Response to "What is SSA?"

In "What is SSA?" my goal was to provide a glimpse into the every day thought processes I go through. Though it's been several years since that incident, it is still the process I go through every day. Every time I notice a guy walking on BYU campus, that is what I do to myself. It's a self-taught self-inflicting distraction technique. My goal is to stop that. (I'm open to new coping strategies if anyone has any suggestions)

There is actually nothing defining about the event in the story, that is why I chose it. At that point in time I had already been "discovered" by my dad who caught me looking at homo-erotic pornography when I was 14 (I had started when I was 13). My parents knew I had a problem as a young teen, but probably naively and wishfully hoped I had grown out of it when I was 17 (the time of that story).

As for a moment when I "came out to myself"--- I don't know that I have such a moment. I can't remember a beginning to these thoughts or to this internal process. As far as I can tell, I remember the emotional part as always being there. As a child I used to dress up as Ariel from the Little Mermaid. I played "house" during recess and I made french bracelets with the other girls. I was always around girls at school.

I do remember having day dream fantasies in elementary school about those girls- fantasies of marrying them or playing naked with them (hey, this is a forum of honesty). In seventh grade, however, the fantasies were always about boys. I don't know when that shifted. There is no transition in my memory or anything. I'm not even sure that it was really a change anyway.

The earliest "homosexual" experience I had was as a five year old. I remember distinctly playing a game where another preschooler was a giant who was pretending to eat me. It was the Bishop's son. Anyway, he was younger than me, but I remember him clearly being the instigator. The Bishop walked in on us. I remember my parents calling me over to the stairs to talk to me the next day. He had called them. They sent me to my room. I remember sitting in a little red chair. I wanted to recreate what the kid had done to me, but I couldn't do it by myself. I tried and tried, but I just couldn't bend like that. Even as a flexible preschooler, I couldn't recreate this gross funny thing that I wanted to feel again.