Late bloomers (20+) and really late bloomers (30+); how did you came out???

Hey, I just came across this great thread, and read all the way through - and McMorky, I just wanted to say, I do understand, and yes you should have hope, and be positive, take it day by day. I came out only when I was almost 23. And for the past 3 years I've struggled a lot to just be 'okay', with just being me. I've been through depression and a whole lot of anxiety for 10+ years, a lot of which grew from repressing myself and my feelings. Over the past 3 years I got really caught up in labels, and trying to think and figure things out, and just becoming disconnected from everyone.

I got to a point in the last few months, where I really didn't know how to move on.
At these points, we have to be kind to ourselves. Do what you love. Even just start with a little thing, like listening to a favourite song, taking a walk outside. Have these good times. Be easier on yourself. I know it's easier said than done, we don't need to hold on to all the old negative baggage! Coming out is hard enough as it is! let alone carrying a bunch of old grief and regret. Let go of it. Move on. Gotta give ourselves a new start.

I'm around if you want to talk. Peace (*hug*)

 

Auw, cheers man, and yeah I really need help. I have actually never ever tried to be gay anywhere. Not even on the internet. Not even to my self, I just watched porn and that was it, I was fine. I fooled around with girls, and was ok with it.

I thought to myself, this is not normal for my age, but then I just compared myself to other virgins, other people with fewer friends, and thought hah, at least I'm not that bad. So I kept postponing it, I just forgot about it.


Funny thing you say start a new, cos everything in my life has just been small phases.
I think I might have ADD, always been absent minded, and I might have an insane case of postponing disorder.




I have also went through about 9 major changes in clothing style attitude and personality since I was 11 years old.
Iv'e always tried to be different I think, I always chosen my own path, my own style, but it has messed me up. Suddenly I try new things. Don't really know who I am anymore
Iv'e just opened up my mind. wtf? am I a child?

Well I do have interests and hobbies I have kept since my childhood, good that



Also.... come to think of it my testosterone have always been low ... I started working out a year ago, Have I just reached puberty? lol.



OK I feel bad for writing all this... I guess this is not a psychology forum. I'm going to one tomorrow, might post an update afterwards. (!)



I really appriciate the warm welcome tho (*hug*) atleast I have empathy and love (*hug*)

 

I've just come out to my third friend, and im trying to make myself completely out by the end of this year.

Im hoping to be out to my parents soon. Im gonna need some support there for that one.

Not looking forward to it! But I am looking forward to getting on with the rest of my life and living happily.

 

Awesome mindset! thumbsup:


Wish I had it.



I say if you are kinda upgoing and kinda ok with life otherwsie. Make it a fun one, like a game or something.


Coming out while depressed is really bad :/

 

I'm 23 and was apparently totally oblivious of my sexual orientation until this year. I don't pretend to understand why. I think I just always assumed I was straight.

In high school I just didn't have a huge interest in dating, in college I was very career-focused and just never really found a guy I was interested in. Once I graduated and had a job I felt like it was finally time to start dating, and so I would go out with these boys. They were all perfectly lovely and really liked me and I just...never felt the same way back. I always broke it off under the guise of "he likes me more than I like him." I always liked that they were sweet to me and enjoyed spending time with me, but I just never felt anything in return.

I struggled with the fact I didn't seem to like them, but though of them simply not being right for me. I'd previously thought I might be gay, but always brushed it off figuring I would have discovered that about myself much sooner in life. The curiosity was certainly there, I felt like maybe I noticed other women more than the average woman does, but still didn't think much of it.

Then one night I started thinking. And thinking....and thinking some more. Click! Yep, I'm not straight. Whoa. How did I not realize this before? What the hell?

So then I looked back on my life with these gay-colored lenses and things made sense. Every TV show or movie I've ever loved and followed my favorites were always ALWAYS the female characters. I just failed to recognize them as crushes. I always chalked it up to "admiration." And of course, all those real-life girl crushes. Those crushes that I didn't recognize as crushes....they were just really good friends. Good lord I was stupid.

For awhile I just said I was bi, and now I'm coming to terms realizing that's not true at all. As it turns out, I'm just having a lot of trouble accepting myself. Not because I feel like I should be ashamed, or because of religion, or anything like that. I just...have really struggled. I'm frustrated with not having realized it sooner and still feel like the question "what if I'm wrong?" haunts my every thought.

So, that's my story. It's still being written.

 

I just realised I haven't posted here yet. Time to do so I think.

Somewhere around my 21st birthday, give or take a month, I fell in love. Properly in love for the first time. Actually, looking back I don't know if I'd call it in love, but it was a very strong crush... and to my own shock it was a crush on a guy.

At first I didn't recognise it as being a crush, I just thought I liked the guy in a platonic way but when I started thinking about it... yep, full on crushing. That's when I had the I'm-gay-epiphany. I don't know why I didn't have any real crushes for 21 years until the first time, but after that (in the past 1,5 years) I've had a few more crushes. Some weak, some very strong, but enough to be sure I'm nowhere near straight, not bi, but gay. Slightly asexual, but gay nonetheless.

I never had a problem accepting my own sexuality. It might be a difference in culture, but being gay is pretty much accepted all around the Netherlands. Sure, the Bible Belt has some issues, as well as some immigrant groups, but overall it's no problem. Actually we were the first country in the world to allow gay marraige. Besides that I have a cousin who's gay and has been living with his boyfriend for about 20 years now, so I grew up with the idea that guy+guy is just as normal as guy+girl.

I did have a problem coming out though, and that's why I came here. I find it hard to open up about my feelings, especially something personal like this, but somewhere in April this year I came out for the first time. I was very drunk, I didn't plan on coming out, but towards the end of the night I blurted it out to one of my closest friends. Since then Ive come out to other close friends and now only tell people when they ask or when the subject comes up.

 

I have to say, I have never heard of someone in their early 20s being called a "late bloomer." I have only heard that reference to women in their 30s and beyond.
This forum is exceptionally young, but if you look around for support groups specifically for "late-in-life" lesbians, you'll find plenty. A huge amount of women out there who were married and had kids, and then didn't come out until they were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.

The reason this is changing is the shift only in the past 10 years of LGBTQ issues coming to the forefront of discussion and media, and also the wide access globally to the internet. So only in this generation is late-blooming considered to be people who are still in a normal age to be figuring out their relationships. For every older generation, late-blooming is after someone's been married for a while and generally has kids.

I don't totally fit the late-blooming label, but I kind of do. The thing is, I knew I was bisexual from the time I was a little kid. And I had no problem with it. But I lived in a very conservative community, and so it was clearly not something to speak about. So I avoided dating altogether. When I went to college I happened to fall in love with a man, not that I was looking for one specifically. He knew I was bisexual, and was fine with it. I was out to everyone I met after I left my hometown. It didn't matter much, we had a monogamous relationship. 14 years later, no kids but a dog, I am now recently divorced, and it has been clear to me for a long time that while I like women and men sexually, I am only emotionally compatible with women as spouses. So I am in a position of "late blooming," because I have never been with anyone but my ex-husband. So experience-wise, this is all new to me, even though the idea, and knowing other gay folk, is not.

While most people knew, the few most central people in my life, whom I have known since I was a kid in that conservative town, still don't know. So one by one, I have been coming out to them in the past 2 years. There are now only a few left, my closest friends who are like siblings, and who may have the biggest problem with it. I expect to be done with this coming out to them in the next 6 months, and they will either be ok with it, or I will move on to friends who are. I will be ready to date again probably within that timeframe, and I need friends I can tell about all the anxiety, the funny first-date stories, etc. If they care about me they will want me to be happy, not want to control me when we don't even live together and it doesn't affect them much. Coming out to my new lesbian dates as bi and formerly married to a man will be hard too, because people who are just a bit younger than me are less likely to share that experience. But again, I only want people in m life who want the best for me and for me to be who I am, so if they're not ok with me, I will move on. But honestly, I am considering some casual relationships first so I can date around and get some experience, and not have to tell anyone I am a lesbian virgin. That is also partly because even though I know I can find someone who is ok learning with me, I am really not interested in jumping right into a very serious relationship again anyway. I never dated around before I met my husband, and that was not great for the marriage. Don't want to make that mistake again.

If you are looking for more support for being older and coming out, there is tons out there. But not sure how much there is on coming out in early 20s, that is likely to be more common in forums specifically for people who are very religious and that was the reason they did not come out or did not realize. Anyway, all experiences are more common than we assume them to be.(&&&)

 

I can really, really relate to this. I'm about to finish my degree, early, and head to a new city. This year I realized that, though was in a relationship for about 3 years with my best friend (who is a man) I can't do it anymore. I can't ignore the lifelong questioning pushed down.

It's hard to imagine not being straight. I've always "been" straight. I loved my boyfriend, but if I am honest I can admit that the physical intimacy was never right. What came so naturally for him was a sort of forced, vague, blocking out process on my part. Now I can't even conjure a ghost of whatever kept us going this long. As if as soon as I decided to ask myself what I really wanted, I lost all desire and ability to carry on like "normal."

I hope all of this feels easier when I am out on my own. To openly express these parts of myself after a lifetime of life to the contrary... would shock most of the people I know pretty hard. Myself included. I think the chance to strike out, once again, on my own will give me some sort of license to change without so much trauma.

 

Yeah, I'm just not sure I ever gave myself the right opportunity to question it one way or the other in college. I guess it took me until I was on my own to just start putting all the pieces of the puzzle together.

I think the most important part is just being honest with yourself. My biggest problem is letting all the years of "being straight" get into my head too much. I'm just struggling to reconcile all those "straight" crushes and decide if they were genuine or not. Almost feels like I'm picking up all the pieces of my life and rearranging them a little bit. One of my friends was just really great the other day though as I was having an emotional meltdown....it does no good to beat ourselves up. I've spent all this time being so mad at myself for not realizing it earlier. Now I know, and can move on.

 

I'm sorry that my story is so long. I tried to skip over a lot of stuff. I don't know if anyone is looking to go through all this and I understand why you wouldn't be, but I'm really happy I did. Spending a couple hours typing this all out has been extremely helpful to me. I'm literally crying right now, I don't think my post can express how helpful and meaningful this was to me. Thank you for making this thread. I'm so happy I finally joined somewhere to talk about these feelings.

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When I was little, I was never really exposed to the idea of same-sex attraction. I can remember back in 3rd grade, I had my first crush on a girl in my class. So from the start, there was never really any reason to think of liking boys. Everything seemed to make sense, so I didn't really have questions. But I still did take notice of boys at time. Specifically I can remember a boy in my 4th grade class... I didn't think of it as a crush or being attracted to him at the time, I just knew that I liked how he looked. And having had crushes on girls, and only knowing of heterosexual relationships, I just didn't have any reason to think much of it...

As I went on into middle school, things kind of stayed the same. There were girls that I'd think about and have crushes of, and there'd be a few boys, whom I'd like to look at, but I still was never thinking deeply on these feelings or anything. But as I started to get through/beyond puberty, was when my first sexual questions started. I started to get the impression that I was supposed to be attracted to naked women. But I wasn't at all. I'd see pictures online of nudity and be grossed out by them. I didn't suddenly think I was gay or something, but it just got me thinking a little bit more on this kind of stuff. I settled on that it was just something I'd develop as I got older like 18 or something. Or that maybe it didn't mean anything, I still liked girls, I just didn't like their naked body.

My first time I actually think about the idea of a relationship with a guy comes in the 9th grade. By this time, I was aware of homosexuality. I developed a friendship with this boy from my gym class. He was one of those boys that I liked to look at. One day when we were in the library for a class, we were looking at some books together, and it just kind of suddenly hit me, the idea of what if we were together. My first reaction was that I should dismiss that idea as gross and weird, but then I started to realize I liked that idea. The idea of kissing him felt like something I wanted. I never remotely acted on any of this. I don't think he was gay so I just set those feelings aside. But this moment in my life definitely brought up some more questions.

Now looking back, it seems clear by this point I should have been at least thinking about the idea of bisexuality, but I wasn't. When I first heard of bisexuality, it was from someone explaining in a very manner-of-fact tone about how it doesn't exist, and it's just denial or something. I took the person seriously and just kind of accepted that as fact then. Movies and TV didn't help much, where I only really saw female bisexuals who were portrayed as bisexual to fulfill some sort of male lesbian fantasy (usually drunk at a party). So I never really had the idea in my mind of bisexual being something real/sincere.

Anyways, things stay kind of the same as I go through 10th/11th grade. Once I'm a senior, though, is where things got more confusing again. By this time, I definitely knew that there was an expectation that a heterosexual male should be attracted to vaginas/naked breasts. And I definitely wasn't. I tried hard to be, but I just couldn't... Also at this time, I was taking a little more notice of guys and their bodies. So thinking in simplistic terms, I felt like this was suggesting I was gay. For a short time I thought that, but I knew I found girls pretty and I knew I liked being with them and talking to them and such. So, sticking to the binary of gay/straight, I figured I must have been thinking crazy, and that of course I must be straight.

[Sorry I feel a little weird talking about porn/fantasies, but it's a key part to my experience. There were plenty of other things going on, but I felt like the porn part really crystalized it for me.] In my first years of college is when guys seem to start slowly creeping into my sexual fantasies. It's hard to describe, the focus was still on the girl, but guys were involved in ways sometimes. Now once I'm 20, is when it really it starts. This is when I first actually start looking at porn video sites. The vagina being everywhere, something which I didn't like to look at still, always had turned me off to them. But I had been exposed to some other kind of videos that weren't penetration/vagina focused, and so I watched them. As I'd watch these over time I noticed that the woman in the video seemed to be becoming less and less prevalent, and the male body seemed to be becoming much more the focus.

The first shock came when I was watching a video and realized that there was no girl at all. I felt guilty like I really shouldn't be watching it. And I start thinking about how others I know would perceive what I was doing so I quickly turned it all off. About a year later (this past summer), it just kind of happened... I guess you could call it an epiphany or sorts. I suddenly just stopped caring. I knew I was really sexually turned on by some of these males in the videos, and I felt there was no point in trying to lie to myself about it or care about what anyone else would think of it. I felt really free after this. I didn't suddenly realize I was something, or make much out of it, I just knew I felt good.

Well eventually this fall, I really started to think about this stuff, and wonder what's going on with me. For so long, I had thought of myself as straight, and now I was thinking how can I reconcile this with what I fantasize about. And so now here I am at 21, unsure of what any of it means.

These past 2 days, I've been trying to think about all these moments of my life and understand what it means. And as I'm typing all this out, I think I'm kind of having that moment now. Looking at all this, I must be bisexual? I know I like girls, and well I must like guys too given how they make me feel and all the things I've thought about with them. It seems so simple/clear when I just organize it like this, but it just still feels so weird to say.

So I guess now is my real turning point... Maybe I knew it on some level all along, but it feels so much better to release it. I am bisexual, I am bisexual, I am bisexual, I am bisexual.

 

I always had female-female attraction, but never gave it serious consideration and always pushed it out of my mind as soon as I could. I also became very adept at diverting the attraction into some other category, "She's drop-dead gorgeous and I can't keep my eyes off of her" meant that "I'm so proud of my friend…", etc. I didn't know how else to define these things. I came from an outrageously conservative background, so being gay was never something I would have in a million years considered as a legitimate answer. Being gay was some altered state of mind that happened to you if you didn't love God, or value family, or have any moral conscience. So it never occurred to me as an explanation. In college I was sometimes aware of my same-sex attraction, but honestly, I also assumed it was how everyone thought. Since it wasn't even on the radar that I could be gay, I assumed I was straight and also assumed that my internal experience was completely standard. I thought girls who swooned over guys were just creating drama and were totally acting or exaggerating. WHen I met my husband he was very sweet and interesting and kind and really smitten with me. I thought I must be the same for him. But I didn't understand the fascination with sex, and basically just considered it something we had to do because we were in a relationship. Trouble was, after we were married my girl crushes went out of control and it was the first time I could admit to myself "I have a crush on this woman." And then there was the guilt that went along with it. But they were very intense crushes; it was like my sub-conscience was saying, "No, dummy! You got it all wrong!" Fast forward five years and two children later, I had a hard crush on a friend, and I decided to get to the bottom of my "lesbian tendencies" once and for all. I started doing a bit of research to find out what could be causing me to fall for my friends. If it sounds naive, it's because I WAS naive. What I found was that women like me were normal, had relationships with other women, and were called "gay" - that nasty word! I was so shocked, and at the same time it made so much sense. I went to the mirror and looked at myself with a huge grin that I could not wipe off and said, "Oh my gosh! You're GAY!!" It was such a huge relief because all my internal clock work finally made sense. I have to say, it also shifted my whole world view because I suddenly realized that everything I'd been taught about gay people, about what the Bible has to say about gay people, was untrue. I was a Christian, I loved God, I went to church every Sunday of my entire life, I loved my kids, I believed in commitment, was not a promiscuous person, cared deeply about my husband as a person, and yet I do not have the opposite-gender attraction - I only have same-sex attraction. Really a shocker to someone of my mindset at the time!

Perhaps more disturbing, however, has been the second coming-out to self, which is when I realized that being gay is completely outside of my control, and that there is a force inside me that continually wants to "set right" my relationships and connect me toward women even without my permission. This means I'm constantly fighting the force that propels me out of my marriage. That is, perhaps, the harder reality to face.

Being gay is beautiful. I wouldn't change it for the world.

 

Barca and Carm, thank you for sharing your stories. Really beautiful and inspiring to read...

 

Oh man where to even begin.
Sorry, it's sorta long, but I cut some stuff out xD

Anyways, to start I knew I was different by the age of 5. There was just something wrong with my mind and body, it wasn’t matching at all. I always wanted to be part of the boy-ish activities and play with boy toys and wear boy clothing. All throughout elementary school I only had guy friends. I had maybe one or two girl friends but I just couldn’t relate to them at all. I felt odd being around them; like I didn’t belong.

Come middle school, I started to gain more girl friends then guy friends…and whatever guy friends I had slowly drifted away; and this continued throughout high school as well. Which I suppose is natural being that everyone was going through puberty and what not, so why would a normal straight guy want to hang out with a “girl” who was still wearing baggy clothing, didn’t wear any make-up or care to appear “pretty” and overall just seemed to be stuck in their own immature tomboy world. I felt comfortable with whatever I did, but at the same time I felt like a freak. I wanted to know what was making me different from the other girls. Why couldn’t I just like wearing make-up and put on mini skirts or wear fancy dresses and want to actually look pretty. Unfortunately for me I didn’t figure out those answers till later on in my life, with no help from anyone of course. I continued to struggle and mask my feelings, not allowing anyone to see who I really was.

During high school, I knew I couldn’t continue to dress like a boy if I didn’t want to get weird looks and what not. Between society and my parents telling me to be more of a girl I slowly started to give in to their demands and began to weed my way out of my "tomboy phase”. Of course I still refused to wear some things; but I began to wear tighter clothing. It was painful at first, but I eventually became accustomed to it. I did that for about 5 years until my second year of college.

During this time, I became aware of the fact that one of my friends was dating a transman. I soon became overwhelmed by jealousy, after meeting with him for the first time. I was jealous because he was able to express himself freely and I was still trying to mask my true feelings. After that day, I kissed my girly clothing goodbye and started to wear looser clothing once again. It was such a big lift for me, even though I'm still not passing as a guy.

Fast-forwarding to about a month ago is when I came out to my parents. It was sort of an accident. I wasn’t planning on telling them that night; being that every time I wanted to tell them I chickened out. They sort of just forced it out of me though. They wanted me to talk to them and tell them what I’ve been hiding for the past 20 years; and that’s when I just spilled my guts, tears and all. Luckily they were supportive about it, but they still thought I was perhaps confused or even a lesbian, even though I told them multiple times that I was definitely not confused and I liked guys.
So that was definitely a turning point for me, finally being able to express myself the way I want to and no longer have my parents try to make me who I'm not.

 

Heh. If 30+ is a "late bloomer" you'd better consider me more akin to those strange fossilized plant seeds they find in Egyptian tombs, that scientists claim are somehow still viable after 3,000 years underground!
I considered myself absolutely straight until I was 45. I never once questioned it, or felt in any way "different" from other straight girls.
Then I met my current girlfriend of almost 3 years....She changed everything.

 

I had crushes all through elementary school and high school, but never thought of any of it as gay until the week I graduated high school in 2002--that was when I had my first inklings of gayness. Four years later at 22 I started wondering why my relationships with men did not satisfy me. I felt like there was something missing; I couldn't be romantic or passionate with men and I thought there was something wrong with me. Around this time I started watching The L Word and admitted to myself that I was attracted to women, but I didn't expect to "become" a lesbian or act on the feelings of attraction in any way.

Four years after THAT, at age 26, I went to my first lesbian bar and had my first openly lesbian experiences. This made me decide that at most, I was bisexual, since I was still seeking regular relationships with men. My last relationship with a man was this year (age 28) and it made me realize that dating men is simply not for me, it is not a way for me to be happy, and I would rather be alone forever while being honest about my sexuality than dating a man and lying about who I am.

I am out to my friends and have been every step of the way; they've watched my sexuality grow and shift organically over the last 10 years. My family sort of knows, but I haven't made any formal pronouncements because I don't believe that kind of official "coming out" process is right for me.

I can't imagine having the awareness of self and confidence at 16, 17, 18, to do what I'm doing now. I have PTSD and part of the manifestation of it was a complete repression of all things sexual about myself (and anyone else) for many years. I feel like those sexual stirrings of puberty, realizing attraction and understanding yourself as a sexual being, that most people experience at 13-16, did not occur for me until I was well into my 20s.

 

So i'm 26 and just now starting to debate the possibilities in what I am, I would love for someone to just tell me, or be able to read signs and symptoms in a book, I HATE TO HAVE TO TRY TO THINK AND DISCOVER THE ANSWER lol. Anyways, It started hitting me a few weeks ago. Where I work there is one Lesbian and one bi girl in which are both my bosses. (They are girlfriends, so both off limits ) I started noticing when one would talk to me I would start getting nervous, then I started having dreams about her, then I keep finding myself trying to find reasons to talk to her. So then it starts hitting me, wait a minute, why do I feel this way about her, why do I always look for her when I go in, why do I get so excited when she talks to me? So then one night I start totally thinking about it, With my past boyfriend, we pointed out girls to each other (yea we so did, O look at her A$$, She has nice boobs, her face is gorgeous) I never realized I may have like that more than him, I live near a college campus lots of runners and joggers, My friends love watching the guys, I like to see the girls coming:eusa_clap) I always thought I dunno, that I just liked to wish I was like them or something, but I dont, I THINK THEY ARE GORGEOUS, in porno movies my man used to watch, I liked to see the girls, the guys I kinda just thought were gross. I seem to find myself attracted to more girls than I do guys probably at a ration of 90%girls 10% guys. So then I start going further into my past and realize I may have had my first crush on a girl in middle school. I think I always thought about it as I just wanted to be some major kind of friends with her, but now I see that I think it was more, I was very protective of her, I would buy the gum she liked, silly things like that. Then my best friend I never realized it but it may have been more, I was also very very over protective of her. But everytime she dated a guy I hated them, everything about them, almost as if I was jealous of them. I used to love to lay on her lap and her rub my hair, looked for those moments. I was so comfy with her. I didn't even start dating until I was like 16 and yea I tried to love that one, but I didn't I only dated him so I could have a boyfriend, The next guy I thought I did love, and then the next one well I was with him for 7 years on and off, but it was complicated. We never really lived together, it was a real confusing relationship. like seriously. I was comfortable with him but not at the same time. I do have a 6 year old daughter, but how she got here is whole other story, Lets just say she wasn't planned and it was in a violent manner that she got here. But I love her with all of my being. And wouldn't trade her for the world. Anyways so there is my realization on why I am trying to figure myself out, It scares me but not really the feelings the coming out part, and I may even feel better about that if I could just figure myself out. :dry:Its so confusing:help::eusa_doh: