Questioning My Sexuality and Orientation

First of all, I am sorry this is so long.

I am at a point where I am beginning to question my sexuality. I was raised in a very strict, evangelical Christian environment, and even thinking that you might be a lesbian was out of the question. There was no possible way you could be “homosexual” and be a Christian. As a teenager, at one point I thought I was attracted to one of my classmates, and the thought terrified me. I talked to no one about it, until I was 19 or 20. I told a young adults leader at my church, and she told me that women who have had conflicted relationships with their mothers often seek out affirmation from other women and confuse this with thinking they are “homosexual.” This put my mind at ease for a long time, because my mom was extremely emotionally and verbally abusive, and sometimes physically abusive as well.

Fast forward to now. I am in therapy for the millionth time, estranged from the church for many, many reasons that are too much to get into right now, and I feel like I might be attracted to my therapist. There are definitely transference issues going on, but now I find myself wondering if I might be a lesbian after all. I have never been in a sexual relationship, due to my family’s messed up attitudes about sex. I am wondering if there is anyone else who has gone through a similar situation and what advice you would have for me. Right now I feel very confused and scared. I don’t really want to talk about this with my therapist, because I don’t want to tell her that I might have sexual feelings for her. I have no idea how she would react to that, even though we have talked a bit about my transference issues.

Hi aurora. BTW your post is very reasonable length. Long posts are ones that take 15 minutes or longer to read (really there are some that long).

I have been in the church and found it hard to reconcile human sexuality and religion. It is so difficult that many people have to withdraw from religion because of these extreme beliefs.

It is totally natural to be attracted to a nurturing caring person like your T. Our most basic instinct is to reach out for nurturing. Not finding it or finding abuse can have deep effects on people that take time to work through.

A friend who is a survivor of abuse found that this challenge was important enough that they had to find someone they could talk to about these most basic issues. For them it was a therapist of another gender than they had because they had been locked into the situation and not making progress.

Some people take a risk that there therapist may not understand. I have heard about one person that started talking generally about how they found that they were more and more attracted to women and they did not feel comfortable with these feelings. That is something a good therapist can wrap their hands around.

Best place I have visited (must have a total of 5 posts - you now have 4 - 1 more to go - even replying to other's posts works) is the LGBTQ Chat in the Chatroom on Monday at 7PM EST till 8PM. If you want to go tonight, you can make 1 more post and they may show up in time. If not try next Monday.

You can also be an active member in other ways like supporting others in their questions, reading articles and posts http://forums.psychcentral.com that are applicable to your area of concern.

Please feel free to private message me or any of the Community Liaisons by left clicking on the name in blue to the left of their post) for questions or just to share.

Aurora, I too grew up in a conservative christian household, going to church multiple times a week, teaching us that homosexuality was an abomination. I have felt feelings for other girls from time to time and also thought it was because of my terrible relationship with my mom and wanting affection from other girls to make up for it. At one point I thought that god healed me from my wickedness and made me straight again. This is when I was going to a christian college where you could be kicked out for promoting or living a homosexual lifestyle. I almost got kicked out because there were rumors that my best friend and I were lesbians but it was a lie, we were not. They were THAT homophobic. Anyway, I am atheist now for many reasons that I won't go into, but I know now that I'm bisexual. Although I am married to my husband now, I will never deny anymore that I'm bisexual and feel attraction to both males and females.

As far as talking to your therapist, she is supposed to be able to handle that information, and I'm sure she's heard it before. You should tell her how you feel, even if it leads to nowhere. It will give you some closure with her.

I too grew up in a strict Christian household and had trouble accepting my sexuality when I was younger. It will come a point in your life where you are going to have to start living for yourself if you truly want to be happy. First evaluate your identity as your own person. Do you actually believe in the Christian religion or are you just following behind your parents beliefs? Come to terms with their being nothing wrong with you. Contrary to popular belief many people slide the scale from extremely hetero, bisexual, to extremely homo. More people are in the middle and pick a side they feel comfortable in or goes with the majority. You aren't a anomaly.
Your attraction to your therapist could be because you are telling them your thoughts and feelings. This emotional connection you have with your therapist is one sided and strictly professional so I would not advise you to think to deeply of that.

Generally speaking, therapists are trained to handle being told about possible attractions to them in a calm and kind way. I'm not sure about how well your therapist has been trained, but since you seem to feel so positively about her, I'm sure that she'll be alright, so you should be aright to tell her.
As for your sexuality, it's valid regardless of how they came about, trouble with your mother or just born that way.
I'm a baptist myself, and I tried to talk to my church about it when I started to figure out that I was pansexual (meaning I'm capable of attraction to someone of any gender), and they completely dismissed me and tried to talk me out of it, so I had a bit of an existential crisis over it, but in college I got to visit a really accepting church where I met a bunch of gay Christians and got to talk to the pastor about it, so in short, it's perfectly natural to be both gay and a Christian.

I still haven't talked to my therapist about the nature of my feelings for her, but they are just getting stronger and stronger. I don't want her to be disgusted with me because right now she is literally the only support person I have. I know she is a Christian and she is straight, but I don't know what her beliefs are about sexuality. I am so mixed up and confused. Even though I know how much my conservative upbringing has hurt me, and I can't even bring myself to go to church anymore because I find so much about christianity so harsh and judgemental, I am having a hard time letting go of it. It's been so deeply ingrained in me, and for a long time I found a lot of comfort in my faith. I just know that if I decide I am gay, it will totally change the way my family looks at me. And I still feel a great deal of shame about being sexual at all, never mind trying to figure out if I am straight or gay.