I want to be happy about being gay.

Sorry if this is a rant, but tonight I realize just how much I want to be with a man, and how happy I am when I accept that I am gay. I want to stay that way. You all have been so helpful getting me this far. I want to go farther I don't want to doubt, question, guilt trip anymore I just want to start living!

Being in denial, is literally preventing myself from being happy!

 

Thanks everyone! Today I woke up with an odd determination - I know acceptance and happiness are my choices- It's such a strange battle we have with ourselves!

Thanks! It may seem odd, but when i see members post something like this, I feel so much more at ease and less anxious. It may seem like a 'little' thing but it is so resassuring!

Any recommendations?

 

Today I just started to imagine my life without denial, fear and rationalization. I also started to think about how irrational it is to stop living like I am not gay.

The joys of being gay and accepting it:

• When I am honest with myself, I recognize I have little or no sexual attraction to women, I am not motivated to date them. On the other hand when I accept that I am gay and start to think about the possibilities of dating men, I become very excited. I want to do it. Then fear steps in. That fear is holding me back.
  
  
• For whatever reason, I am gay. That is how I become sexually aroused, sexually and romantically intimate. Denying this is denying my capacity for love.
  
  
• When I am denial, the world feels gray. No real future, no enthusiasm for the future.
  
  
• Coming out: I don't have to come out to the entire world, but some close friends know it, I can start living honestly, I could tell them about my life honestly instead of empty comments about how I just don't meet women.
  
  
• Did I mention living honestly? The closet is living a lie.
  
  
• People on this forum have come out and been happy about it with situations much more complex and harder than mine. I can do this.

 

I was just reading somewhere that if you try to make big changes all at once, it creates big fear which causes the freeze. But if you make little changes, steadily, they add up to big changes.

Today I am just imagining what it would feel like to longer be ashamed of being gay. I felt so happy!
Just thinking about that, I started to think, why should let my fear of what someone might think keep me from this. I realize now, that's really big fear. What others think. Well there are plenty of people who think it's great that I am being honest about sexuality, and I am beginning to think wait the really brave think to do is come out, to embrace being gay. It's not weak, or whatever I fear people think it is.

 

I took a big step tonight!

I called a lgbtq hotline and spoke to someone. I just told him I was in denial for years but finally started to accept that I am gay a few years ago but now I just feel overwhelmed with shame and fear.

He was very understanding and helpful. He suggested that perhaps my fear and shame comes from when I was younger and there was much less acceptance and that can affect you when you are younger.

I told him it felt so good to just tell someone I was gay, even anonymously. He thanked me for telling him and being vulnerable enough to do that. It felt so good to say the words I have written here - That I want to be gay and be happy about it. He said I deserve to be with a man that cares for me. It felt so good to hear. It felt so good to just be me!

I am gay and it feels so good to accept it!

 

Tonight, I just had a small taste of a what it's like to get past fear, and be honest and open about being gay. Without the shame and fear, it feels so liberating, freeing and I feel so happy! I realize two things:

• I have to start spending more time in 'spaces' where I can be vulnerable and open about being gay, and I have to spend less time in spaces that create fear.
• I realize the incredible power of saying the words I have written here and saying them to another human being, even if that other person just says 'mmm hmm'. I never understood why people found therapy helpful but I think I will give it a try.

 

Thanks!
Yes this morning I woke up with an incredible happy feeling. It feels so good to embrace my sexuality, it feels like chains are off! I also have this confidence that I am going to come out fully this time!

 

Yes, I now understand the vulnerability part a lot better, I remember @Chip had recommended some videos on that and guilt. I know I still have a lot of work to do, and therapy is a must for me, but right now it seems insane that i would ever let this feeling and realization go! But I know on down days that often happens!

 

Right now, honestly, I am in the 'I am not gay' phase. I rarely post here when I am this way but I think it is important to acknowledge it and not just brush it off as denial.
Sometimes gay fantasies feel like 'acting out' - where the longing to be with a woman is not as intense but more like a longing - like something is blocking me from being aroused, like and ED but I really like women.

In short, gay fantasizing feels like a drug hit, and after, I feel alienated, where the arousal or attraction to women seems steadier, like a slow steady flame vs. an explosion.

I also notice that the gay fantasizing comes when I am anxious or alienated, lonely- similar to a desire to drink alcohol (though I gave up drinking a couple of years ago).