Ever get Depressed over your Identity?

I get like that sometimes...

Usually it's for self-esteem issues, especially with my looks, appearance, etc.
It's really awkward for me because for a gay guy, I'm not that 'stylish' or your typical gay boy...You know what I mean?

I hate to base things on stereotypes, but most gay guys fall into a metro category, I guess. And I'm not like that, so it gets me really down sometimes...Sometimes I feel if I were more like that and if I had better looks/body structure then I'd be happier...

I don't know, it's all about finding yourself one step at a time, so hopefully I'll come together.

 

Yeah, exactly.

I don't know if this is what you mean, but I only think of it as a sexual preference, not a lifestyle. Many gays form their own little alternative scene and I'm not really into all that...

 

agreed.

 

For a long time my preference, if god had asked me, would have been to be straight. That "preference" never changed me. I think of gay as a sexual orientation, (or an emotional orientation.)

The Gay Lifestyle persists for a reason. A lot has been written about gay culture, the gay lifestyle and why it continues to exist. One reason is that the realization of a gay society helped spawn the gay rights movement. Another is that ours is a society of the oppressed. And yet another theory suggests that there is a gay disposition, or esthetic in many of us. But in truth, today it seems like there are more glbt folks living outside of the "gay lifestyle" than within it.

On one hand that makes being glbt a marketing nightmare. On the other, we represent a microcosm of humanity, an arbitrary group who only have one commonality. Our diversity could as likely cause us to be the ones who finally teach the world to get along.


.

 

I'm Bipolar so I get depressed quite a lot as it is, only I know that I have had so many times struggled with my 'Identity' as an 'Individual' First, being I have drifted in and out of survival and rapid changes of environment or living situations with learning to adapt to almost one exterme living situation and people to not having a place to live at all, so I am Mentally Ill and being raised in prodestant organized religion for over 17-years, then the absolute breakdown of my mother who now in my life at 33-years has not discussed my sexuality or identity since 17-yrs of age.

I feel like I am attracted to other men emotionally first and sexually second, last two years of instability and years of this very battle has turned me to be quite bitter to an extreme at an early age. Almost like as if I for years was 'requried' to fit the sterotype of the '80's - '90's era of being and still today.

I guess I say I can have sex with either gender, and that I have, and that being the 'needy' madman who I am, had desire for monogomous relationships with other men while still the guilt and hiding, the shame of society and contant dieting, clubbing and the things I was 'supposed' to do and be just added stress to an already damaged or non-existant identity of who I am and how as a person I want to be an individual.

Love me, hate me, talk to me or look down on me as now this new term would be that I am I guess at appearace now to be considered a 'Bear' on internal and emotional level being a femme while the two have very 'society' based sterotypes. It is just messed up and though I choose not to have a partner I still feel that the flamboyant and lifestyle that so many today still 'force' upon the people around them that I just prefer to live my life and leave my sexuality not as the pillar or foundation of what I do or how I live my life in terms to feeling the Need to go out and SCREAM the words "YES, I am GAY! Please feel free to judge me, look me up and down, make verbal remarks about not seeming to dress gay or different things. Welll the ADD is going wild and Im on vacation from meds for a bit. I thank myslef for that and I have been awake 3-days and 2-nights so not all the way here some of me is sleeping. Peace to whoever you are today regardless of how you fit the 'hope to go out of style' portrait of the sterotyypical gay or bi man. Peace.rx

 

I've never though much about the "gay lifestyle".

 

There was a day when I could hardly bare to look at my own reflection...

*hugs*

 

You might be surprised just how many gay men don't fit the metrosexual stereotype.

We all worry about our looks to one degree or other. Men seem to be more visually oriented than women. Somewhere out there is someone who will like you for who you are. However, if you stay home and feel gloomy about it all the time, it's going to be tougher for him to find you.

 

Pft. Just go to a park on a sunny day and forget about it all.
As long as you're nice and don't breath fire on people with your eyes you should get along swimmingly - just learn not to despise the loneliness that comes with being your own person in a world of manufactured attraction. It is a good thing and will lead you to more genuine people of your ilk ... eventually.

Peace!

 

Of course I do, but being gay is generally not the thing-in-itself that ticks me off about myself. Human sexuality is only a small part of my entire aura. I have issues with the nature of my biological relationships (parents, siblings, cousins), friends who are true and some who are not and--in the 21st century--concerns about the virtual beautiful people

My sexuality and sexual identity tends to be of lesser concern to me as I age... but yeah, there are times when I don't talk about who I am, what I do, what I like and the like since I see that as going nowhere.

 

Yeah, I agree with this too. I'm bi, and I don't really try to, or want to fit in with the whole gay subculture and get all into style and stuff like that.


But yeah, I sometimes get a little bit depressed. I haven't told many of my friends, and the reason is that I know that a lot of people would see me so much more differently if they knew I was bi.

Another thing that kind of gets me a little pissed off is that it's more acceptable for girls to be bi than it is for guys.... but ehhh that's another discussion altogether.

 

I used to get depresed but I smoke pot all the time now.So long
as I don't use hard drugs ,like I did for a little while.
When I get stoned I get horny.Which I shouldn't complain about.
To each they're own.lol.

 

pot will make your depression worse.

 

I do, but I kind of wish I didn't. See if this makes you feel any better, found it on another forum but can't figure out who if anyone wrote it:

Difficult to find an angle on homosexuality the guy doesn't have contempt for, but maybe that's the point; you don't have to be a type of homosexual at all. It certainly shouldn't define who you are.

Think of all the things other than a gay guy that you are, the things you do in your life. Now imagine what life would be like if you were one of those guys who does anything the gay style mags tell him to and makes his sexuality his whole life. I know people like that, I'm sure you do to, and much as you try to love them, you can't help but feel like you're trying to be friends with one of those talking pullstring dolls.

If I'd tried to follow gay culture, I'd never have discovered music, literature, that dancing is shit or that unfashionable cooking is always the best kind. I'd have spent all the money I've spent on having fun in my life on clothes and trying to look like I'm having fun.

So basically what I'm saying is a lack of identity can be a problem, but I suspect it's not yours.

 

Not really. You just sell the same shit to straight (sorry, metrosexual) guys instead.