A week ago, I began questioning my sexuality, and now I'm about 90% sure that I'm gay. I've told my sister and my cousin, and my mom has apparently known - without me explicitly telling her - that I've been questioning for awhile before even I knew that I was questioning. I'm in college and I have a challenging semester coming up. I don't really have time or energy for any extra stress and worrying. I'm not in a relationship, and it was never in my game plan to date anyone until a year or two from now. Is there anyway for me to put the question of my sexuality and how how to move forward on a shelf until the semester is over? Is that possible? Does anyone have any advice?
As an older gay man that grew up in a very conservative country. I have a lot of friends that put their sexuality "on hold" for many years. Mostly they did it by hard work, in order to distract themselves. However and this is a big however, it had a detrimental effect on their mental and emotional health. Maybe don't put your sexuality on hold, just put looking for a relationship on hold, in the same way that a straight person might put having a relationship on hold in order to study.
I think you should process, read, find support...this is a part of your identity. Even if you decide to simply not label your sexuality and be open to anyone romantically, that is still something to process. You can put dating on hold, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to put interactions with people on hold. Day to day we interact with others and something as harmless as a cute Starbucks barista can leave you in shambles if you're burying something. I'm not an expert but as anxious as I feel about trying to understand my sexuality, it's been a lot easier processing than burying (regardless of crush issues lol)
If you don't have anything that really needs to be addressed, then you can deal with this on your own timeline. Now, if you're digging in and using school as a distraction and an excuse for not addressing it, then I would say that probably isn't good.