Chronic Loneliness
Long time lurker (24M), not exactly Christian but raised Christian. I’m constantly questioning whether homosexuality is a sin or isn’t one. This is mostly a vent so I’m not expecting anything, but insight either here or in DMs is welcome. My self esteem is chronically low and I can’t eat, which is very negatively impacting my health. My BMI sits at roughly 14. I consider reconverting often because I want to believe in something and have a sense of community, but I have trouble doing so after I started reading the Bible cover to cover. The more I read, the less I believed in it, until eventually I left the faith.
I feel like as soon as other people find out or sense I’m different they distance themselves or are weary of me. The rejection I felt during University and from family members is affecting me every day. I consider going back to church but I never felt welcomed in the church no matter how hard I tried to seem normal. I always felt like an outsider.
Despite being like this, I want to adopt kids, get married, and start a family one day. At eighteen I felt so much guilt I came out of the closet and it didn’t go well. My situation is unique because for most of my life, I’ve been mostly attracted to women. I consider myself bisexual so I don’t understand why I’m feeling this way. It should be easy to commit to erasing the part of me that is problematic. Part of me thinks my low self esteem is why I have unwanted feelings and guilt in the first place. I don’t think most women would want me but on some level don’t think men would either.
When I tell people I’ve struggled with this for a long time they assume I didn’t read my Bible enough or my family didn’t. I was a very devout Christian for a long time, to the point I slept with my Bible often. I think this is why what happened is still affecting me today even when it shouldn’t be.
I feel like I have no soul and keep everyone at arm’s length. I’m in constant survival mode and am hyper vigilant. There aren’t a lot of guys like me where I live and I’m surrounded mostly by Christians in real life. It sounds over dramatic, but I feel like what happened and the fear of it happening again is eating me alive. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to never come out the way that I did.
I’m not sure if what I want is some level of acceptance from the type of people that had the most negative reaction to what I disclosed at eighteen or if I’m wanting to change. I haven’t dated anyone since my last girlfriend, and feel like on some level I’m watching my life drift away to become a machine that can’t get wounded again.