I Need Help Accepting Myself

Warning, this post is a bit lengthy I appreciate the time taken by anyone who reads it, though!

This is my first post here, or anywhere having to do with LGBT stuff. I've been self-identifying as hetero for all 29 years of my life with reoccurring same-sex feelings that I always dismissed.

The funny thing is I don't think I knew I was gay for sure until just recently... It's not that I don't like gays (I'm very pro-gay rights politically), it's just that I don't want to be one.

Before anybody gets offended bear in mind that the main reason I don't want to be one is because I have already been through so much ridicule and torment in my life so far for other issues that to pile on one more that will simply open the doors for people to hate on me more... it is a very scary proposition.

I don't know how bad it is because I know nothing of the culture. But when I Google self-hating and gays, all that comes up is information on homophobes. I never considered myself a homophobe. Yet I have been denying this part of myself all my life and hating myself for not being strong enough to overcome it.

Not because I think it's gross, but because it's going to end up defining me and preventing me from living a life free of prejudice. I'm a white, middle-aged male, so I have never existed within any social minority before.

Anyway, the other night I was sobbing for an hour or so, as I do every week (only behind closed doors mind you, I am very collected in front of others) and something just went off in me like a switch and I had to just accept it and tell someone, to make sure that the planet wouldn't explode into flames if someone found out. Because the everpresent fear of someone finding out was exhausting.

So later that day I told my Mother, who was very accepting, and while it was very difficult, I imagine I had an advantage in that I had shared with her that I might be bi a long time ago when I was still coming to grips with possibly being bi or gay. So she had already gotten past the acceptance phase back then.

It's not that I want to start dating men (the idea still feels so unnatural to me), it's just that I can't handle the pain of keeping it buried. Even though I'm not going to act on the feelings for probably at least a year or so while I deal with other stuff in my life, just getting it off my chest was great.

I'm starting to think the only person in my family who would have problems accepting me as a gay person is me.

How do I change myself and get accustomed? I don't fit any of the gay stereotypes. I'm thin and in the bedroom desire to play a very feminine role, but outside of those intimate fantasized scenarios, I am quite butch, with a deep voice and no feminine mannerisms that I can think of. Only one person in my life has ever seemed to think I was gay, and when I asked him why he said it was because I rarely checked out women when the rest of our work crew did. I think I told him it was out of respect (probably believed it myself).

I hate to spill myself bare like this, very egotistical I know, but I am in a vulnerable spot and I don't have a support network really. I don't feel comfortable telling anyone else for a good while, but it would make me feel a lot better to actually talk with some LGBT folks, though I don't have any openly gay friends. Given the name of this forum I was hoping this might be a good place to try.

I saw a documentary on five people who came out in their fifties, sixties, and seventies. I think that might have had something to do with my coming out shortly thereafter. I'm less than a year from thirty and I haven't yet wrestled with something that I assume most gay people deal with (and learn from) in high school.

Can anybody maybe recommend a good book on the subject? I am an avid reader but I know so little about this subject.

Or maybe some mental exercises or tips to I dunno find some acceptance or maybe even pride in it? I feel silly even asking, but I need to ask somewhere.

I've been trying to change it, hope it goes away, or hope that my hetero side (I do crave women about 10% of the time) became strong enough for me to be bi so I could choose the less difficult of two social paths.

What amazed me so much was how much better I felt after I told someone. Still, they are reacting to it better than I am, and that bothers me. I made sure it was someone who can take a secret to the grave, of course, and there's probably no safer bet than one's mother.

Also, if it matters, I'm not religious, nor are any of my family members. So that's not a barrier.

TL;DR: I needs help! Thank you much for your time.