip also suggested that this could be OCD symptoms rather than genuine attraction to the same sex.

I agree with OTH that your best course of action would be to explore your situation with a trusted therapist.