came out to therapist

Congratulations!

 

Good for you.

It doesn't say a great deal for the therapist if he didn't have a clue, though.

 

I am on my 3rd therapist now. (On and off for approx 10 years). The other two I just didn't connect with or felt ok about opening up totally to them.

The one I am with now is also gay so even though it has taken me nearly 2 years of therapy with her, I finally had the courage to speak up a couple of weeks ago.

Felt quiet liberating for me too, but now I have to deal with it and not stick my head in the sand hoping the feelings I have go away. Dunno if I like that idea much!

Are you going to find another, or see how you get on?

 

Congratulations. This all gets easy with time. The more times you tell people, the easier it will get. Hopefully the responses you get will all be positive. Almost every one of mine was.

 

My therapist knows but she told me last time I had an appointment that we should work on my tendency to put myself down and not on my sexuality. And I'm sure she's right but that's still not what I want. So I'm not sure if I'm going to bother with another appointment. But anyway I'm really glad it went well for you. It's great to be able to be who you really are.

 

Congratulations

Reading coming out stories truly helps. It not only shows encouragement but also, at least for me, works as a depression therapy! Could not explain it any better.

Thank you for sharing your experience and I hope the situation gets lot more easier.

 

@SiennaFire I think it is genuine therapeutic concern and I even think she has a point. But right now I'm a lot more frustrated with not knowing my sexuality than I am with my tendency to put myself down which has been around a long time and probably isn't going to go away any time soon. But she knows virtually nothing about LGBT issues so that doesn't really help. All that said I probably should still make an appointment.

Anyway I hope things go well with your wife. That does sound like a challenge but I'm glad you want to do it.

 

I don't think my HMO would let me have a new therapist, and especially wouldn't let me pick one who has LGBT experience. But I'm going to keep it in mind. Also if I do go back to this therapist I'm just going to tell her what I want to work on -- the psychiatrist agreed that I should.

And my early experiences are what makes me hesitant -- I did notice boys and not particularly girls, and I remember having my first crush on a guy when I was 13 and having butterflies and the whole bit. Though by the time I was 17 I was starting to wonder if I was really straight because I wanted to be with this one friend of mine. I don't remember having butterflies exactly... but I did want to be with her and felt that it wasn't the same as with other friends.

It's just rough because I keep telling myself "Hey, you had a crush on a guy and you remember that, why are you even thinking you're not straight?" even though I have reasons, especially from later on in my life. Anyway I don't mean to ramble on and on.

 

You could very well be bi. It sounds a lot like my early experiences. If you do switch therapists, you should be able to get a list on your plan and ask to talk to them for 5 minutes to get a feel for if they have expertise in the areas you want to work on. Low self esteem can also be linked to being in the closet. You might find the issues are rooted in some of the same issues.

 

The only time I kissed a woman it wasn't good, but it was the wrong woman and the wrong situation so I think that was the main problem there.

I notice women more today. I have these celebrity crushes who are men in a certain band and I feel like I would totally go for those particular men, but meeting real men in real life I don't feel like I would date them. Then again I don't meet a lot of men and I rarely meet women I think I'd date either (though there was one just tonight so I've got that on my mind now.)

I realize you didn't necessarily intend me to answer these questions on the thread! I just felt like it. But I didn't mean to hijack your thread to talk about myself.

 

I don't usually post anything on my blog. I really should.

I definitely want to date women.

I think part of what's going on is that I don't want to identify as bisexual because I have all this internalized biphobia. I feel like if I were gay it would be one thing but if I'm bi I should just ignore it and not bother women, who probably aren't interested anyway.

(I'm not going to date this woman I met, she was just someone I was talking to and found very charming that I won't see again, and who may be straight. But it really hit me that yes, I do find women attractive. And there were men around at this event too and I just was not interested but that doesn't necessarily mean anything of course.)

It's just also hard feeling like I even have an orientation when I've never really been with a woman. I feel like an imposter when I got to LGBT events and it makes it really hard for me to do that. And dating sites were a total washout. I know someone can know their orientation whether they've been in a relationship or not but I feel like I don't know mine. Especially since some of my thinking is based on erotica I've reacted to and the consensus on this site and most other places seems to be that that means absolutely nothing.

 

I'm actually divorced and completely unattached so in that respect I'm in a really fortunate position.

The unfortunate part is that it seems really unlikely that I'm going to find a woman I want to be with. I don't think I could do a casual hookup (and I don't know that anyone would do it with me considering my attractiveness level) and I can't seem to meet anyone for dates, especially when I don't know my orientation.

So in that respect it's a mess, and sometimes I feel I will never be with a woman and never know what it would have been like and that just really gets me down terribly.

I've been thinking I'm not straight for such a long time, if I haven't been able to act on it in all these years maybe it's time I just gave up.

Sorry to sound whiny. I'm just really tired right now and I was going to go to a pride event tomorrow that it looks like I'm not going to be able to go to and I'm just not in an optimistic frame of mind.