A Confused Confessional. Please, Please Read.

[Blue63]

This post could go in a lot of different places, Relationships, Depression & Grief, Cutting and Self Harm, but I suppose it's most relavent here. Please don't be turned off by the length of this, I am in desperate need of some guidance. Plus simply pouring the words onto this screen somehow makes me feel just a little bit better.

First things first. Depression runs in my family. Though it has majorly affected me in the past, at this point I don't feel personally plagued by it. However, I am a cutter. I spent time in my sophomore year of high school experimenting with cutting, then it dropped away with my depression. However I spent much of the first semester of my senior year cutting pretty seriously. Quitting finally stuck in January. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I have slipped up a few times in the past eight months and that it is still a very strong temptation.

Okay, there's that. Sexuality time. I am now a freshman in college (and at a college VERY different from my high school; small, catholic, private high school vs. huge state university). I am male and I am 18. I cannot precisely remember when I felt an attraction to the same sex; the closest I can recall is Freshman year in high school. Four years ago. I had always considered myself straight; I had a strong physical and emotional attraction to girls, and yet a strange physical attraction to guys began to grow. I never truly "liked" a guy in the same way that I would "like" a girl. There were no butterflies, no fears of awkwardness, no drive to flirt. And so I never felt a need to tell anyone. It felt almost slightly betraying not to say anything, because the friends who I confided in about my cutting knew everything about me, everything except my physical attraction to guys, that is.

Over the past four years the attraction grew, on the occasional (and slightly rare) occurrences that I would watch porn, it would be gay porn. It's what turned me on, it's what got me off. When I would masturbate, it would usually be with the thought of some guy in mind. And yet it never affected me. I was still attracted to girls, and I was certainly exceedingly more emotionally attracted to girls. It was the worrying about girls that kept me up at night, not the fear of a secret sexuality. It was girls who I pursued. Now I've never dated, or ever hooked up, which I'm attributing to an ever-present awkwardness and a lack of willingness to be rejected. But God knows, I liked girls.

As I began to consider my sexuality more seriously, I decided that perhaps I was bisexual, but I had no desire to label it. After all, sexuality is a spectrum, right? There is no black and white. Outwardly I considered myself straight. Internally, I knew that my sexuality may have been skewed slightly. I didn't want to label it. I didn't want to have to deal with coming out. With being bisexual. I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

I've officially come to it. Big university. Big PUBLIC university. There are lots of gay guys here. Which doesn't bother me, I am catholic, but I'm a supporter of gay rights. They were born that way. They have every right to be married, just like the rest of us. I never seriously considered that I could be bisexual, that I could be hooking up with guys, that I could be in a relationship with a guy.

And it scares the shit out of me. Guys have been flirting with me, which I understand, but what should I do? If there is one thing that I'm confident of, it's that I am not gay. I imagine myself married to a woman, with kids. I've always been attracted to and wanted a to date a woman. So I'm straight, with a physical attraction to guys. Is it because it's "forbidden"? Is it because I did theatre in high school? Or went to an all-boys high school?

Is it real? Was I really Born This Way, whatever This Way is?

I'm not sure. I've never really "liked" a guy, I don't think. "Going all the way" with a guy never really appealed to me. So try it? Yeah, I'm not so sure. So I'm primarily interested in women. Though we may be living in a new age, though we may be the new generation, how many girls would genuinely be interested in a guy people think is gay. A lot of people simply do not believe in bisexuality. If the school heard I hooked up with some guy, I would be automatically labeled - something I never wanted.

But people think I'm gay! Apparently I have a gay voice (I always knew my voice was higher, but I never thought it was piercingly and notoriously gay). People ask about me. A lot. It's frustrating. It's brought me to hate myself, it's brought every piece of insanity I've ever had to the forefront. Nothing has made me want to cut myself more. It's gotten to the point where I wished I was gay, because then things would make sense. But I'm not, I may be bi, but that feels like a pretty strong maybe. I don't want to jeopardize my future at this school, the next four years, I don't want to make a mistake that I will regret for the rest of my time here. I don't want to ruin my university years. I'm not sure I could handle it, to be honest with you. I've never really been suicidal, but, I supposed with all of the darkness I'm predispositioned to, it's something I have to be aware of.

I am utterly and entirely confused. About everything. Please, if you could offer any wisdom, that would be wonderful. I know I could talk to my friends about it, I know I could, but I really just don't feel comfortable with that. Virtual Teen has always been there for me in the past, I don't see why it wouldn't be now. Please help me. Please

Thank you for reading,

Matt

[Gordo]

I can't help you with the cutting and tbh, I never knew it existed until I came to this site.

You mention labels enough that I think that's what is causing you to be anxious. To put it simply, don't label yourself and don't allow others to label you. If you go do something with guy or have the desire to, don't label it. If someone asks you, have an honest answer ready and that can be as simple as "i don't really know, I'm still figuring that out".

You don't want to be labeled, so don't be labeled.

Your desires:

They are what they are. Don't label those either. It's possible that you're more interested in guys now because you haven't had a relationship with a girl in a while. Maybe you never have.

I think we have a strong desire to be accepted. If ya think about it, it would explain cliques, gangs, sports teams, wanting to be on a team, fraternities, sororities, clubs etc. All of those things come with acceptance and a label or category. If you really ponder it as you walk to class or taking a shower or some other mundane task, you'll notice that the above groups aren't all good - that's why I threw gangs in there. I think that people have such an innate desire to belong to a group that they will join a gang, a real gang of thugs, just so they are connected to something. A gang might involve violence, crime, drugs etc., but to the members, it offers something better than being alone with no one there to have your back or to not be part of something bigger. So, my point is, we strongly want to feel connected.

I think high school and the first couple of years of college are a time to figure out a lot of stuff. That's why we don't specialize in anything academic during that period. It's about figuring out our natural talents and figuring out what we want to do specialize in. Hopefully there is some overlap in those two areas.

I think our sexual lives are similar. We kinda know what we like and don't like, but only because how we feel or by limited experiences. So cut yourself some slack.

People generally don't want sexual labels put on them, but they want to hurry past the process and label themselves without others knowing. Or skip the process and label themselves or skip the process and do what they think society says they should do and label themselves that.

Look at it this way. I'm guessing you played little league base ball or soccer or tennis. At the time, you were figuring out what those were about, but in the present you wouldn't label yourself a baseball player, soccer player or tennis player. It doesn't mean you weren't or were those things when you were playing them. You were just doing them for the experience and if you connected with it, you'd still be doing it today. Those decisions to participate back then didn't label you now. I think the same is for our sexuality.

Maybe your sexuality changes just like whatever you do with your free time changes. Maybe you've never played tennis, but your roommate plays, so you try it a couple of times or a few times. It still doens't make you a tennis player. You're just seeing if you like it or not. It's not like the next time you meet someone you have to begrudingly (sp) have to admit to being a tennis player. It's just something you did or are doing, but it doesn't define you.

For all the talk and concern about sex and sexuality, if we add up the time we spend orgasming and compare it to all the time we do other stuff or even compare it to all the time we think about just... sexual stuff. It would be a pitifully small amount. I guarantee you if you go have 2 minutes worth of orgasms with a guy, it won't make you any gayer or less gay than you are or will be. Sometimes we just wanna get off with somebody and if we've never done it before, we can do it with a guy to satisfy our curiosity about that a guy-guy thing.

How about this, (half kidding), maybe the status of your sexuality is "undecided". Maybe that's just like your major. Yes, your major, that ya just might change after a semester or year. See.... we don't always know where we're going or have the right label along the way.

[TigerBoy]

Don't worry about what other people think about your sexuality.
Don't try to shape your sexuality by whatever you can 'imagine' doing.
If you like a guy, go with it. If you like a girl, go with it.


Just because you cannot currently imagine a life with a man does not mean it is impossible for you, and it is hardly surprising that you find it easy to imagine something that society has been setting out before you all your life.

[LoveMe_HateMe]

Firstly, that was a really long post, not read one that long in a while.

(Pre-warning, if I ramble on and it doesn't make sense, I apologize, I'm really tired.)

Secondly, the depression, if you feel like you're dealing with that, even if it is for the moment, that's great.

Cutting: don't feel too bad about slipping up every once in a while, it happens to the best of us and well done for going eight months, it's better than I could ever hope for, for the moment at least! Having friends that know is a good thing to have, and you are lucky in that aspect - as you know you can trust them, so everything doesn't seem quite so hard as you're not facing it alone.

Right, the whole sexuality thing. I'm a lesbian, and proud of it, it is who I am and I can't change it. However, if you would've come up to me 3 years ago and told me that I'd discover that I was a lesbian, I would've probably slapped you and told you that you were being ridiculous.

I understand where you're coming from, I've been in a similar situation. My ex (boyfriend) and I were extremely happy and where planning kids, and marriage and what-not (yes I was naive and I guess a little lovestruck. First relationship and all that). I was a typical teenage girl, fancying actors and leads singers of bands and the whole "omg he's so hot" stuff.

However, my boyfriend at the time was "oh, lets watch some porn", right okay, fair enough, why not. So we did. But it was lesbian porn. I found myself getting horny - which led me to questioning myself and how I'd been brought up etc. So my ex decided it would be a good idea for me to "try" it, so I did, one thing led to another, and I discovered that I was in fact Bi and not straight. Things went down hill with him, (not because I was "bi", he was all up for that, the whole threesome thing), broke up with him. Slept with his best friend (didn't mean to), and his misses. Fell out. Started cutting (again).

There is a point to this random text (which I am sorry, if you don't actually care about any of it), I promise.

Somewhere between me splitting up with my ex and sleeping with his best friend and his misses I realized that I didn't actually like guys in that way anymore... Then I got with my current girlfriend. Best discovery I've made. We're planning on move in together, getting married and having kids - everything I always imagined that I'd do with a guy.

So, my point. Give yourself time to figure things out. It may not be until you're in your late 20's that you "figure" you're self out. Don't rush into things that you aren't prepared to do. Don't label yourself either as you will find yourself trying to reach the level of the stereotype.

To be honest, I think that you are trying to put too much pressure on yourself to figure what's going off with you. Give it time, you will end up discovering yourself and it will all make sense, you just need to give it time. I know its not the easiest thing to do, but it will be worth it.

You don't need to tell anyone anything, if you don't want to.

Just relax and enjoy yourself while you're young. The rest will fall into place. :)

Suicide is never the answer, it isn't worth it, just don't act on the suicidal feelings, you don't know where you're going to end up in life. You could be someone great like Steve Jobs and have some world breaking new technology or something. You never know.

I do hope this helps you and I am sorry that it's so long winded. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about anything :)

[Blue63]

@Gordo:
As cheesy as it may be, I really like the idea of an "undecided" sexuality. The fear of the label is truly the thing that's holding me back. It's something I've been afraid of so long, but I suppose if I don't let it exist, it simply won't. The acceptance factor absolutely plays a part in the fear, especially at this time of transition from high school to college. In high school I had a massive group of friends and constantly surrounded myself with people who loved me. The world has somewhat been turned upside down, and I suppose I simply need to feel a bit more comfortable with my surrounding, and then everything will (hopefully) fall back into place. Thanks so much for your help and for your response, though my post was lengthy!

By the way, you're completely right! We don't always know where we're going, but "all those that wander are not lost"

@Tigerboy
I suppose I never really thought about how societal roles played an impact, but, of course, they do. Perhaps things may begin to break down and change. Thanks for the words of wisdom!

@LoveMe_HateMe
Don't worry, I love rambling! :) Okay, so the cutting. Thank you, somehow just the acknowledgement of it reassures me that life goes on, and that everything is okay. I'm sure you can make it, too. It took me a while to get there, and it's a battle we fight, but it's also a war we can win.

I am a firm believer that one of the greatest ways we can learn is through each other's stories. Hearing yours was a joy! Seriously! I think you're right in the sense that we don't have everything figured out, and that we need to do. To be honest, I suppose I'm not entirely sure what I want with my life. Relax. Enjoy myself. I am young. The rest will fall into place. One of my favorite quotes if from an amazing author named John Green (look him up) and I didn't realize it applied until you mentioned it:

""Maybe tonight you're scared of falling, and maybe there's somebody here or somewhere else you're thinking about, worrying over, fretting over, trying to figure out if you want to fall, or how and when you're gonna land, and I gotta tell you, Friends, to stop thinking about the landing, because it's all about falling.”

Thanks so much for all of your help! It is very, very, so incredibly appreciated :)

[OregonStateDude]

Matt, I feel your pain, I really do. It has to be tough at your age to not know exactly who you are attracted to. However, you wrote:

If there is one thing that I'm confident of, it's that I am not gay. I imagine myself married to a woman, with kids.

This is very good, because it gives you a clear starting point. You know in your heart of hearts that you don't want to pursue a romantic relationship with another guy. Now you might fool around with another guy in the future, but that doesn't mean diddly shit. If there are no strings attached, it's just harmless fun.

I guess I am lucky in that I realized I was gay at an early age (between 12 and 13). I embraced it, I owned it, but I don't let it define me. There's other things in life besides cute boyz, LoL.

[LoveMe_HateMe]

Ahh good, it's good you like rambling, I do it A LOT! :D

You are welcome, the thing that I'm always told is that everything will always be okay, you just have to wait. I hope I can make it - before I do something dangerously silly, how did you get to that stage (if you don't mind me asking)? I hate the fact that I rely on the pain and stuff and I don't want to accidently go "too far".

Although, I do like that "it's a battle we fight, but it's also a war we can win".

I believe that, as how else are we going to learn the important things, my dad's told me some stories that made me realize what it is to be "strong" and have courage etc.

Worrying about how we're going to figure things out is for when we are older and realize we shouldn't of done a lot things that we did. As much as I hate the saying "you only live once", it is true, and we have to make the most of it. While we can.

[Extreme586]

Did your attraction to guys just start freshman year in high school and then again suddenly in college? I think if your attracted to guys, you have probably always been and in your mind you have shut it out completely. That awkwardness you feel towards girls and the "butterflies" might not actually be butterflies. I think your getting the awkward feeling confused here. You said you had never been in a relationship, which does not mean your gay but maybe that feeling for girls, isn't real attraction at all.
I'm gay myself, a closet gay so only you people on VT know I am at this point. I've had that awkward/shy feeling towards girls as well. Still do actually even though I know for a fact I like boys.

You see, when I think of butterflies, I think of a spark that gets lit the moment you see someone that spreads and travels throughout your entire body and is warm and tingly, and fades away, but leaves a warm fuzzy dazed feel at the end as long as I look at that someone. When I see girls I sometimes feel awkward, which is more like a bottomless pit in my stomach as if I had just embarrassed myself or something. I'll leave you to decide what the feeling really is.

I think your forcing an ideal life on yourself, you want to know exactly how you can tell? I want you to envision a girl you think you like. Now when you think of her, do you get the butterflies I described? Or do you think of how all your guy friends would react if they knew you were going out with so and so? Or how proud your parents and family would be? See where I am getting at here? Do you genuinely like the girl or do you like the idea of being cool because your in a relationship with that girl, like a public image so to speak.

If you answered yes to the public image question, then your probably gay and are clinging onto what you hope will be a normal ideal life for yourself. I understand, it's how I felt and still feel sometimes. "What if I was going out with her! People would think I'm so cool and accept me!" That's pretty much the scenario that often still runs through my mind as a junior in high school atm.

Now envision a guy you are attracted to, even if it was an old high school buddy or something. One that you just labeled off as physical attraction. What did you feel when you thought of him? I gave you pretty polar opposite descriptions of what butterflies are, now ask yourself if you felt them or not.

It's one of those times when your heart is telling you one thing. But your brain won't accept it and tries to minimize whatever damage it can. I have had this feeling with two boys I currently like. One is a cute crush I've known forever. And the other I met my freshman year of high school, instantaneous butterflies that I described and the personality he had...oh man. ;) I believe he is straight though so I try to tell myself I love the first person more, even though my heart tells me I'm lieing every time I see the second person. I like them both, but you see how it gets confusing?

I hope this will help you sort out some of your feelings, if you have any questions I'll keep an eye out for this thread!