Hello peoples haven't posted in a good while , how's yall doing? I am recently single, do not know what to be doing, want to see a therapist to either accept myself as gay or I don't know what else help me with hating myself for who I am I guess I use to think this was hocd... but I don't know If I am just really depressed lol , could depression/anxiety confuse a person even more about there sexuality ?
For me, anxiety, most definitely. I accepted I was gay later in life and before that, anxiety on whether I was (I knew I was) would cause doubt as I tried to hang on to heterosexuality. I didn't want to be gay. My upbringing and societal pressures had conditioned me to believe that I simply couldn't be, no matter what. Nature has a habit of winning though. I got so tired of fighting with myself over the years. I would tell myself off after a slip up, thought or even a homosexual dream. I would claim it's just a phase, curiosity, basically any excuse I could muster would do so when finally I accepted I had a homosexual side, I still tried to hang on to some resemblance of heterosexuality by claiming to be bisexual, even though I felt that was a lie. I just didn't want to give it up. I felt bisexual was the lesser of two "evils". For me, it was anxiety that tried to hold on to the past and muddy the waters. Now anxiety is holding me back from coming fully out but at least the internal fight is over. I truly love being gay, I wouldn't want to be anything else but it took me a long time to work this out for myself. There's is nothing wrong with being gay, don't listen to the noise, that's all it is. Noise. You have to accept to move forward and for me, once I did, things changed for the better, I started to love being me. There was indeed light at the end of the tunnel.
I don't know if depression and anxiety would lead to confusion about one's sexuality. For me it would be the other way around. Any confusion about my sexuality or rather a refusal to acknowledge it was a contributing factor of my depression and anxiety. I don't think that I really have hated myself, I hated the fact that I couldn't freely be who I am whether it was societal or self-imposed expectations.
Are you newly single from a relationship with another man or with a woman? To continue from my earlier message, I've found therapy to be helpful in learning ways to cope with and control my anxiety and depression. I haven't found talking with therapists about my sexuality to be helpful because they're usually very glib about it. So I would recommend focusing on the anxiety and depression, which could (probably?) be caused by many things other than your sexuality
Hi @Confused25 I’m sorry to hear that you are struggling with your sexuality and your mental health. Looking back at your previous posts, it seems you’ve been stuck for a while and seeing a therapist, as you suggest, would be a good starting point to getting unstuck and unpicking what’s going on for you. I see therapy was mentioned in some of your previous threads. Is it something that you’ve been able to look into, or is there anything in particular that’s stopping you accessing therapy? The first step can often be the hardest. Before my first therapy session, I was so nervous that I thought that I was going to be sick. However, I survived that first session and it was all hugely helpful in the long run.
I think it could -it did with me because I had a lot of fear or being gay, so when I was fighting it, I told myself this proved that I wasn't gay or that it was OCD because I had high anxiety. Also, I am not an expert but I think it is possible to have Sexual OCD (sometimes called HOCD for men ) and actually be gay. It was hard to imagine on the other side of the fear and anxiety was this beautiful feeling of acceptance. Its the hardest accept I think. It's one thing to say "I have these unwanted gay fantasies", it's another to admit to yourself you actually want them to happen.
Newly single from a woman , but the first couple of weeks I wanted women now I've hit a dark patch where its like blank I'm not bothered seeking anything
S See I'm not sure if I had these fantasies while testing, the hocd thing I was skeptical about because when I was at my most anxious I was doing the testing stuff but that has stopped , it's strange also as the anxiety about sexuality and the complete war in my head has subsided alot
It's strange because this is something that appeared to me almost like just a statement in my mind which sent shock waves mentally and now it's its been 5 years ever since that night and I'm not just focusing on that night but since then like my anxiety has been different kind of hard to explain, also I did break down too partner about the anxiety , I would wake up in the morning and first thing would be war in my mind, " you need to finish with her " just alot of stuff it was really really tough and confusing as I enjoyed being with the partner but going through that wasn't fair. If that makes sense anxiety isn't too bad now which is confusing too me , but prob to the guys here it prob makes sense in the grander scheme . Therapy is something I say to myself very often that I will go , I have gone to a handful of sessions maybe 4 or 5 . I don't know what else to say now other than the internal war was probably the worst thing I've experienced while i was with my partner
This was my experience. I couldn’t imagine the wanting those gay feeling until finally I had to admit to myself that they were exactly what I wanted.
Genders reversed, I’ve been there myself. I was incredibly anxious whilst I was still in a heterosexual relationship, and experienced lots of contradictory thought and feelings as I unpicked what was going on for me. When I left my ex, my anxiety improved greatly. Being in that relationship was suffocating. Therapy, as I’m sure you know, would give you the opportunity to voice all this and support to help work through and unpick what’s going on for you. Though, you do have to stick with it, and the first (or even second) therapist that you speak to may not be the right fit for you. Just to note that “HOCD” is not a condition in it’s own right. It effectively does not exist. Some people with OCD may have thoughts, etc. about their sexuality, but that’s part of their OCD, rather than being a standalone condition.
Both of these things happened to me when I finally started facing that I was gay. Ok but do you fantasize about men? What actually makes you think you are gay?
Long post ahead....even though I was enjoying the specific moment like watching a movie and going abroad stuff like it's was just so much in my mind 'I wish I could just tell her what is going on with me that it won't go away " and then just yeah the anxiety has gone down but I am so confused as to what to do because I have quite contradictory feelings now , here I am on a forum basically talking about how to accept being gay , and in real life I'm so use to going for girls and yes I am lurking on dating websites for women maybe get the odd phone number and chatting if you call that dating no, maybe I'm just use to hereronormative programming it's odd because I will go to work and chat to dudes about chick's not obsessively just in passing , but its like that's to wired into me it's hard to say hey I am going to a therapist I will accept I am gay , I will then tell everyone I know who thinks I am straight that i am in now gay . I would of thought if you were gay you almost could not hold it in any longer i dont know, maybe theres different ways , everyone that knows me assumes I'm straight. There is also the fact that I am struggling with social anxiety , really bad , if I know I have an event to go to weeks in advance I dread it so much even something basic like a birthday or something , even thinking if i go out with that guy he will want to go out and get girls and what will i do as I am in the middle of basically accepting i am gay but also going for women , also its gotten so bad that I am dreading summer and dont like sunny days as I know people I know will want to drink and i will just say no and worry that someone will ask me and alot of times i have nothing to worry about because they might not ask me , alot is hypothetical I even worry about that, its really bad I've no problem going to work and sports activities just do not want to go out and socialise as in drinking and clubbing even having one or two drinks I do not want to do, with anyone . May I ask Lostindaydreams, what was it that was suffocating was it the constant battle in your mind ? How was the physical side of things ? Did you feel trapped? It was really confusing felt like I was going mental as in looking up stuff on the Internet all day everyday about what was going on ie Is there different types of anxiety as mine was all mental, also intrusive thoughts, what is attraction , feeling attraction , buzzing feeling around someone what is it, that was a big one "feeling of lying " because I would get these thoughts I feel like I'm lying to her and then get a wave of sadness . Thinking I wish I could do this forever but if I am going through this it's not fair on me then I would panic and just argue against the thought, panic for even having the thought, and then it would be I need to figure this out I would almost have that as a script in my head I would be just thinking like" I need to see what this is " , I would say this thing to myself that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy what I was going through , I would get these thoughts like everything is great and fine between us and no problems at all but I am just gay , and that's the only thing. I wasn't actually seeking male sexual relations. I do see a guy and think he's good looking but I dunno if it's denial if I'm downplaying it . Chat soon Anyways its good to talk
Yes, of course, you can pretty much ask me anything you like about my experiences. I did feel trapped, yes, which was part of same feeling of suffocation. I think both those feelings got stronger as time went on, but started to ease off once I took some action to actually leave my now ex. That helped me feel more in control. My anxiety reduced a lot after I left my ex and I didn’t feel a strong need to come out to people. I have done occasionally since, but not to the extent that I did when I was in the relationship. For me, questioning started very slowly, and then there was an intense period of about three months, which felt longer. I think by the end of those three months I knew that I was likely gay, but I was still in denial, frightened and didn’t want to face leaving my partner. I was financially dependent on my ex, and at that time, not employed either, so I felt quite powerless. A large part of the trapped feeling came from not having independence or the means to just walk away. Over time, that created a strong pressured feeling in that I knew what I wanted, but also that it wasn’t something that I could achieve. The mental aspect was really hard too and added to those feelings. The questioning element went away with time and I became more sure about my sexuality. However, it is incredibly hard to live a pretence 24/7. It’s exhausting and it will destroy your mental health. For me, I feel that a large part of the urge to come out was due to this element. It would become too much at times and I felt like it was just going to slip out my mouth. Now I am not in that environment, I don’t feel that same pressure. Even if I’m not explicitly out at work, for example, it’s not that I’m necessarily hiding it either. That’s my choice and I don’t feel a need to come out in that instance. Whereas before, I didn’t even have a choice. With the physical side, it was never amazing, but not so bad that I realised it wasn’t for me. Part of me just thought sex was overrated. It was more often boring, than it was repulsive. After I had worked my sexuality out though, it did start to become much harder. At times, it felt like torture. For the last year or so of the relationship, my ex and I weren’t physically intimate. I hope that helps you a little. These are just my experiences, of course, and others may have felt different things. It sounds like you have a lot on your mind. I do think therapy is something to consider and you could use it to try to work on your anxiety in a general sense.
