Maxim for @maximkischin-e

aaaaa i'm sorry, i should have been specific about the kind of question, it's more related to coming out than bisexuality specifically now that i think about it >.<

i've been identifying as a lesbian for years and for a while now i've been feeling like maybe i'm actually bi but i'm honestly terrified of exploring that and i don't know what to do. every time i try to think it through i get so stressed out that i start to cry because i have a lot of feelings and experiences that feel so hard to sort out but at the same time i know i can't keep pretending forever. the hardest thing is that i've felt my attraction swing so strongly in the other direction after feeling nothing about men for years and it's making me so sad and disgusted with myself. it's i've been sitting on this all year and it's really starting to take a toll on me now that i realized it's almost 2024 and i'm still lying to everyone about this. i was hoping if it's not too much to ask you might be able to give me some advice on how you navigated this bc you seem so confident and i feel really lost and anxious since i can't talk to anyone i know in real life about it. i know that this is a lot so please feel free to ignore it if you don't want to answer, thank you so much for reading whether you decide to answer or not

Firstly a big hug to you, I'm sorry you've been in so much emotional pain and that you have felt isolated in all this 😢🫂 I know that when you're in that place, it can feel like such a big deal even just to say "I'm hurting in this way" to another person, so I'm really touched you came to me 💙

My biggest piece of advice to you would be to do your best to move away from the question of "what am I really?" and towards the question "what do I want?" It's been my experience that approaching questions of sexuality as though there's some fixed, immutable truth to your sexual identity that is just waiting there for you to uncover is little more than a painful, drawn-out exercise in making yourself miserable. That's exactly what I did when I first came out at 20, and if I could change anything about my life, it would be to not quite literally lock myself in my room for weeks doing nothing but dissecting my life and over-intellectualizing my feelings in an attempt figure all that out. Sure I came out of it with some kind of answer, but the experience left me horrifically depressed and destroyed my self worth, and it took a long time to bounce back from that - especially since I felt a lot of shame about the state I was in, and I couldn't bring myself tell anyone else about what had brought it about.

I mention all that because what I see in your message is that you are being similarly hard on yourself, and I want you to know that there is a much healthier way to approach this that will hopefully leave you feeling more comfortable, confident, and in control. Shifting the question to "what do I want?" allows you to consciously dictate the terms of the process instead of getting overwhelmed by your anxieties. It takes your fear out of the driver's seat and puts you firmly in it.

What do you want? What makes you happy? What do you value? What aspects of you and your life do you treasure, what do you want to cultivate, what would be best left behind? What would you do if there were no limits on you? At the end of your life, what do you want to be able to say about how you lived your life?

These are big, essential questions, ones we unfortunately don't often get the space to take a step back and thoughtfully consider our answers to as we deal with juggling school, work, and adult life and obligations. One benefit to being in a state of questioning is that you have already created the space to ask big questions about yourself. Why not broaden the scope a bit? Instead of just asking questions about who you are, these questions give you the space to holistically figure out who you want to be.

You wanted to know how I navigated this — that's how! I didn't want to put myself through what I experienced at 20 again. I asked myself these questions and they helped me understand that if I wanted to act in line with my adult priorities, I needed to let go a bit, give myself the permission to make a change in order to keep growing into the person I want to be. I won't get into all the specifics but it helped a lot to concretely articulate certain things to myself, such as "sex & sexuality are important to how I understand myself and my gender" and "it's more important to me to have the freedom to do the things I want and need to than it is for others to understand them." It helped me establish my own rules of engagement with the sexual identity question so I could make that process a helpful one for me instead of something deeply destabilizing.

Take a deep breath — you are in control here, you are the boss of you. I completely understand how overwhelmed and lonely you must be feeling. Along with re-shifting your focus, I suggest that you find some outlet for those feelings, whether it's a forum or server where you can talk to other people who are in the same boat, journaling, moving your body in a way that's enjoyable for you, playing a game, making something, anything that helps ground you. Even finding a place where you can just say "I feel overwhelmed" without having to get into specifics can help alleviate some of that stress. People will be here for you if you let them know you're hurting, even if you're not ready or aren't able to give them the details.

Lots of love to you. I know you can move forward in a healthier way, some days will be better than others, what's important is that we remember to give ourselves grace through all the emotional ups and downs. I hope this helps a little bit 🫂💙