Hello People, this may be long but I can really use help. About 6 months ago I started questioning my sexuality. I an 19 year old guy who has only been attracted to girls up until this point. I have only fantasized about girls and crushed only about girls and was really confident in my sexuality despite being anxious and doubtful about pretty much anything else. I have two guy best friends and have slept over in their house, even on the same bed but never felt anything( I know this means nothing just saying). I have never had a girlfriend however. I have no idea what made me started to question but I couldn't stop thinking about it once it started to happen. I'd like to think I am an open guy. I have no problems with gay people or being gay myself but it is the not knowing that is killing me. The questioning comes in different forms. Sometimes I question whether guys are attractive, sometimes I question whether I would enjoy sex with guys, sometimes it is whether I can live with a guy. I'd be fine with this by itself but I start to do the same with women and feel less excited about them then I use to feel. I heard about HOCD and decided to see a therapist in August to guide me towards accepting or dealing with anxiety, and also with depression symptoms.. Before we get into that I'd like to talk about my anxiety. I started college in 2014. A month before June, a girl who went to the same middle school as me committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. I didn't know her well but it shocked me so much. It her more than my grandparents dying. I think it is because I related to her to some extent. We are both black and coming from poor neighborhoods we both made it into good schools where blacks were an extreme minority. After that I started college, and became extremely lonely. The final straw was when I saw I started to lose my hair. I became despondent and saw a therapist who said I had some social anxiety. I decided that If I was going to be bald, I might as well be fit.(That was a year ago and I actually haven't lost any hair and I'm not as scared about being bald) I decided to work out and lose weight, which I didn't do due to binging. I looked up binge eating and it said it could lead to diabetes. My grandfather is diabetic and my dad was prediabietic, Well one day my stomach started hurting and I looked up potential causes, which led back to diabetes. I started to develop an obsession about the idea of having diabetes. I knew it made no sense but it kept kept popping up and I started to believe I had other symptoms as well. That lasted for about a month. I started to obsess about my hair after that until I just stopped caring at about March. June is when I started to question my sexuality. I have been seeing a new therapist since August for this and depression. I told her what I just wrote as well as about how I am always bored. She diagnosed me with depression and anxiety and I have been on meds for a bout 2 months now. She says she doesn't want to label me but she really doesn't believe I am gay. Saying these things helps for a little bit but I go right back to questioning the next day. I spend everyday questioning and thinking. I try to imagine myself doing gay things and seeing whether I get an erection. I started to watch gay porn to see if I get an erection. To both of these things I rarely ever do get erections but sometimes I do, which makes me feel worse. Even if I don't get an erection I tell myself I am suppressing myself from getting one. I start to feel uncomfortable around guys I hang out with now, and get random thoughts about doing things with them. I know I said I don't mind being gay but I think maybe there is a part of me that wants to be straight. Whenever I enjoy a straight thought or disprove a gay thought, the anxiety stops and I feel good again. I have enjoyed girls in the past so it sucks so badly that I everything seems to be changing. I am comfortable being different; I'm black and skateboard, listen to classic rock, and play guitar. People in my high school would playfully call me a white black guy but I was never offended cause I enjoy who I am. I also understand there is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay so why am I putting myself through this, unless I don't truly believe that. I understand how people feel about HOCD so I don't like to look it up or anything. I just want to be comfortable with who I am and stop questioning. I am n medical leave from school cause I pretty much stopped doing any work. I just want to be happy, Sorry for the long post but this was cathartic. lol
As a purely gay guy, I could easily get an erection from watching gay porn, from imagining a naked guy. I think you try too hard thinking whether you are gay or not. From what I just read, you are probably not gay. If in 19 years, you never thought of a guy as sexually appealing, plus you are an open guy, then it's little chance that you are gay. Bisexual, maybe. It's not like you are crushing a guy right now, confusing about your sexuality. It seems like you are making stuff out of no where. People usually question themselves because they think the same sex attractive, or they have a crush on the same sex, or they don't see the opposite sex sexually attractive. But you are not the case. You are thinking too much. I think the first priority now is to deal with you anxiety first and make more friends because they are the problems you are having right now, not your sexuality.
Thanks for the response. I see what your are saying about thinking too much since I've always had that problem. It's just really hard to shut off my mind. It becomes hard to enjoy life and meet people when you are constantly in a battle with yourself.
Hi there SeekHappy, yep I've also had this experience. Like Guelito says, the main thing to try and do is find ways to quiet your mind. One thing you could go for is looking at why you're worrying about these thoughts- of course it's irritating (and much more besides) not knowing yourself entirely, but just remember that there are some questions which don't need an answer right now and that there are some things in life which don't even have an answer. It does seem at a lot of times like a struggle over your identity, I'd know, but take a step back and look at what your "identity" is. You skateboard. You listen to classic rock. You play guitar. You're smart and hard-working, it seems. Now how much of that is influenced by whether or not you're attracted to guys? Pretty much none, I'd think. So bear this in mind- the unresolved questions you have about your attractions are irritating, and they will trip you up every now and then. But they don't constitute an attack on your fundamental character, and they're not questions that have to have answers now for you to flourish. If you try to deprive the thoughts you're having of their importance, you might find thinking about them is less stressful and draining. Also it's perhaps less of an elegant solution, but keeping yourself occupied with other things (sounds like you have a few you could distract yourself with) certainly helps. For me keeping myself busy over the last 3 months almost put a stop to these bouts of overthinking and kept the questioning at the back of my mind. It's worth trying. All the best, Sam
Thanks for the response. It's really hard to take my mind off it since my depression is making it really hard to enjoy anything. I spend everyday imagining differing things I probe to myself I am or am not. I understand being gay will never change who I am fundamentally but that doesn't stop the questioning. I tell myself that I am gay as a way of trying to accept who I am but I always go right back to questioning. I just don't know what to do . How did you figure yourself out?
