To all who read this and offer some help I thank you in advanced. So i have been having panic attacks and have pretty much talked myself into the fact that i am gay over the past week or two. I am a 26 year old male who has always identified as a straight man until now. Not that I have never thought about it in the past or questioned it but at this point I cant shake the feeling that I am. The truth is I have been finding men attractive. I have no desire to take them out on a date nor do I fantasize about them later I just feel like wow they're attractive and i get this warm feeling inside. I watched a gay porn last week thinking that it might help me with my decision but in all reality I found the guys to be somewhat attractive but the act not to be. To give you some more insight into me, I suffer from depression and anxiety. I have been off my meds for a few months as I felt i no longer needed them and also quit smoking weed after doing so all day everyday for almost two years a month ago which in retrospect was self medicating. I recently started dating a girl who I had a major crush on for 6 months. She was unavailable for a long time after I told her how i was feeling then when I thought all hope was gone she broke up with her guy and decided to start seeing me as she said she had been thinking about me a lot. After a month of seeing each other and feeling everything was perfect emotionally and sexually we officially started dating. Though she never said anything about it I decided to quit smoking weed altogether at this time as I felt she deserved a better me and I was getting tired of being stoned all the time. Since then things had been pretty great with us but i started to getting my anxiety and depression back and I lost that spark for her Last week while watching a TV show I saw two guys kissing and found the one guy to be super attractive and this is when my week of hell began. I obsessed over the fact that since the guy was gay and I found him attractive that I too must be gay. I was totally convinced for a few days that i was gay so I broke up with my girl. I told her that it was because of some petty differences that we had between us that I dont think many people would brake up over these things. After a couple of days I decided to apologize to her and we got back together. I have since told her about what is going on but she says she loves me and doesn't think that I am gay so wants to go through this with me. I also want to mention that I did perform homosexual acts towards another guy at one period in my life, it was in my childhood and ended when I was 14. There was never any penetration or even a desire to kiss each other, just rubbing and oral. When I look back on it I feel that it was all in good fun and nothing to do with love or lust, it just felt good. During this same period I did have crushes on girls as well but was a very shy with girls so never experimented with any of them. I dont want to dwell on this history of mine (though I am a bit) as I have read that many straight men have had these experiences, but I have also thought that maybe this shows a sign into who i am so i figured i would add this too. I have a gay younger brother, 24 years old, who i have openly discussed this with and he doesnt think I am gay. He said that he has seen me in a couple heterosexual relationships and doesn't think that a gay man could be as happy as I was in these but i just cant shake the feeling or better word fear that I am. At this point Im hoping to get some opinions from users on this site to get some insight as to whether I am just freaking out and am in a bad place or if I should pursue this somehow. I am going to see a psychiatrist in a couple of weeks to get me back on meds to settle me down. I am still thinking that i might be gay but at this point another part of me is thinking that I am just confused and the fact that i am not on my meds is making this into something way bigger than it should be. Thanks all for your support and words of wisdom.
Ok, we keep that in mind. A warm feeling inside, which is much more than just finding someone attractive. In fact it was the 'warm feeling inside' that alarmed you. If you have a warm feeling for a straight man you are straight? :icon_wink It is high time that you learn the difference between the adjectives HOMOSEXUAL and GAY. A. HETEROSEXUAL means sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex. B. HOMOSEXUAL means sexually attracted to people of one's own sex. C. BISEXUAL means sexually attracted to people of both sexes. D. Today GAY means sexually attracted to people of one's own sex but not sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex. Heterosexual and homosexual only describe a sexual behaviour, whereas GAY (STRAIGHT, BI) are self-identities of a specific society. In the scientific literature you also find the expression MSM = Men who have sex with men. You didn't understand that the GAY claim of EXCLUSIVE HOMOSEXUALITY does not mean that HOMOSEXUALITY is necessarily exclusive. It isn't! Non-exclusive homosexuality is called BISEXUALITY. You should listen to her, because she obviously knows more about sexuality than you. :icon_wink If you enjoy women sexually, your are definitely NOT GAY. But HOMOSEXUALITY seems to be an option for you. It is up to you whether you explore it in more detail or concentrate on the relation with your girlfriend for the time being. Just confused. Call yourself STRAIGHT. Or BISEXUAL or BI-CURIOUS if you take your 'warm feeling inside' serious. Homosexuality opens new emotional and sexual horizons! Perhaps your girlfriend is bi-curious too?
Listen to your brother. He presumably knows you pretty well. You can be sorta attracted to men but still be primarily straight. But more important, if you haven't gone back on your meds, I would do so. I went off my anti-depression meds once upon a time because I had been feeling so well for a long time. Within a few days I was in a sort of bipolar whiplash spiral, elated for awhile then crashing into a deep depression. (And this, I might add, had nothing to do with sexual anxieties; it had to do with feeling I had fallen far short of where I hoped to be professionally at that point.) Did you discuss going off your meds with your doctor? That's an absolute must. You know what euphoria is, right? Well there's also its opposite, dysphoria. Everything about life seems broken and unfixable. I've been there. It sounds like you're there now. Not a happy place to be.
