Hey....so today I think I have made progress in the ways of accepting myself. Everyday it feels like I am growing into myself - especially when I become more accepting ( will I feel like this tomorrow? ? I don't know but I feel like it now). I know it's va wall of text....you don't have to read it all...just skip to the last paragraph! ^^ , I just need to get this all out....! Please bear with me...! ^^ I'm a total lesbian. I have been in so much denial that it has literally made me live this fantasy for years. I have been so in the closet that I've found Fry's apartment and even been to Narnia. While it is lovely in here it is a fantasy ( one I desperately clung to). I'm still dealing with denial and still ...adjusting to the loss of my supposed straight identity. It's so hard. I do still want kids; and I will still end up having sex with men I think, less frequently and only a select few because I am still young and I'm not ready to settle, so if I get into a relationship with a woman (or man) it will be on an open status. I feel lesbian is the right word for me because it feels right, while I do like penetrative sex and cuddling with a man I always feel like I have a guard up or that I have to be defensive around them ( especially if they are attractive, if they are not we could be best friends but I don't feel anything sexual towards them ), and I feel that my attractions to them may be disingenuous. I used to think love was what you see in Disney films, you know, perfect, no room for human messy daily routines and full of extravagant gestures and just so perfect. Until my sister met her boyfriend and I grew up and realised these were two humans in love, living normal day to day lives mundane things but they stilll loved each other. Real human love was gritty, and messy( quickly learned why sex is considered dirty ), and well real. My crushes on men were a bit like the way I used to see love. I would put these men on pedestals (so immediately going after the unreachable men, a safety blanket denial created so I never really had to face why I never got a bf), and they could do nothing wrong, not to mention, to me they were (are) perfect tens. They could treat me like shit and I put up with it, they could use my body and toy with my head and I was okay for that to happen. Because I "wanted" these men, I would obsess over them and and attention they showed me meant they wanted me, my validation. This caused me to have extreme self esteem issues, as i couldn't figure out what I was or wasn't doing that wasn't working to make these guys want me to be their gf? I thought I wasn't skinny enough or pretty enough or I would sleep with them too early or play hard to get but nothing worked. Alongside this I would make good friends with other guys and we would be like best friends, only for me to learn that they would fall for me and I never had mutual feelings for these perfectly nice guys. All of my ex boyfriends fall into this category (I'd like to point out that I have only slept with 7 men, and dated 4ish) all of my relationships ended because I broke it off, which never phased me emotionally. I never craved boyfriends either but I still would intensely crush on guys and think that I'd want to date them. But you see, I think real attractions, while powerful are not so intensely obssessive like they way my "crushes" were. I think my crushes were like that because I thought that's what they were supposed to be like, when you hear girls talking about boys features, yes I can appreciate them but it wasn't until recently that that's all I realised I could do. I would cling onto the idea of love and my ideal partner for dear life and become obsessed over that just to avoid having to face reality. And the beauty of the spectacle of my adolescent life is that I was completely unaware how unnatural this all was ( and how gay I was). I was always checking girls out I just didn't realise it, I would spend more time on a pretty girls facebook than my "crushes" (I couldn't even look at pictures of them directly for some reason....which I put down to me being bashful). I have really only ever gotten off to lesbian oriented porn and yuri and sims, since I discovered it, and gay porn and other stuff but rarely straight. I would feel drawn to some girls and be constantly jealous of some others ( while at the same time not realising I was crushing on them even though I would verbally say "she's a babe" yep. I still thought I was totally straight ). I always felt more comfortable around women and gay men, and men who only have eyes for their girlfriend. For the first time I was in the car with mmy cousin and her gf and their lesbian friends and I remember wanting one if their friends to brush off my leg again, or one of them was so openly gay and I was so uptight (still thinking I was straight her openness made me uncomfortable because I didn't want to give the wrong impression ) but I desperately wanted to be her. And then at the festival we were going to on drugs I came out to my roomate who fell in love with me but went back in when I sobered up. I expected to feel this liberation from coming out and I didn't but that was the first night I cried all about it. After that I had a string of one night stands where I started having sexual arousal problems. Nothing any guy did worked for me. Which made me worry and question more which obviously didn't help and only made things worse. Before all those one night stands there was sexual tension building between me and two if my best female friends and we tried to have a three some but two of us (myself incl. ) got a bit weirded ou ( with denial and qe just weren't ready) so it was an anti climatic experience but ig still left me curious. But I was also seeing a therapist for the past 2 years and I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and a multitude of other disorders, and they seriously messed me up because I was completely unaware until last year that tje way I was living my life for the previous 19/20 years was abnormal. I did not realise growing up that it was not shyness that made so quiet in every aspect of my life, or modest to not to want to be seen eating in front of people for fear of being seen as a pig, or have to make sure constantly tgat I had perfect appearance to match my "perfect" life. It was exhausting, I felt like I was living my life constantly the way a model works on a shoot - everyone is scrutinizing you and every little thing you do wrong is picked up so you can't be human you are you have to be the CoverGirl 24/7. I was numb to everything in my life as I was not really living it because I was using to much energy trying to walk a certain way or sit a certain way or look a certain way and constantly worried about what people thought of me, but I had no idea why I acted this way. The more and more I went to therapy and mindfulness I practised the more evident these natural thoughts and things about women came to the surface, each time I broke down my own internal defences the more comfortable I became in my own skin, the more gay I became, and of course I was too embarrassed to talk to anyone about this, how could a 21 yo straight all her life girl suddenly turn gay? And of course I panicked and became attached to the safety of HOCD. I couldn't believe that I could be a lesbian, I wasn't homophobic because 3/5 of my best male friends were gay and I'd met lesbians and was fine with them, even fine with them coming onto me, I was flattered but I was not one of them, I couldn't be. I then discovered what internalised homophobia was. And eventually came to the conclusion that I didn't have HOCD and I did have a heap of internalised homophobia. I had this idea of what a lesbian was or wasn't and what bisexuality was (pre concieved ideas from a badly educated small Catholic country, in a small town, where people are not very open minded. Yet I had no problems turning my back on the church and those people when I was 12, I didn't quite ever replace the connotations for lesbian and bis). I just never seemed to fot in with my idea of a lesbian and lesbians in general were always associated in a negative light growing up ( especially since that TaTu video which I was strangely drawn to but everyone around me made some scoff at it growing up...you felt even ashamed to hear it on the radio and even then somrone would remark) Even bis were considered sexually charged and I used to cling on to this idea that I'd rather be single than a lesbian which was totally unfair and disnissive because I didn't know what real lesbians were like just like I didn't know what real crushes or real love was like. I named this "the elephant in the room" be ause it's all about the pink and I wonder how many EC'ers read posts on this and go "totallllly gay" but can't post because we have to figure this out in our own time? Also because I geel the need to come out but I am so embarrassed I will get the "we already knew that" response or I just feel anxious or silly or scared....not because my family won't be supportive ( cause they will....once I explain to them....but I did tell my sister and she had the same response as me 'I've know you all your life, you've been boy mad" but she still was accepting), I feel scared that somehow this gives people a reason to hold against me. Like it's my choice, or that I am somehow a failure or a disappointment. And also because I feel so embarrassed people will be all like "took your time" which is just teasing I know and to be expected....but I don't really want to come out to a certain group (the gay friend group) because I feel they will not reject me but.... maybe be judgemental. ... which they are the worst for..... I also can't wait to come out to men and see if they still wamt to be friends when sex is off ( with the occasional fling for certain men.....). But most of all.......and thank you for letting me vent, I want to thank all of you at EC, necause I learned so much about myself, that I am not alone. The reason I wrote so much tonight was because I discovered I could relate to so many of your experiences and I just wanted to give my all back in case anyone felt similar or could relate to any of my experiences and feelings. You guus don't know how much you have helped me. I just hope my spelling errors and constant posting hasn't annoyed you too much. I also want to thank you for introducing me to Arielle and the other lesbian youtubers, because they truly helped me see a new definition for lesbian that was so much more positive and caused me to actually use the label today. So thank you so much for helping me discover who I am and providing a safe place to do so abd helping me in this dark place! I don't know what the next step is for me but I'm going to let everything happen as it happens. Lots of love (&&&)
I'm glad that you find EC very helpful. (*hug*) I hope you continue to be here for a long time! :newcolor: