#but like. bisexual still feels right?? i remember having a really intense crush on one of my brother's friends in high school

[monstrsball]

the thing w having a shitty ex you weren't that attracted to is now you can't decipher whether you weren't attracted to HIM specifically, or if you aren't attracted to men period.

[degloved]

i don't think some people, heterosexual or otherwise (depending on upbringing) are able to comprehend the hellworld that is internalized homophobia if they haven't personally experienced it, especially at a young age.

i'm not trying to create some kind of cool kids 'you don't get it' club, in fact i'm very happy for the percentage of us who aren't straight and have somehow managed to avoid this, be it thanks to loving/supportive parents or the positive reception of non-het orientations online or an unwavering conviction that there is nothing wrong with them (and there isn't!). however, i do find that the lack of this experience can result in a lack of understanding, and that lack of understanding can lead to… callousness at best, disrespect at worst.

it's a difficult thing to talk about, and i think i've retyped this sentence alone like fifty times, but i really think this is a discussion worth having, so here i go. i don't think there are words in any dictionary of any language in the world that i could string together and accurately portray the dread that settles over you, like the world's most fucked up weighed blanket, when you first start entertaining the thought you might be gay. following this, i don't think i could adequately describe the bone-deep, soul-crushing horror of finally admitting defeat—finally admitting that despite your best efforts, despite your sincerest wishes, you are gay. thinking about it now is surprisingly hard, even though it's been just about a decade for me (wow). i guess that sort of feeling—an amalgamation of fear, hatred, disgust, more fear, panic, anxiety, anger—never does leave you, only recedes. okay, what a curious thing to find out just now. but, right, back to the point. it is truly one of the worst things anyone could go through, i think, let alone a child, let alone for at least four-five years before reaching some degree of self-acceptance, let alone alone.

there is this specific memory i have, and i really wanted to talk about it. i was fourteen years old, just having come to terms with being a homosexual (for the three years prior, i'd clung to the bisexual label like a lifeline.) by that i don't mean i'd accepted it at all, i only mean that i'd realized i could no longer kid myself. and the realization had come to me during a run-of-the-mill school day, apropos of nothing. it might've hit me and clicked during math class for all i know. but what i do know, what i remember, is being driven home from school hours later, deep in thought in the back of my grandpa's car, staring out the window and giving myself a very particular mental pep talk: 'love isn't something you will get to experience in life, and that's okay. you need to come to terms with this. there's more to life than love & if you don't start seeing this, you'll be miserable for a long time. what do you need love for anyway? learn to live knowing it'll not come and you'll be fine.' paraphrased, but you get the gist of it. looking back to it, it makes me so… so sad. when i'd called myself bisexual, those three years, even in the fog of intense internalized homophobia, i hadn't given up on love. i'd had this thought in my head, i remember telling this to myself very clearly before tehnički class one october: 'you can still hide this part of you and fall in love with a boy.' yes, i was a dirty freak and an abomination of nature for being into girls, but at least there was the silver-lining of a possible heterosexual relationship. but at fourteen, with that pipe-dream gone, i was forced to face the inevitability of my loveless, miserable, lesbian life. about a month after this, i would try to take my life for the first time. thinking about this chain of events makes me feel feral with anger, for that scared little kid that was me, and for every other scared, suicidal gay little kid in the world.

a little over half a year later, i met my first girlfriend, and though that relationship crashed and burned and left me irrevocably changed as a person after its four-year lifespan, at the time it had shown me that i could be loved (because here i was, being loved) and that i wasn't a lost cause. and only when i felt that sort of love from another person had i been able to start unpacking the absolute mountains of self-hatred and internalized homophobia i had acquired over the years. at sixteen i'd started running a semi-popular lesbian positivity account, and through it i'd developed connections to other lesbians, which also strengthened this newfound belief that maybe i wasn't Something Bad—because, look, there are others like me. i'd also been in therapy for some time, and though my therapist wasn't the best in many ways, and was also a kinda tone-deaf straight woman, she did make me feel more normal when no other adult did.

and i guess what i'm getting at i'd only really started feeling comfortable in my own skin, in my lesbian identity/orientation, around seventeen. at least comfortable enough to say it with my full chest to my real life friends (although i could still only say gay, not lesbian.) so, from figuring out i liked girls at eleven, it took me six-ish years to be okay with it. six years of various degrees of utter inner agony about something i could not change. i don't think some people understand what that does to a person, a kid, a teen. i don't think some people can even begin to understand what it's like. you could listen to us, people like me, talk about this sort of thing for a hundred hours straight, and i don't think you could wrap your head around it even a little. a lot of people have it worse than me, too. a lot of people remain in agony for many more years than just six, well into adulthood. some people die like this. not a month ago, i found myself feeling intensely ashamed of my desires, apropos of nothing. brushing twenty-one years old, thinking i'd overcome this particular burden, it hit me like a train. still here, still lurking. a degree of self-hatred i apparently cannot unlearn. it's devastating. i wonder how long i'll keep carrying this, and i wonder if the answer is 'forever'. you know? i get the feeling, sometimes, that internalized homophobia is trivialized. or at least not at all taken half as seriously as it should be, reduced to being uncomfy with your gayness a little bit. it's so much more than that. i don't know. i feel like i went on several tangents here, on this absolute monster of a post, but i just wanted to get this off my chest. sorry for getting serious do you still think i'm hot