I am a 16 year old girl from England, and i have known for as long as i can remember that i am gay, or at least fancied girls more than boys. I would have been about seven or eight when I developed my first crush, of course at the time i didn't completely understand what i was feeling. She was one of my best friends and I am still friendly with her today, I have always been what you could call a 'tomboy', I used to dress in cargo pants and boys t-shirts, but as I got older I latched on to the fact that some people actually mistook me for a boy, and I guess I was just scared that someone might know I was gay, so I toned it down to the extent where sometimes I feel uncomfortable because I know I am lying. I have been going to an all girls school (ha ha I know stereotype much!) for 5 years and am about to go in to sixth form. I was really looking forward to sixth form because I feel I can be who I want with my new subject choices and so on, but I feel all the anxiety will still be there and actually although I will be more myself, in a sense I am actually not myself at all, and never truly have been, which is kinda scary. Going in to secondary school I started to notice how obsessed all my girl-friends were with boys and always talked about their celebrity crush, I would get so bored of this conversation (understandably) and even complain to my mum about how exhausting this topic of conversation was, she would say 'you are just like I used to be', at the time I took this as confirmation that I was straight, I thought 'oh, thank god, look at her she turned out fine, just you wait, you'll start liking boys soon enough'- as if. My feeling towards girls really heightened when I was 11-12, I had numerous crushes and got really nervous around them for no apparent reason, people just thought I was some weird loner because I was so paraniod that they'd be able to smell the gay on me, and I felt so badly about myself that I let them think that, because I thought anything could be better than the real reason. When I was 13, I fell in love, her name is Abi and she is the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful girl, I literally thought she was perfect, but again the problem was I didn't have the confidence to even talk to her, so the brief exchanges of eye contact and smiles would make my day, I would die on the days she didn't. One time she hugged me from behind to comfort me when I was crying on a particularly shitty day, she put her cheek to mine, I swear to god I almost kissed her, the only thing stopping me was that my friend was standing one meter behind me sooo... cock block much. I remember nights crying myself to sleep because I cared about her so much, but I knew I would never be able to express my feelings towards her. I started to get in to t.v shows as I guess a distraction to substitute my feelings, so I watched glee, and the character Santana really helped me realise who I am, plus Naya Rivera is mega hot! I heard that there was also a lesbian character in pretty little liars (again Shay Mitchell is beautiful, always a plus)- oitnb is my new obsession. People don't realise it but these characters really help people to understand they are not alone, even if the characters are 'fictional'. I really have been through tough times mentally, I am generally quite quiet so I bottle up all my feelings and beat myself up about every little thing, there were weeks on end when i would cry myself to sleep and wish I were dead, I even went through a self harming phase , that only stopped because I convinced myself that this behavior was selfish and at that time my grandpa passed away after a long and difficult fight against atypical Parkinsons, my dad moved to Malaysia and not long after my mum was diagnosed with cancer, I guess I just feel that I can't show any weaknesses and that I need to be there for my Mummy. The last few years I have been really mulling over the idea of being gay. I tried to turn myself straight looking at pictures of abercrombie models, that was a fail as instead I found myself looking at the female models more. I thought 'okay if I cant be straight I guess i'll just have to be bi'...yeah good luck with that one. I think my problem is i'm scared of what will happen if I do come out, and even though I know I am gay there is still a part of me that wants that 'normal' life with the husband and kids, and i'm scared of what people will think of me, I know my family will be supportive, i'm just worried that I will feel weird around them, and once i've said it, i've said it. I have been waiting all this time for the right moment to bring my sexuality up, but I am just so scared and besides I haven't even kissed a girl (or a guy even) before,so I guess you could say I have no solid proof that I am gay, apart from the attraction to girls. It's not that I don't find men good looking, because I do, I just don't have that emotional connection that I do with girls. Now that I think about it I guess I am waiting to find a girl that I really love the way I love(d) Abi and then I can say 'okay I am gay as can be' and go to my mum and be like, 'actually mum I like girls the way i'm supposed to like boys and i'm completely okay with it', I just don't know when that time will be. God why does it have to be so difficult, straight people don't have to come out as straight?!?!? I came on this site so that I can not just unload all my feelings I have kept locked so tightly inside me (I have never told anyone anything about this what so ever!), but also to find people who have been through what I have been through and got out the other side, also of course I am single and am open to a relationship, but thats beside the point right now. xxx