Questioning sexuality

Hi @Leynz45 I am sorry to read your post, I feel your pain as I am having something very similar.
I think the big differences between us and people who are gay are two: the overwheling NEED to test every time we got anxiety issue and the costant looking for proof to fuel the obsession.

For me, when it comes to sexual theme I feel the urge to do a test. If I don't do a test I got intrusive thoughts all seconds about the theme and I feel overwhelmed and my brain keep telling me "If you don't test you're not accepting that you're gay, so that's another proof you're in denial". I can't describe the feeling, it's just a huge urge to go deep down the thoughts to make my brain stop doing a DDoS attack to me. Also it's like I forgot the hundred of tests made before like "This time it will be different". I noted that when I do tests, that for me are trying to get off same-sex fantasy, I revive the fantasy SEVERAL times as if I was acting in a film where I am the gay man who become conscious of his sexuality. It's a film where the directors are the intrusive thoughts and I am the protagonist of scene, and if I don't act well the part I need to do it again until the thoughts are convinced that I am not "lying".

What are the consequences? Spending HOURS on the same-sex fantasy until I got semi-hard or feel any kind of arousal(I noted that if I remember sex with my ex but with a guy I do feel a bit aroused but still can't get a proper erection, now if I try to do it I can't achieve that too!).

Yesterday I spent my morning doing this, then I spent 30 minutes in the afternoon doing this, then 30 minutes in the evening doing this, so I lost about 6 hours of my life doing absolutely nothing. Before therapy I was doing this all day everyday(I stopped only to eat) and If I tried to resist I got destroyed by anxiety and DDossed by intrusive thoughts.
Compulsions distracted me from anxiety, this is why it's like a drug. Indeed when I got reassurance I feel good and if I try to test when I feel good or I feel myself it takes me less than one minute to understand that I don't like guys. And I realized I got tricked again.

When I had harm theme I was paralyzed in the bed, I was scared to be near I knife or near my family; One day I put a knife near my stomach to see if I would be capable to do what the intrusive thoughts were saying to me. This says all about how we, during the tests, are not really capable of thinking. I actually stop thinking because if I recognize the absurdity of the test my brain just starts with "you're in denial" or "you're a serial killer" or "you want really to kill yourself". YOU CAN'T JUST WIN.

When I had mental illness theme(scared to have mental illness like borderline/BPD/NPD) I spent hours reasearching on these topics, I took tests and felt so bad, checked symptoms and so on. I started therapy because I was scared to be a psycho/NPD(and at that time I was sure to be straight, just to underline the facts that the themes can cycle and can be anything!).

Every little thing can trigger a theme for me: harm OCD was triggered because I cut accidentally myself with a knife; mental illness ocd was triggered by break up; Sexual orientation was triggered by watching TV; last year I got obsessive behaviour triggered by a single comment made by a flatmate, before that I was triggered on "having diabetes or skin cancer" because I watched a medical show. For the diabetes one morning I get up so anxious about it that I went to check my glicemia and then I even bought a tool to check it EVERYTIME(and I wasn't aware of OCD or that this is actually an istance of OCD). Sometimes I think I don't have ocd bc no one diagnosed me yet, then I think about my past and my last two/three months and fml this is OCD.

I think this is the difference between us and an healty person. We're triggered by almost everything, got an excessive rection about it because we are fused to our thoughts, we go too much in detail and overthink everything. A healthy person who's questioning may overthink but what she/he/* does is feeling his/her/*-self giving the thoughts the right space.


Also I read @chris123 's thread linked, Chip wrote an interesting message(https://forum.emptyclosets.com/inde...y-and-masturbation.481904/page-2#post-6709015):

Well, this is me. This is what is emerging during therapy. In the first session the therapist clearly said that I am pure cognition, I wasn't able to experience my emotional self, I wasn't able to FEEL myself, I was only able to THINK, to be my thoughts. In the next sessions we discovered childhood traumas and bonding failures. And these traumas made me so shamed and so anxious that obsession started bombing me during therapy session to switch topic on them.

 

I noted that the obsession changed to be more sneaky like "Well now that you don't have such anxiety related to be gay why don't you try to imagine this same-sex fantasy so you will SURELY know your sexual orientation?" Then I feel the urge to know and I may spent minutes to hours to test if I am aroused.

Or "Well if you came out as gay you will be loved and have authentic relationships. Don't be afraid, try to see if you're gay or not". As if being gay will give you love and authentic relationships.

It's like a scammer who's trying to sell me a magic wand. Just cast the magic spell and you will be happy forever. Yeah, sure man.

 

An update.

So therapy started to work: my anxiety is lower even though I still feel the urge to find out my sexual orientation. I don't have high spikes of anxiety as before, but if I notice another man or a thought about a man pops out in my mind I need to masturbate on a same sex fantasy to find an answer. This takes me less time, now it takes the half like 2/3 hours instead of 6-7 hourse like before.

Today something happened: I got triggered and started masturbating to clear the situation and I made a fantasy about my flatmate, it took me like an hour and half of my time because I had these spikes of arousal that come and go, eventually I was able to finish and felt ok with that: it was pleasurable of course. But this confuses me. I think time will tell for sure. I don't know if this means I have same sex attraction, I actually don't want to tell anything negative about what happened because then I may go back to "What if you're in denial" phase, I am just trying to accept what happened.

I'll try to do the same fantasy tonight or tomorrow. I need to figure out if it was due to the long stimulation or I was naturally aroused? Idk. I'd say I was aroused, maybe something is changing?


I still feel forced to not say "I don't like this" because I think I would be in denial.

@Chip I'd like your advice.

 

To be precie: I spent a lot trying to cum, after an hours I took a break of 5 minutes. Then I went to bed and tried again few times, last time I felt aroused and finished in about 2 minutes. if that would help.

When I do this I don't feel anymore scared, as I said few posts above to get an answer I normalized the situation(otherwise my brain would start with internilized homophobia DDossing)

 

I talked to my therapist, she said that I'll start meds in a month if continue to engage compulsions for hours.

The last three days were very hard, today I woke up at 5 am and tested until 10 am, I got a high spike of arousal during a fantasy but then it faded. Idk how to interpret this arousal, it just confuses me so much. The problem is that it comes after several times I try the fantasy, If I would be attracted to the same sex it should show up pretty easily like for women.

Thanks for the answer chip.

 

This happened to me too, I thought I was recovering but then I crushed again last friday. I have this moments of clarity when I feel free and good, then all of sudden I lose myself and everything starts again. Now I don't have many thoughts about this theme but I still do compulsions as soon as I get one, because now I have anxiety(or a huge urge to do compulsions) if I don't engage tests. I try to postpone compulsions but if I don't engage they'll come back, lately in the middle of the night(3am or 5 am)

 

I am starting to recognize that compulsions do not give me anything other than certainity about my sexual orientation. I don't get pleasure by fantasizing on same-sex scenes, I don't have libido towards them, I only get some arousal by touching myself but my penis stay soft or at most semihard if I focus on pleasure given by the touch. It is not normal to engage fantasies for hours until I am convinced I felt something or not, if it doesn't work it doesn't work, it should be obvious. Then I switch to women to test on them. Sometimes I do not feel free to fantasize on women because I have to know my reaction if I do the same fantasy on a men, this ruins everything since I need to stop and re start everything on man to check. Sometimes I just got intrusive thoughts while fantasizing on women and this ruins everything too, like I lose erection and I am scared this could happen if I am with a woman. Not gonna lie I hoped to get some true reaction to men since that would end this cycle I guess, I tryed every kind of stuff but it takes hours of my days to feel something.

For some reason I must be sure, I must control what's my sexual orientation 2-3 times per day or when I get triggered as if it may change forever if I don't check. It's like I need to prove the thoughts are right or wrong and accept it, but of course the test for "I am gay" thoughts lasts longer because I feel like a criminal during a process, someone who you do not trust.

If I think about last months I feel sick, miserable, sad. Why am I doing all of this if I don't like it at all? Ok for exploring sexuality, but this is not an exploration anymore, it's more being stuck in an endless cycle of repetition.

 

Yes I think I'll bring this up next week.

At the moment I fear that compulsions are just a way to express some latent homosexuality, but if it were the case I should get erections, right? Is it possible? How do you become aware of latent homosexuality? @Chip

I fear this may blow up in the future and maybe ruin a relationship with a girl. Maybe that's why I need to check daily, because I fear chaos.

 

I asked because I don't fully understand the concept of latent homosexuality, in particual I didn't understand if you should get strong arousal during same sex fantasies if you're latent homosexual.
But I admit it's only because if I understand it I can check on it so basically looking for a confirm of me gay or not gay and that may be a compulsions too.