Can anyone relate?

I know this is extremely long. I wrote it maybe to be used as a resource for someone who is just starting to come out. Maybe you can relate to it. Tell me what you all think. Does anyone have a similar coming out experience?

 My story:

When people ask me when I came out or when I realized I was gay, I don't know what to say. There was a moment when I thought, "okay, I'm gay" but I consider that the time when I accepted my sexuality, not the time I came out, not to myself at least.

I've realized that my entire coming out process can be described with one word: denial. Even when I first started having crushes on girls, I knew they were crushes. I knew they were gay crushes. I freaked out. As I was growing up, my parents weren't extremely homophobic but they never talked about gay people. I always knew it was a topic that made people uncomfortable. I was a very gay child. I went through a period when I hated Barbies and dressed in boy's clothing. I hung out with mostly boys. My mom asked me once if the reason I was like this was because I liked girls. In my confused, 9-year-old mind, I asked myself, "Do I like girls?" then I responded with, "No". It wasn't a lie. Girls had cooties, of course I didn't like them. Most girls didn't like boys at that age either. So then my mom assumed I would grow up to be straight.

The red flag popped up when I was twelve. I had little girl crushes in the past, but I didn't think anything of them. In the sixth grade, girls started to like boys. I always said I liked boys, and would pick a random boy to "like," but usually they were just boys I thought looked cool, maybe boys I could be friends with. I thought this was normal. I didn't know what it felt like to lust after boys because I always lusted after girls. I guess my straight friends in my grade lusted after boys the same way I lusted after girls. I fell hard for a girl in my grade and went through a roller-coaster of emotions about her. I knew it was taboo to talk about anything gay, and I didn't know why I felt the way I did towards her. I felt like a stalker, a pervert. I wanted to change it. I vowed to myself not to think about her, that didn't work. So then I decided just not to let anyone know I had feelings for her or any other girl. Ever. I thought maybe these types of crushes would magically disappear one day. I thought if I pretended to like guys and got a boyfriend, I'd be able to make myself like him. I thought a guy would sweep me off my feet like in all those Disney movies. I thought like this for a very long time but it never happened.

I started falling for more and more girls. Hiding it began to get much easier. I enjoyed having crushes on girls. I just didn't talk about them. I would pick boys to pretend to obsess over while I was really obsessing over girls. These secret crushes were fun, but sometimes overwhelming. I would get depressed because I felt so abnormal. I thought there was something psychologically wrong with me. The only gay people I knew of were boys. I knew lesbians existed, but I had never met one. I thought it was just not an option for me. I already got made fun of for other things, and I thought if anyone found out I liked girls, it would be the end of me. I thought nobody would talk to me and I'd be labeled as the "school weirdo". I probably would have been. My school was not the most tolerant place. So, I just considered myself a freak and got really depressed sometimes. I felt like I didn't belong. The person in my mind was a totally different person than the one I portrayed.

In 8th grade, one of my best friends told me she was bi. I was really happy. Then that summer I babysat for a lesbian couple from Colorado. The world became more gay-friendly. But I still tried to convince myself that I was straight. When I got to high school it took me awhile to figure things out. I dated a boy named Peter because he had a mohawk and I thought it was cool. I had pretended to like guys for so long that I actually thought dating a guy would turn me straight. I forced myself to have a crush on Peter for almost a year, but when I finally started dating him, there was no excitement. I loved having him as a friend, he was really fun to talk to, but that was all. I remember our first kiss. It was a little exciting because I always wondered what it felt like to be kissed, but I was disappointed. I thought it felt kind of gross and boring. I avoided making out with him most of the time. We were not intimate at all and I didn't care. I really didn't want to be. I am amazed that we dated unhappily for almost two years. The reason I didn't break up with him was because he was a safety blanket. I knew as long as I dated him, people would consider me straight no matter how gay I acted. People would think, "oh, she's dating a guy, she's not a lesbian". I still crushed on girls the whole time I was dating him.

After I broke up with him, I dated another guy. Same situation, except I broke up with him after two weeks. I dated a few guys after that, but each time I realized there was nothing there. About a year ago, I decided, there's no use trying to fight it: I'm gay. I looked up some resources on the internet and stopped suppressing my gay feelings. I let myself think "oh, she's hot" and I stopped letting myself be ashamed of my crushes. Two months later, I came out to two or three of my friends. After that, more people found out through the grapevine or through me. A lot of people know now and everything is fine. Even my mom knows. I'm making progress. I finally feel like myself and feel comfortable in my own skin. If I could give advice to someone who is coming out, I would say don't ignore your feelings because they won't go away no matter how hard you try to make them. You're just wasting your time by denying it. Being out is much more pleasant.