I am a 21 year old girl and up until 6 months ago, I had no question about my sexuality and my desire to be in a relationship with a male.

Six months ago, I believe my anxiety about whether I am lesbian or bisexual was sparked by a couple of dreams that I had that were of a sexual nature and involved a woman. I began to look back in history and was disturbed to find some instances from my past and adolescense that could suggest that I was a lesbian, while at the same time saw my sexual preference since I was a little girl as being interested in boys.

From a young age I had access to the internet and became what I would consider addicted to pornography. Amongst watching a variety of videos including male-female videos, and male-male videos I also watched female-female videos and enjoyed it quite a bit. If I am being honest, at the time of my obsession with pornography at age 13, I never really thought much of the fact that I was watching lesbian pornography, I just thought it was hot, in the same way I thought watching gay porn was hot. I never once thought that it meant much other than it helped me reach the goal of climax. In my real life, I have always pursued boys, and have always become infatuated with boys, and to this day I find myself day dreaming about what it would be like to date certain boys. I remember my first crush, in the third grade being a boy, and even before that, can vaguely remember having kissed a boy underneath a desk at school in kindergarten. I have always been naturally driven toward being with a male. I’ve always dreamed about my wedding and have pictured a man waiting for me at the alter, not a woman.

Although, in high school there was a girl who had come out as a lesbian, and she had the hots for me. I thought she was a really cool girl, we would give each other suggestions on movies and music and developed a friendship based off of that. And frankly I liked the attention she was giving me. Now, I never really thought of her in a romantic/intimate way, but coming from a mother who at one point found herself in a relationship with a woman despite being with men her whole life (and who has been with men ever since her experience with this woman) I felt comfortable enough to explore my sexuality with this girl who liked me. We hung out a few times, and on one occassion made out. There was nothing about that interaction that rang any alarms for me that said “Oh, so this is what it’s supposed to feel like” or “This is what feels right to me.” That experience ended, and well, I carried on with my high school life, wanting boys and dating boys. I recall being so excited to have sex for the first time with one of my high school boyfriends, and in retrospect believe that if I were a lesbian, I wouldn’t have felt the way I did about wanting to be intimate with a boy like that.  Fast forward to my freshman year of college and the same girl who had the hots for me went off to the same school as me. We connected with a few other girls who we went to high school with and all started hanging out since we were in a different city and hadn’t met any new friends. Well, the relationship developed and she ended up asking me to be her girlfriend, and again, being as open as I learned to be from my mother to explore my sexuality, I said yes. I was in college, I wanted to experiment, after all, isn’t that what everyone does in college? We’ve all heard it. The “relationship” lasted a week before I broke it off because I just wasn’t feeling it. I felt that she wanted a more intimate and emotional connection with me while all I really wanted was to figure myself out and see if I could get down with being with other women. Something felt like it was missing, and so I ended it. Shortly after that experience I found myself intensely infatuated with a boy I had known since high school, and I pursued a relationship with him. I never really thought much about what it would be like to be with a woman since then, until the anxiety and paranoia was sparked due to what I believe were those dreams.

The anxiety started a year and a half into my relationship with a man who I had fallen head over heels for. Again, I found myself excited to be intimate with this guy and have a hard time understanding why the anxiety of whether I am lesbian or bisexual has manifested and become as big as it is, considering every time I would engage in any kind of sexual activity (before the anxiety became a thing) with my boyfriend I enjoyed it very much.

Ultimately though, the uncertainty and anxiety about my sexuality began to affect my relationship with my boyfriend, getting to the point that sometimes when we would engage sexually I had an inner critic inside of my head picking apart the sexual intimacy and questioning whether I actually felt attracted, whether it actually felt right, or whether I was even aroused, which in turn made me even more paranoid and unable to be present with my partner in an otherwise beautiful moment. I was very open with my partner about my uncertainty about my sexuality when the fear was sparked, and he was very supportive and understanding, knowing very well that up until this anxiety was sparked, I was absolutely sexually attracted to him.

A little side note on my relationship with this man, there was always been a bit of uncertainty coming from my end, fear about whether the relationship would work out, and if it was meant to be. I always found myself looking for reasons why it wouldn’t work out, not because I didn’t want it to but just because I was scared that it wouldn’t. One of my theories for this sudden anxiety over my sexuality is that perhaps my general anxiety about the relationship manifested into this whole thing about me potentially being lesbian or bisexual when I know very well that I have always liked GUYS!!!

Well, fast forward to now, this man and I are no longer in a relationship due to my many relationship issues. But the anxiety and paranoia still bothers me on a daily basis.

I think that because this is something I have been so negatively obsessed over for the past 6 months, I’ve literally trained my mind to think in this mental loop of having paranoid thoughts about whether or not I am lesbian/bisexual. This mental loop has become so strong now and I feel like it’s controlling my life and keeping me from being the real version of myself. I can’t be around girls without feeling slightly uncomfortable and paranoid, and just thinking about the subject makes me feel extremely negative and unhappy inside.

Deep down I know that I love men, I want to marry a man, and I love being sexually intimate with men, but it seems as though as soon as this anxious mental loop about my sexuality arises, all truth and evidence proving that I am in fact straight, flies out the window.

Help??