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I'm putting this here instead of on the main CS site for various reasons. It's not exactly a fratching but...yeah. Forgive me for being long-winded, I'm a writer and storyteller by nature so...I tend to wax on.
So...how to start.
I've gained a lot of insight into myself and what I want out of life over the last couple of years and have come to some painful and yet extremely relieving conclusions. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me.
As some might know, I suffer from some health issues and chronic pain problems. I also struggle with depression on and off...something I always attributed to my pain issues and my physical limitations.
My best friend has for years been pushing me to see a therapist, which I finally started doing last Monday. Though I've **known** for a very long time, she officially diagnosed me with PTSD due to several horribly traumatic childhood instances I won't get into here. As well, I have some serious social anxieties.
Part of the reason that I've chosen now to actually give in and see the therapist is because I'm gearing up for something big and I know I need help. Oddly enough, it wasn't the pain issues, the depression, the PTSD that finally broke my resolve at seeing one.
It was because I met somebody.
Somebody I really really really like, enough that I had to sit and re-examine everything I'd clamped down on over the years, making my entire existance more or less one huge lie. I decided I could either keep living the lie until my depression spiraled out of control and I ended up just curling in a corner somewhere and dying of misery...or I could accept that I was as I was, that there was nothing wrong with it, and that I did, in fact deserve to be happy.
I chose to be happy.
So, long story short....I'm gay.
Actually, I consider myself somewhat bisexual with very strong leanings toward women. I do find some men attractive...some incredibly so (Johnny Depp, Oded Fehr, I'm looking at you). Yet I could never and still can't envision myself doing anything more with a man than kissing. Perhaps if certain childhood traumas hadn't happened, I would be more centered on the bisexual scale but I doubt it.
And no, that wasn't the cause of me 'turning gay'...looking back I started realizing it about myself when I was five...LONG before the trauma ever began (I was about twelve when it started, and it lasted until I was about sixteen), I remember even asking my mother about it when I was that young (she was pregnant at the time, and natural questions typical of any child of that age came up). Unfortunately, however loving her response, it was her words that actually caused me to start hiding it even from myself.
No one in my family knows just yet. I've 'officially' only come out to two people (a good friend of mine and the person I really really like), but the therapist situation is both to help me deal with my trust and PTSD issues and my depression, but also to help me to make the steps toward coming out to my family. Because it's going to happen. I can't keep lying, and I shouldn't have to. I deserve to be happy.
I confessed my feelings to the person I like yesterday. We spent most of the day talking. I knew she was gay from the first time we 'met' (we've been talking online for several months now) and I had a strong suspicion my feelings were returned. I was right. However circumstances and distance (she's in Australia) are keeping things slow right now and that's just fine. We're not in any rush, we're taking things as they come, and we're determined to have no regrets.
I need time to sort all this out, do some progression in therapy, and inform my family before she becomes a steady prescence...help them get used to the idea. I need to be in a good place and make some progress before I can think of anything further, and she's got to sort some things out with her family as well so...like I said, no rush. She's coming up to the states and Canada in 2014 and we might take a trip on the Clipper to Victoria together then, provided of course things haven't changed and we still want to give it a go.
So...yeah, anyway. Tada. You are now officially the 'third person' I've told.
So...how to start.
I've gained a lot of insight into myself and what I want out of life over the last couple of years and have come to some painful and yet extremely relieving conclusions. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me.
As some might know, I suffer from some health issues and chronic pain problems. I also struggle with depression on and off...something I always attributed to my pain issues and my physical limitations.
My best friend has for years been pushing me to see a therapist, which I finally started doing last Monday. Though I've **known** for a very long time, she officially diagnosed me with PTSD due to several horribly traumatic childhood instances I won't get into here. As well, I have some serious social anxieties.
Part of the reason that I've chosen now to actually give in and see the therapist is because I'm gearing up for something big and I know I need help. Oddly enough, it wasn't the pain issues, the depression, the PTSD that finally broke my resolve at seeing one.
It was because I met somebody.
Somebody I really really really like, enough that I had to sit and re-examine everything I'd clamped down on over the years, making my entire existance more or less one huge lie. I decided I could either keep living the lie until my depression spiraled out of control and I ended up just curling in a corner somewhere and dying of misery...or I could accept that I was as I was, that there was nothing wrong with it, and that I did, in fact deserve to be happy.
I chose to be happy.
So, long story short....I'm gay.
Actually, I consider myself somewhat bisexual with very strong leanings toward women. I do find some men attractive...some incredibly so (Johnny Depp, Oded Fehr, I'm looking at you). Yet I could never and still can't envision myself doing anything more with a man than kissing. Perhaps if certain childhood traumas hadn't happened, I would be more centered on the bisexual scale but I doubt it.
And no, that wasn't the cause of me 'turning gay'...looking back I started realizing it about myself when I was five...LONG before the trauma ever began (I was about twelve when it started, and it lasted until I was about sixteen), I remember even asking my mother about it when I was that young (she was pregnant at the time, and natural questions typical of any child of that age came up). Unfortunately, however loving her response, it was her words that actually caused me to start hiding it even from myself.
No one in my family knows just yet. I've 'officially' only come out to two people (a good friend of mine and the person I really really like), but the therapist situation is both to help me deal with my trust and PTSD issues and my depression, but also to help me to make the steps toward coming out to my family. Because it's going to happen. I can't keep lying, and I shouldn't have to. I deserve to be happy.
I confessed my feelings to the person I like yesterday. We spent most of the day talking. I knew she was gay from the first time we 'met' (we've been talking online for several months now) and I had a strong suspicion my feelings were returned. I was right. However circumstances and distance (she's in Australia) are keeping things slow right now and that's just fine. We're not in any rush, we're taking things as they come, and we're determined to have no regrets.
I need time to sort all this out, do some progression in therapy, and inform my family before she becomes a steady prescence...help them get used to the idea. I need to be in a good place and make some progress before I can think of anything further, and she's got to sort some things out with her family as well so...like I said, no rush. She's coming up to the states and Canada in 2014 and we might take a trip on the Clipper to Victoria together then, provided of course things haven't changed and we still want to give it a go.
So...yeah, anyway. Tada. You are now officially the 'third person' I've told.
Good luck with this new person.
). I guess what I'm saying is, be honest with yourself first, if you find zero members of the opposite gender sexually attractive, be honest, at this point you are likely gay(I don't know your full range of feelings, and am not telling you what they may be, just saying don't feel like a few deviations from "standard" means you can't be "x"), if at some point later on that changes, so be it, just don't feel you have to label yourself o make others feel better, it will end up causing you more difficulty in the long run.
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