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Coming out, confused and depression. (Long post)

Discussion in 'Coming Out Advice' started by garabaldi22, Dec 20, 2014.

  1. garabaldi22

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    Hi all,
    Well I came out recently this year and I've been questioning it for almost 10 years. This feelings towards guys started in middle school and I never told anyone. I was raised by a very strict family towards gays and was always afraid about opening up about my feelings to my parents. Anyway in my last year of college I was roomed with a gay guy. I didn't find him that interested, only because he wanted me to switch out roommates before the semester started, so I was pissed at him and I figured I wouldn't like him. Well, that changed when I got to know him and I felt like this connection with him. I later found out that I had a thing for him. I later told him about my feelings towards him, but he told me he wasn't ready for a relationship and then he started questioning me about my sexual orientation. I told him I was open to both, but I was scared to really tell him that I've always found men more attractive. I later went on to tell him the truth and it felt good to say it. I felt good, excited actually that I could express these feelings I've had for a while. I later told my close friends an they were okay with it. This then progressed to me telling my brothers, which was emotional, but before I could even continue I found myself with this tremendous fear of what they would think and say. Out of nowhere it felt like there was a switch that turned me off. I didn't feel anything anymore, I felt like I've lost myself.
    I went to therapy and talked to her about it and she told me that it was situational depression. I was okay to express these feelings and I let rejection and the opinion and doubt make go back into the closet.
    Not only did I lose interest in guys, I feel like I lost a big part of me and everyone around me notices it. I'm no longer my self and I'm in desperate need to find out who I am again.
    This has led me to figure out if I'm into girls. I never thought about girls like that, but right now I feel like I'm forcing myself to find an answer. When I think about them my heart starts to beat fast and I start to tense up, but it doesn't feel right, I feel no sexual desire to be with them, but it feels like my head is leading me that way.
    I just feel useless, I feel like there is no connection between my head and my body.

    Please, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
     
  2. KyleD

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    You don't feel attracted to guys anymore? I'm not sure I understand.
     
  3. garabaldi22

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    Well, before the depression I would always be thinking about guys and think about them sexually and it felt great, but now it's like my mind has lost interest. I can think about guys, but it's like my mind is not letting me get that excitement that I've had.
     
  4. Wildside

    Wildside Guest

    but from what you said in your OP, it doesn't sound like you're really interested in girls either, that you're just trying to make yourself be interested in them. I don't want to put words in your mouth, so tell me if I'm reading you wrong. If you just don't feel passion for men like before, and you are having a hard time getting interested in girls, maybe you're just still depressed, and so your emotions and feelings are flat. are you on meds? when I was on anti-depressants, it made a lot of my emotions feel very flat (though it didn't deaden my attraction to men one iota)
     
  5. Imagery

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    Right now I think that you need to focus on you instead of on who you like. You can't love anyone until you love yourself.
     
  6. Monraffe

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    This is a very interesting story you have. I didn't find it "long" at all. :icon_wink I don't mean to insult your intelligence but you do realize what the definition of depression is. It's perfectly logical that depression would suppress your interest in guys. That is what depression does. It also makes sense that you would find this opportunity to discover that girls are more interesting than you previously thought. Girls ARE interesting. You just happen to be thinking more about them now because this depression – which is suppressing your interest in guys – is giving you the time and space to look at girls more openly than you have in the past. Anyway, back to your depression, or as you more accurately described it, this "switch" that got turned off. Your therapist could have also told you that that thing you experienced, that is to say, the thing that lead to your "situational depression" in the first place, was a sudden onset of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when two or more competing "cognitions" (beliefs, ideas, or values) are in conflict with one another in your brain at the same time. Humans are a model of internal consistency so whenever an internal dissonance occurs it can be a very uncomfortable psychological experience. Depression is a way of shutting things off to prevent damage. So to put it in electrician terms, you flipped a breaker. The interesting question is, what caused the dissonance? The simple answer lies with your belief system. Part of you really likes the new path you are on. I mean it REALLY likes it. It likes the fact you are gay and the freedom you feel when you express it. But it is the very strength of this new found devotion to being the real you that is causing problems with your past: "I was raised by a very strict family towards gays" says it all, my friend. A very large and sudden gradient has developed between past and present "selfs" and at the moment at least, there is no bridge you can manufacture that can span the gap between them. The treatment for this condition is time. Your therapist can take your money and in the end you might even thank her for "curing" you of this problem, but there isn't really anything she or you can do aside from keeping you from doing damage to yourself while this works itself out (somehow I doubt that is likely). So don't worry, you will get your mojo back in time, and when you do you will be better than ever. In the mean time just call it a slump and leave it at that. Hang in there!
     
    #6 Monraffe, Dec 20, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2014
  7. chemicalbond

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    garibaldi22... Hello! :slight_smile:

    As others have said, you may have lost your interest in guys because of your depressed state, and not because you really lost interest in them.

    It's really hard to be interested in anything when we're depressed!

    Based on what you've said so far, it seems that while your homosexual inclinations "feel right," and "feel good," there might be a part of you that's rebelling against it. It might be saying, "How dare you say that feels good!"

    Another reason could also be guilt. Deep down, you might be guilty about actually telling people you're gay.

    So I echo Imagery's answer: you might need to reconcile with yourself how you feel about letting other know about you. You might be cool about being gay, but you might not still be cool with letting people in on your secret.

    But, personally, I think you just need take it one step at a time. Reflect on what you think is causing the blockages in your mind, the exact fears that concern you about the whole thing. Once you pinpoint the specific fears, then it'll be easier to deal with them.
     
  8. garabaldi22

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    Thank you everyone. I've been feeling a bit better everyday. But at the same time I get a bit too impatient about this, because I've had these feelings for 10 years and I've always hated myself for it, I actually felt bad because I knew back then that I would never find someone to talk about this. It's just at times I wonder if my whole life was a lie if these feelings left, like if they where just there to confuse me. But they never left and I accepted them, but now it's just that I let people in my little secret that led me to fear the outcome and I feel like I wasn't ready for the reactions.