I keep struggling to figure out if at 30 years old (31 in a few days) and only having realized I am *i think* a member of the LGBTQ+ community a couple years ago, if this is real and I just was clueless all my life before then (as I can't identify any solid memories of having crushes on girls or having feelings of dysphoria) or if I'm going through some kind of identity crisis. I saw it mentioned somewhere that someone thought they were gay and then later realized they weren't and had just been having some kind of identity crisis. I could understand this happening as I work about 60 hrs a week, and prior to this I was working full-time and in grad school. About a year before I discovered this feelings (just about possibly being gay, gender identity confusion didn't start until the last few months) I had moved to AZ from IL and live alone. For the most part, this feeling of being attracted to women has not wavered, a few months after I began recognizing these feelings, I tried to go back to pursuing men on the online dating site I was on, but once anyone started talking to me I freaked out and felt completely repulsed by the idea of being with a man again (no offense men haha!). So I feel more secure about this being real, but at the same time it's been over 2 years and I still have had no experiences romantically/sexually with any women and continue to question if I really am attracted to women. The gender identity issue is a whole different ball game, but I feel like this post is long enough as it is, so I will end here and am happy to answer any other questions.
I think it is easy to repress things through busyness, and it sounds like you've been running a marathon working and getting your degrees. I busy-ed myself through home improvement projects for years. For me, I've found I became an expert compartmentalizer through all the ex-gay training, but since coming out to myself, there have been waves of grief as I recall and deal with years of things I couldn't look at.
Hey musicheals315. Welcome to EC! Until the last 2 weeks I spent the last 20+ years thinking I was a lesbian but at the same time not feeling quite comfortable in my own skin. However because I have suffered from depression most of my life and whenever I allow myself some time to think I tend to fall down the rabbit hole, I had not allowed myself to question these feelings. In the end I had an identity crisis. I was that upset and confused I wrote a long list of everything running through my head and went to my doctor. He told me he was aware that there is now a wide spectrum describing different gender and sexual identities. Although he couldn't help me much when I got home I found a site with a whole bunch of terms and descriptions and discovered who and what I truly am. And now the shoe (labels I guess) fits I have realised how much this underlying issue has affected me over the years. If you ever need to talk post on my wall and I'll get back to you asap
Thanks! I guess i struggle because it always seems that even people who realized they were LGBT later in life can usually pinpoint moments in their earlier years in which they had these feelings. For me it's harder, but not impossible to remember things like this. But it also seems like I'm not just trying to fabricate a past to match what I'm currently feel because I have ALWAYS been one to follow the rules and do what I'm supposed to do. Which makes it really easy to see why growing up primarily in the late 1980's/1990's and having a family that was not very open to talking about feelings, would make it pretty easy to repress any feelings of differentness, and just think that what I was feeling was how everyone was feeling. I didn't have the luxury of having a private computer to search for these types of things, hell, I'm pretty sure youtube wasn't even a thing until I was in my late high school/early college years so I didn't have access to watching these vloggers explain their stories and giving me the terminology to identify with. Any mention of lesbians on TV/movies was usually negative or something people gave a weird look to, so I can see how I could have just made myself believe that I was interested in guys because that's what I was supposed to do. Anyways, thanks again for responding!
