Gaining and Losing My Identity – Lisa’s Story
It took a long time for me to realize I was bisexual. I knew what being gay was, but it was always seen as such a bad thing in my family that I never let myself consider that I might actually be gay, be “that” person. I’d had a very close friend in high school, and we’d pretend to be lesbians. But it was in play, and I never thought that the intense love I had for her was anything out of the ordinary or would put me in the “gay” category. It took my best friend from University moving away to realize that I’d been in love with her. And even then I didn’t step into acceptance that I might be sexually attracted to the same sex-that the heart yearning I had felt for her might indicate something more than having a really close friend. I wasn’t very connected to my body in a lot of ways, especially my sexuality, and I wonder if that was part of the disconnect. It might just be a coincidence, but around the time I’d started doing body/chakra energy work was when I realized I was bisexual. Read More I started noticing physical responses to women, excitability, which was almost a bit painful, and certainly uncomfortable, as if I was being born into a new world. I was confused at the physical sensations and sexual yearning. I was new to the city where I was living, and I didn’t have anyone to connect with as this was happening. I also didn’t have anyone in my life that I was interested in exploring these yearnings with, so it was pretty theoretical for a while, and I had a lot of conflicting thoughts and imagined possibilities flowing through my mind and body. I could literally feel the identities and certainties I’d had being thrown up into the air and new ones forming. After watching some lgbt movies, I started to realize how convoluted the whole bisexual thing was. I learned that bisexuals didn’t fit into either group- they weren’t in the homosexual group, and they weren’t in the straight group, and quite often they weren’t accepted by either. It would be taboo for me to be in the straight group, because I was interested in the same gender, and it would be taboo for me in the homosexual group, because I was interested in the opposite gender. As I met people and started to engage socially, I started to form two identities, depending on whichever group I was with. So when I was hanging out with my straight friends, I’d be straight. And when I was with my lesbian or gay friends, I’d be...
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