It is obvious to me now that I am not straight. How not straight and to what degree I'm willing to explore, live it remains to be determined. In the four months since the original event that caused me questioning, i've gone through some stages - initial panic/anger, denial, momentary acceptance, and now i'm semi-denial with awareness in private. i find that at this point i have anxiety around men. this constant fear of even thinking anything or of being found out. this is around men who are openly gay and i feel are picking up non-verbal cues that i may be as well and judging me for not being more open. and around straight men that i feel could lash out at me. i have some experience of being bullied so i'm sure that fear ties in there as well. not all men and not at all times, but generally when i am tired or stressed and don't have the higher order brain function as readily censoring my actions. i am afraid that i may be staring too long at people and that they are angry at me. also, if i look away i feel that may show that i am anxious. i am on some ssri's at the moment and they have helped since the initial discovery a few months ago, but even with them, i'd like to find some way to lessen this anxiety. :icon_redf
I totally know what you are saying, and I've experienced the same thing. I see that you are afraid of giving off signals involuntarily. I have had that too, and I still do to some degree. The thing is that it's important to know that you aren't giving off any signals unless you want to be. If you do not say anything, no one can tell your orientation. Even if you find yourself feeling attracted to and/or are having sexual thoughts about someone you are hanging out with or around, no one can tell this unless you tell them. It's very important to know this, because otherwise you will become overwhelmed with paranoia and anxiety.
Are you in therapy? It sounds like that would be a good place to start. As a general rule, people are far too absorbed in their own stuff to pay attention to what anyone else is doing. And when it comes to straight people, most of them are completely oblivious unless you make it SUPER obvious. They don't have gaydar like we do. And even if someone did pick up on it, would that the end of the world? I guess it depends a lot on where you live, but the vast majority of straight guys I know wouldn't care if they noticed a guy checking them out. It sounds like you're dealing with your own feelings of shame and internalised homophobia and are projecting it onto other people. I think once you're able to work through those feelings, you'll feel a lot more relaxed about how the rest of the world is perceiving you.
Thank you for your quick reply. I know in my head that what you say is true, that in reality most people don't give a shit about what you're thinking because they're too absorbed in their own lives, but the matter of practice especially under stress is much different. I am currently in therapy but my relationship with my therapist causes these feelings to come up. I feel like he is judging me for it and is offering psychological explanations that my attraction to men may be rooted in some psychological conflict. Admittedly, the part of me that is in denial would rather have a comfy psychological loophole out of this. So I'll try to breach the subject about acceptance with him or may be find a new therapist all together. The things that you mentioned about shame have been with me my whole life, and i'm not sure if they were rooted in previously unconsciously repressing my sexuality or something else entirely. So I'm not sure whether to a therapist specifically focusing on gay issues or a general practitioner ... and what methodology to choose. Care to recommend an approach? I've looked int EMDR and that seems interesting. ---------- Post added 9th Jan 2016 at 06:59 PM ---------- Tell me about it ! . I remind myself all the time when it is bad that people don't know what I think they can only notice behavior.
