Same-Sex Attraction Was a Search for My Own Body

[Dost]

For a long time I didn’t understand the roots of my same-sex attraction (SSA). Trauma had cut me off from the somatic core of my male body—especially my pelvis, legs, and feet. What I couldn’t feel was missing from my nervous system’s map. Dissociated parts didn’t register as fully present.

What I couldn’t feel in myself, I went looking for in other men. My nervous system projected those missing qualities onto them and tried to claim them through sex. On the surface it showed up as sexual longing, but underneath it was simpler: I was trying to feel like myself by reaching for someone else’s male body. I was chasing feelings my own body couldn’t yet generate.

As I slowly reintegrated my body—through somatic work, breath, movement, and trauma processing—something shifted. Once I could feel my own maleness from the inside, that compulsive search outside started to ease.

I’m sharing this because I’m curious if anyone else relates to this.

 

[SaberCat]

Hi Dost! Great post but I'm sorry you had to experience that. I get it. For me its was mental dissociation. The different parts of my life: school, military, college, family even my gender identity. Everything was separate and unconnected. It took a lot of work in therapy to integrate the parts of my life to see myself as a whole human being. I used compulsive sex (and love) to try to integrate everything. Obviously that didn't work.

I just started with a trauma therapist last week to work on the trauma the I have. That all of us have. Good luck on your journey.

 

[Dost]

Hi Dost! Great post but I'm sorry you had to experience that. I get it. For me its was mental dissociation. The different parts of my life: school, military, college, family even my gender identity. Everything was separate and unconnected. It took a lot of work in therapy to integrate the parts of my life to see myself as a whole human being. I used compulsive sex (and love) to try to integrate everything. Obviously that didn't work.

I just started with a trauma therapist last week to work on the trauma the I have. That all of us have. Good luck on your journey.

Thanks for sharing that. It’s incredible how resilient we humans are — the nervous system finds whatever way it can to keep us alive, even if that means splitting things apart or numbing pieces of ourselves for a while. What you describe — the separation, the dissociation, the attempts to reconnect through sex or love — all of that makes sense as the body’s creative way to survive when the pain was too much to hold at once.

It takes courage to start trauma therapy and begin weaving those parts back together. Wishing you steadiness and support as you keep integrating and finding your wholeness.