Hi,

I hope this message finds you well. Please bear with me as it is quite long!

Disclaimer: I have nothing against the LGBTQ+ community, nor am I homophobic in any shape or form.

Like many of the replies to this forum, I am facing this ‘sudden’ feeling of being lesbian or bisexual, after 19 years of being solely completely emotionally, sexually and romantically into men. I felt this around a month and a half ago, and I cannot seem to shake it out of my head. I must admit that I have a tendency to go through ‘obsessive’ phases that manifest themselves in different ways, for example an obsession with the gym and getting in shape, an obsession to acquire a particular ‘style’, and, before reading this forum, I did not consider I may have OCD (I do love things to be immaculately clean), but now I am starting to think otherwise.

Going back to the sexuality questioning, I started to really panic about these intrusive thoughts and would read forum upon forum and take sexuality tests to assure myself I was straight. When I would see ‘coming out at age 20/25/30 forums’, or self-discovery articles about those who never knew they were lesbian until a later age, I would be mortified and immediately think this is what would happen to me.

To add, I am in a loving, healthy relationship with my boyfriend, who knows what I am currently going through, and has been nothing but supportive and kind. I fear that if I keep talking about these thoughts with him, this might jeapordise our relationship as it might indicate to him that I am into women (which I believe I am not). Nevertheless, I hide nothing from him, so if needs be I will continue to speak about this with him.

I then found this forum and felt able to relate to so much, so thank you everyone for coming on here and expressing your truths. I even showed my boyfriend some of the replies which helped me explain to him what I was going through. I noted that one of the replies had a mantra, which was ‘you are the thinker of your thoughts, but they do not control you’, or something to that effect. Initially, I found this so useful and continue to repeat this to myself on multiple occasions. However, now, (and I think this might be an obsessive thought), that this mantra is becoming meaningless to me and because of this, I think that I have just accepted that I may be into women too (but i am not into women and don’t really feel happy accepting this..)

Now, and this is unhealthy to think about, but whenever I see a woman, whether I find her attractive or not, I imagine myself doing sexual things with her as a test to see whether I am bi/lesbian or not. If I can, I immediately panic and think oh my gosh, I’m definitely bi/lesbian. And then I think, if I can imagine myself on an emotional level with a girl, and if I can, I again become mortified. But can I actually imagine a woman sexually/romantically? Or is my brain trying to trick me?

I understand that one does not need to label their sexuality, but I do not think I identify as anything other than straight. Sure, I have shared kisses as a joke with girls during my teenage years, but I did not even consider myself to be bi or lesbian. Now I reflect on these experiences and panic and think thoughts such as ‘you have been into girls all along and you did not know it’.

As you can figure, I am extremely troubled by these intrusive thoughts. I worry about myself as a lesbian or bisexual, not because of family issues (although my brother is quite traditional), but because it is not who I am deep down. I have always imagined myself married to a man, having children with a man etc. and never with a woman. But now, my thoughts feel like they are controlling me and that I have accepted that I may be gay or bi and I am ‘on board’ with the idea of me being in a lesbian relationship. (It doesn’t help that I am currently studying a topic of surrogacy, a means of parenthood frequently used by lesbian couples).

I hope to overcome these sexuality thoughts and move on from them so that they go away forever,  and not just these thoughts but future sudden, intrusive thoughts. I read that someone used to have OCD but was able to move on and no longer suffers from it, which was reassuring.

I know one might suggest medical help from a therapist or something like that. I am not against this, but I would prefer to try and work this out myself with the help of this forum initially.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Sarah Jeanne Browne.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Mollie.