Self Acceptance

While you do not especially express it in the text but rather allude to it, am I correct to assume you believe you have concluded what your sexuality is, but now your trying to better understand whom you are and actually accept whom you are (you reference that your therapist suggested this but have you accepted what she says)?

The journey you are on of self discovery is exactly what EC is here to help you navigate. So your definitely at the right spot. And there are numerous people whom are experiencing or have experienced similar journeys as yours.

It is great that you are already working with a therapist. Therapy is a very helpful tool for you to leverage to help provide guidance as you become more aware of yourself; and based on what you expressed, it seems your therapist is providing you with a good path to follow.

Even with therapy, it is up to you to challenge yourself and only you can define for yourself whom you are. Accepting your sexuality is something only you can do. And you can take steps to get there!

So here is what worked for me - Vulnerability. By making yourself vulnerable, taking risks that you are otherwise scared to take, exposing yourself in ways that might be uncomfortable, you can better understand your boundaries, build confidence in yourself, figure out what works for you as well as what does not, and better understand whom you are, and find happiness with the person that you are.

You need to take risks for this to work! You need to put yourself out there. The more you challenge yourself the more you will learn about yourself.

Go have a cup of coffee, get involved in social groups, athletic clubs, charities, online chat rooms, and other avenues where you can meet other LGBT in the community. Go introduce yourself to people, make friends, be rejected by others (ouch!), learn from others. When you do get rejected, just brush off the dirt and get back up and try again. When you make a connection, explore that connection and see where it takes you.

There are two other elements I would suggest you should think about to help you get comfortable with whom you are - understanding shame and internalized homophobia.

Shame is a powerful emotion. Shame, unchecked, can cause you to hold back and limit yourself. Shame is brought on by ones perception of homophobia that exists in society and has the potential to lead one to feeling unloved, unworthy and unaccepted. You can CONQOUR shame! You can win the fight against shame. While shame will always be a core human emotion, you can learn to recognize it, understand it and put it in its place. When you manage shame, you realize you can be loved, you are worthy, you are accepted!

Next is internalized homophobia. Allowing societies perception of homophobia to impair your own perception of homosexuals, with the effect of diminishing the view you have of yourself as a gay man. My first understand of what internalized homophobia was occurs when I made myself vulnerabile and I forced myself to walk in a gay pride parade. When I walked in the parade, and saw all colors of the rainbow walking with me, and saw the observers on each side of the street cheering us on, I was able to both identify that I was suffering from internalized homophobia (I would always say to myself "I am not like all these other gay guys") and began my own journey to working through it ("I realized, I am exactly like all these other gay guys, but unique in my own way"). This only happened because I made myself vulnerable. The parade for me was just the beginning of the journey. But with hard work, continued risk taking, I learned to love myself and learn to understand internalized homophobia.

I know I have written quite a bit here, and each point can take quite a bit of time to understand and work through. Maybe talk about it with your therapist. Discuss it with others on EC. Start making yourself vulnerable and I am confident you can become more self aware and, in the process, learn to love yourself.

 

Forgive me if this is jumbled, as i am eating breakfast while typing this up.

Throughout your whole post, the whole time i read it, all i could think was: this is me, this is so me. It really is. Since middle school i have had mental health issue such as yours - depression, anxiety, self harm, suicidal tendencies, and mood instability. only within this past year or two have i begun to question my sexuality and it is only now at age 25 that i have come to admit to myself that i am gay. I was born to a conservative woman young who was not ready to have kids, she had too much baggage from a rough childhood. She was an angry, codependent parent with emotionally abusive tendencies who did a lot of gaslighting as well. This combined with my confusion with sexuality beginning in middle school, i just ended up repressing it all to the point that in highschool i was pretty much asexual.

Over this past week on this site i have come to understand myself so much better. I understand myself, my sexuality, the progress through the years regarding it, the hints and signs growing up, etc. I have become so much happier with myself understanding all of this. Not completely, though, because i know that i will need to move out soon and become independent in every way because my family will never accept my sexuality. My mother already considers me a failure - she will consider me disgusting and sinful and a bad influence if i tell her. My brother will think the same. There is a chance my dad might not care, but i cannot take that chance while he is still turbulently married to my mother.

This fact hit me yesterday and it drove me to suicidal thoughts but this morning i have woken up in a better mood. Good food helps lol. I am deathly afraid of spending my life alone - without a single friend, even - but yet i am equally afraid of letting somebody get close and fearing they will see what my mother, the parent i grew up closest to, now sees in me.

This is really scary for me because like some people on here, i'm shy. Painfully shy. I isolated myself growing up because of my mother's behavior, my resulting non existent self esteem, and my confusion regarding my sexuality that i did not understand at the time. I too have isolated myself for most of my life and would like to stop doing so, but i do not know how either. Every time i try it turns out awkward and if there is a question that hits at the walls built up over the years i pull back, afraid of rejection and judgement.

So sorry i do not have advice for you. I just wanted to say i feel quite similarly. I wish you well.