This girl I talk with at school, she’s a friend of a friend... she’s been arguing with her ex boyfriend because she recently discovered she was a lesbian.. and that gave me anxiety and made me overthink and now I’m convinced I’m one too... I tried so hard to avoid it... just today I was getting those good little feelings over a guy in my history... now it feels fake :(

My anxiety is pretty much gone...the thoughts are not...here’s the thoughts I’m having... -it’s not hocd this time, it’s the real thing -omg you’re attracted to your friend you’ve known for 18 years and you’re just now realizing it -when you see your boyfriend you’re gonna realize you don’t love him because you’re a lesbian -then I get intrusive thoughts about kissing girls...over and over and over again The hardest part is that the anxiety is gone so I don’t know if these are real thoughts...what if they are? What if I’m lying to myself? What if every boy I have ever fallen for in the past was just a cover? What if one day I’ll wake up and decide that men just don’t do it for me anymore? But I love them. I always have. The broad shoulders, the big arms, the height, the scent, the feeling of a boner on my butt while we spoon (so sorry tmi moment), I’ve loved them since I was 3! What the hell happened?

Thinking about relationships makes me feel so bad. At this point both men and women trigger this obsession with trying to figure out what my sexuality is. I don’t really want to date anyone, I’ve been okay with this for over a year, and it’s not like I’ve been completely detached from the lgtbqia community. Like, I know lesbians and other wlw and for a long time I thought I was like bi (I think I’m honestly more aro than I realized), and I haven’t thought much, but ever since I realized I don’t want to share my future with anyone it’s like my brain is screeeeaming that this just means I’m a lesbian, when that’s never been a thought that crossed my mind. It’s definitely been better for me lately when I started cutting out compulsions and all that, but I’m still undiagnosed and I don’t know for sure what exactly is happening to me. If I was a lesbian I’d accept myself, but it’s the fact that it feels SO BAD when I think about it that makes me feel like I need to figure it out even more. Like is it anxiety because I don’t like it or anxiety because it’s like internalized homophobia? And it’s like omg I need to figure it out otherwise I’m just living a lie and I won’t ever be happy. I’ll get flashes of anxiety when I’m just watching a movie or a YouTube video about a boy band I like... and it throws things from the lesbian masterdoc in my face about how I had crushes on fictional characters and celebrities and how that’s something that lesbians do because it’s ‘safer’ to crush on unobtainable men. And it just feels bad bc I know I’ve had crushes on guys that were my friends too but I also have a lot of trauma and I wasn’t allowed to date growing up so that’s what I did to actually explore romance. When the anxiety spikes it makes me feel as if it was all a sign. What’s worse is that I started looking to aromanticism before I read the doc and there’s this bit about how some lesbians think they’re aro bc they don’t like men but never explore their attraction to women either and it’s like ahhhh what’s the truth. I don’t know anymore. Not thinking about it makes me antsy, & the second my anxiety spikes it’s hard to do anything during the rest of the day. I don’t want to think about falling in love and having relationships, I miss when I was just living life in the moment. I miss not thinking twice about when I found a guy attractive, or even a girl. Like it just makes my brain hurt so bad.

TW: EXPLICIT CONTENT TOWARDS END I can’t stop crying because it feels like I’m truly a lesbian. I read the stupid comp het doc which was obviously something I shouldn’t have done but I gave in. Relationships when I was younger were never a big thing for me because well I was still too young. So when I had crushes it was always more about the fuzzy feeling and just wanting to be close to my guy crushes or thinking about their touch. When I had my first silly 8th grade boyfriend I remember always being scared to hold his hand and kiss him and hug him because I felt self-conscious of myself and everyone watching but I still did enjoy it. Looking back I feel like I might’ve just liked my him because he liked me but I thought that was normal for middle school things, except the first thing happened my freshman year of high school as well with my toxic ex. It wasn’t love and I hate remembering about him because it really was just something dumb and obsessive but when I did like him I did enjoy being held but now I wonder if it was just the attention I liked. I’m now in a relationship with my boyfriend of over a year and I’m terrified that I’m not actually in love with him and only his attention but that just doesn’t feel right because we have such a strong bond. He was a natural flirt so that definitely caught my attention but it was more than that, he just seemed like such an amazing person to me and that has not changed since we started dating. I used to have major rocd over whether or not I actually loved him but I got past that theme but now it might be back. I love him so much, he’s been there through everything and I know I could be happy without him so it’s not like I’m dependent on him, but I choose to be happy with him because he brings me that warm feeling inside my heart. When I’m with him I feel safe and I want to have a genuine future with him. It also doesn’t help that my family is homophobic, my grandma condemns it and I tried explaining to her but she just told me that even if I was I didn’t have to “act on it” which made me break into tears. Not because I am lesbian, but because it would hurt so much to know she wouldn’t support me if I was. Another thing that worries me is that maybe I don’t like intimacy enough with him, but the truth is he’s the first person I’ve been so intimate with and well we’re both still virgins so we haven’t been able to fully explore. Truth be told I didn’t always like giving oral but I thought it was because porn set me into that mind-frame that intimacy was all about the woman being used. The first time we did things was very exciting and fun for me!But I was also very nervous and scared and well my anxiety doesn’t help but there have been times where I do enjoy giving oral, what I don’t like is when it’s all we can do and I also have a terrible habit of comparing myself to other girls and wanting to be perfect at it. I never thought it meant I was a lesbian. I love my partner and I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else or be intimate with anyone else. I still don’t like the idea of being with a girl like that, I have never even fantasized about it before and well it just doesn’t feel like me but now my brain is telling me that it is me, that it’s always been me and all the things I used to perceive as normal actually mean I’m lesbian and I hate it. Someone please give me advice to fight this and how to recover from such a major compulsion , I haven’t ruminated like this in so so long and it feels like I failed myself or like I’m giving in to something I just don’t want.