Anyone find it difficult to validate/understand themself because of society at times?

My full question is does anyone find it difficult to validate/understand their identity because of society or the environment we live in.

I kind of want to explain what I mean by this. For my entire life up until I genuinely fell for a girl and started questioning, I was primarily and to some extent only exposed to a heterosexual lifestyle.

Everything I saw relating to relationships was a guy and a girl together, on TV, in the books I read, with the families I saw around me. I could imagine nothing else when I was younger, and for part of my teenage years. Those, as people probably know, are pretty important years developmental wise.

Being with a girl? It was not an option for me. It was not only not-an-option but unfathomable, a color of the spectrum I could not see and could not begin to imagine. I knew the words “gay” or “lesbian” and those concepts, but that’s all they were for me- concepts, and so foreign I might as well didn’t know them at all.

Now that I’m older, I’m beginning to accept and explore my sexuality, and maybe it’s because of the lack of representation, maybe it’s something else, but it all feels genuinely surreal. My anxiety and a myriad of bad mental patterns doesn’t help, either. But at the end of the day, sometimes it all feels like some sort of dream, like maybe I’ll suddenly wake up and be straight and be happy and certain. It’s a pretty unsettling feeling.

It’s like this: When I’m online, when I can come on forums like this or if I’m on Tumblr (where I follow quite a few LGBT blogs), or on Youtube where I watch plenty of lesbian Youtubers, I feel better, like who I am is more clear to me, and less like it’s some sort of irrelevant fantasy in the back of my mind. But when I’m not, it seems that all I see in society is a standard that’s expected of me but not a standard I feel like I can meet, but I feel the pressure to try and meet it, if that makes sense.

It’s like when I see a dozen guys and girls together on the street, TV shows and movies focusing on romances between a guy and a girl, and my own identity which I’m not very sure of in the first place, sort of dwindles, uncertain, still there but definitely feeling like it’s not part of reality. It’s a pretty scary feeling.

Sometimes I even feel like I can more or less grudgingly squeeze into society’s square peg even though it’s not the most comfortable place for me to be. I look at everyone around me, and I don't know any LGBT friends or people, and I look at the media, and sometimes I find myself thinking… “huh. Maybe settling down with a boy won’t be so bad.” Or “That guy looks okay. Maybe I might even enjoy being with him, maybe I could have sex with him” Or “I think that boy likes me, and we have similar interests I suppose. I guess I can like him, I can make it work and we can go out and everything will be fine.”

Sometimes I even think I like a boy, because he’s so similar to me, because he isn’t entirely bad looking, and because it would be a million times more easy if that would work. Sometimes it gets terrifying how hard it is to tell the difference between what I want and what society wants for me.

There’s always this sort of conflict going on within me, like one part of me is continuously going, “I like women, occasionally but less frequently men, I’m happy this way, it’s who I am,” and the other part of me simply goes “No, you’re not, no, you don’t.” It's like a constant battle.

And it’s difficult. Especially when I look around me and I feel like what I’m feeling and thinking is some kind of dream. Maybe it’s because I’ve never dated or slept with a woman, (never had the chance, even with that girl I liked), maybe it’s because while I can find good LGBT media after thorough searching on the internet, it is never really there, not like a heterosexual lifestyle is no matter where I look. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like my entire sexuality isn’t very…real, and then I just feel lost.

Does anyone else feel this way? :icon_conf

 

Re: Anyone find it difficult to validate/understand themself because of society at ti

Thank you for being so understanding

I definitely understand what you're saying. Since I'm open to the idea of dating guys too, sometimes because society accepts a heterosexual relationship automatically and far easily than a homosexual one, parts of my mind will do exactly what you described- telling me that I should only be with a man, and that maybe I can enjoy having sex with a man-it spirals into serious periods of denial that are hard to get out of.

I naturally gravitate to LGBT media too, and actually the reason I started questioning/realized I wasn't straight is similar to yours-I fell for a girl in my class. Yet despite everything I find it very hard to accept anything but me being straight. Even when I go, yes, I'm gay, there is some part of my mind which seriously doubts it.

I hope you find a way to embrace/accept your sexuality too by the way I'm sure we've all got each other's backs.

And yeah, everything just keeps going up and down for me too. One moment I'm totally happy with liking women, the next I'm back in denial going, "Maybe I'm straight, maybe it'll work with a guy."

Thank you for the advice- yeah, I do try to expose myself and express myself in a way that properly validates my identity. Normalizing it isn't easy, but I guess we're all working on it!

Sometimes consuming so much LGBT media and normalizing it for me backfires though, I mean throughout the months and months of questioning sometimes I would just stop and go: "Despite everything, maybe I am straight. Maybe none of this means anything." All that stuff. It's ridiculous, especially since my wanting to be with a woman makes me happy and it's a comfortable idea for me- and I've fallen for girls, it feels natural doing so. It makes me happy, it's what I want, and it definitely isn't fake, yet part of me keeps insisting it is. The same part that just wants me to do what society wants me to do. I guess I just have to slowly work through that though.

I guess I should just see what happens, maybe if I end up dating a woman things will become less surreal for me. But I'm careful not to rush it and just let things move naturally.

Anyways, thank you for the support! I guess we all just have to keep trying at the end of the day, and know that it'll work out sooner or later

 

Re: Anyone find it difficult to validate/understand themself because of society at ti

Thank you! I'm not sure when the doubts will stop entirely, but I'm sure sooner or later I'll be more sure of who I am It's more of an up and down thing for me now.

Good luck with your journey, and I'm sure you'll be able to find someone nice! If you need anything feel free to talk to me too, we've got each other's backs after all at the end of the day. Thanks again!

 

Re: Anyone find it difficult to validate/understand themself because of society at ti

Hey thank you Also sorry to hear that you had a tougher time. I really hope you're alright (*hug*)