Dear leo:

“Sometimes we joke around weird stuff and these thoughts creep in, and I feel uneasy… As the thoughts keep coming up for past few days and it gets more intense where I question myself ‘am I gay’ for no reason and I have no clue why and how to stop it” – it is important that you realize that thoughts are fast mental events that do not have any power in themselves:  if you don’t get scared of your thoughts and you don’t act on them, they have no power.

We all have so many thoughts going through our brains every waking hour, every day, thoughts that don’t mean anything much. For example, a person looks at an elephant in the zoo and thinks I wonder how it would feel if I was an elephant. That thought is not scary because you know for sure that you are a person, not an elephant and there is no social taboo and prejudice about being an elephant. So, you move on to look at other animals.

But if you think I wonder how it would feel if I was gay, that’s scary because it’s not so far stretched, and there is a strong social taboo and prejudice about being gay, and so the next thought may be: what if I am gay? 

This thought triggers the fear of being subjected to prejudice and rejection; the fear then triggers more thoughts, and more thoughts trigger more fear.

“Feels like what might’ve caused this was my recent relationship which I feel like damaged me some way. …  I also don’t have a close relationship with my father and that could play the role in this too, he lives with us but is distant” – if you would like to elaborate on any of these two things, please do, and I will reply to you further.

anita