Mental Health and Lesbianism

I knew that I was depressed before I knew that I was a lesbian. I will likely never be totally sure which feeds more into which. I was almost 23 when I had my major breakdown and just turned 24 when I realized I was queer. I dunno. It’s just weird to me, that there was such a disconnect. I have to wonder where my sexuality fits into the map of my mental health. I didn’t really date until I was about 22 but from there I had a series of physical encounters but never formed an emotional connection.

Perhaps my decline in mental state has something to do with the fact that I am basically a lover and sex without emotions causes stress on my need for intimacy to achieve desire. On the other hand, I was almost always at least somewhat reluctant to have sex. I love to talk about sex endlessly. I will flirt and be the tease, but the physical act of sex has always been somewhat hard for me to get into without connection. I am especially reluctant with guys, because, although I thought I was attracted, I was never really very interested in sex with men.

I want to clarify. I was never raped. Not ever. My consent was always fully obtained. However, the small (very) number of men that got past basic making out with me had to employ some very persuasive tactics to get me into it. My consent was never enthusiastic really. How could a lesbian enthusiastically consent to sexual activity with a man? I never knew why I was hesitant, something inside me just always said that it didn’t feel right.

I broke up with guys cause it didn’t feel right. I even pretty much cheated on a guy, cause it didn’t feel right. Nothing has ever felt right. At the same time, I sought out fleeting or more casual encounters with men. I could go through the motions of heterosexuality. I love to kiss; I will make out with anybody. Kissing for me is just a closeness and a fun connection.  And going further on wasn’t that hard.  I was good at phone sex, and I knew how to masturbate, so that wasn’t that hard either. From there it would start to get to gray areas and I would sort of lose interest.

Even worse though was evidence of some sort of emotional attachment, I ran from that faster than a fat chick runs toward free cake. And I can say that cause I am a fat chick and free cake is one of the few things I will run for.

So the point is, I don’t think that there is a direct link, but I must recognize that my discomfort with my sexuality prevented me from finding the comfort of a relationship with women, likely the only sort of real relationship I could be happy in. So, my loneliness as a depressed person was definitely exacerbated by the fact that I was so discouraged that I couldn’t ever seem to find someone to connect with. I have still only ever really connected with the one person, and she did not connect with me, so I dunno what that means in the end anyway.