Hey Everyone,
I want to start by saying that this is quite a lengthy post as it's a problem I've dealt with for almost half a year so please bare with me.

I know I am a heterosexual woman who has never been attracted to the same gender in real life, ever. However, I am truly confused as to what my behaviours mean and would really appreciate any feedback. I am really on edge right now, not due to bisexual/gay issues but truly because Im tired of the barrage of doubts and thoughts I am currently living through and have been living through for almost half a year now. All my potential is being robbed from me due to my mind and this post is an attempt to reach out and save myself from a very dark downward spiral I am currently experiencing.

I want to be clear that I have nothing but a peaceful, non judgemental and accepting attitude to any one from the LGBTQ community so my issues are not about shame/denial or worse homophobia. If I was truly dealing the with same gender attraction in my real life, I would have absolutely no problems being frank about it as I am about my issues here. I know who I am and my orientation so the issue is more to do with confusing behaviours that you know don’t match who you are and why this happens, it’s also to do with extreme anxiety and the stress caused by it.

Question: Can masturbation lead to a habit if done once? What can explain the impulse to masturbate to the same sexual fantasy the second time if Im not interested in women in real life? Is what you fantasise about evidence of your orientation?

Important information:
•Used to watch lesbian porn (a lot of reasons why-straight porn looks painful). I quit because I never really examined why I did this and once I did (I had an aha, I’m looking at women, what am I doing, type of moment) and it became unappealing. I have zero desire to go back watching it.
•I spent a few months worrying over my orientation once I had the aha moment and because of this sexual images and thoughts of women would become more frequent (as I kept over analyzing my orientation), I masturbated and orgasmd for the first time having a sexual fantasy of a woman. I enjoyed it at the time but was able to separate the fantasy from who I am (in my fantasy, I’m not really me so it’s easier to do things I wouldn’t think of doing if im someone else), I then masturbated a second time with the same fantasy and this is where my anxiety and depression has got worse. After I masturbated the first time I made a commitment not to go back to such fantasies but on a particularly low mood type of day where I turned to food to cope with my emotions, I felt a trigger to masturbate to the same fantasy again (second time) and this is where I got confused about my orientation.

Background information:
•I am a woman who is a virgin
•I used to watch lesbian porn (interesting to note that this was almost always when I was feeling down, never had an urge to watch it when I was not in low moods).
•I have no issues of shame/guilt towards LGBTQ and fully accepting of the community
•I have never had a crush/felt any attraction to women in real life. Quite the opposite, I couldn’t ever imagine myself with one (with all due respect)
•I have a history of anxiety issues-never got it addressed.
•I have a long history of living in another world-fantasy. I talk and walk around my room as someone else sometimes (I know it sounds crazy) but it was a copying strategy I’ve had since I was young (probably lack of emotional development and access to discuss my problems as a teen).
•When I am centered and in closer range to feeling peaceful and focus on living in the real world, I feel no desire or arousal over lesbian porn, nude pictures of women and have no desire to masturbate.
•This anxiety all erupted once I started to go on a self awareness journey and for the first time evaluated behaviours I was engaged in for a long time that contradicted who I really was.
•I know masturbation is fine and I don’t have feelings of shame: but id rather access it from a place of peace and not in the context of overanalysing things and worrying which is why when I am living in a better emotional state I seriously (hard to believe for some) have zero desire to masturbate and wont be doing so again.

Any feedback would really go a long way in helping me finally move on and put this behind me. I think the constant internal dialogue and not having enough information/ objective feedback has really made me feel worse but glad I found forums like these. Thank you!