Homosexual reoccurring thoughts??

[Caliber81]

Hello brothers and sisters,
Thought I overcame this area in my Christian life, for awhile it was gone. Since I did overcome alcohol, drugs, wrecklessness, depression, occultism, etc, etc. Eventually this sin haunts me still. Which I gave in with gay inappropriate contentography recently. I try to stay away from this stuff but usually some things around me trigger it. I really hate this past lifestyle I was involved in since I pretty much explored it in all points. I blame my past crystal meth addiction to this, but happy I don't even do it anymore. But since I did sin again in this area with homosexuality. Just felt really guilty and kind of ashamed. Dirty and grotesque as well. Seems like I'm being attacked by the enemy again. Just don't want to get involved anymore greater than this, as in physical with another person. Please pray for me and maybe some advice from other survivors in this area.

 

[Bluerose31]

Hello brothers and sisters,
Thought I overcame this area in my Christian life, for awhile it was gone. Since I did overcome alcohol, drugs, wrecklessness, depression, occultism, etc, etc. Eventually this sin haunts me still. Which I gave in with gay inappropriate contentography recently. I try to stay away from this stuff but usually some things around me trigger it. I really hate this past lifestyle I was involved in since I pretty much explored it in all points. I blame my past crystal meth addiction to this, but happy I don't even do it anymore. But since I did sin again in this area with homosexuality. Just felt really guilty and kind of ashamed. Dirty and grotesque as well. Seems like I'm being attacked by the enemy again. Just don't want to get involved anymore greater than this, as in physical with another person. Please pray for me and maybe some advice from other survivors in this area.

I have same sex attraction struggles as well. They started after a trauma of mine where I was kidnapped and raped by a masculine woman and two men. I often think my life may be better if I was a lesbian because I could not be hurt by a man or an masculine woman. I have found myself attracted to feminine women. I have prayed about this and God revealed to me it was because of my trauma that I developed attraction to feminine women. God has helped me by showing me that not all men and masculine women are cruel. Perhaps exploring your past to find out if there was any abuse could help you. Have you ever been assaulted or misused? That could cause your homosexual attraction. God loves you no matter what, even if you have homosexual attractions. I am certain God will be with you and help comfort you and give you the healing you need.

 

[Joe 73]

I am not in the same situation but i have had entirely exclusive homosexual attractions untill very recently. I am 19. Bluerose is probably right about trauma. You want to find out what kind of trauma it is.

The thing is might be one incident, like you were raped, or abused, OR it could be something more subtle. Like your father did not give you attention when you were little. It's a less obvious childhood trauma, but it still can effect you later. You might need to come to terms with your longing for masculine affirmation affection and attention. you also may need to come to terms with mistakes your parents made raising you, so you can work through the loss, instead of trying to fill the pain with homosexual fantasy or encounters. It might be that you haven't done anything for your same sex bonding needs(in order to become secure in your gender and by doing so being secure about yourself), so they keep returning. Sex is the easy solution your brain brings up, because you don't have to do the hard work of getting to know people, you just want to skip to easy intimacy(brain's false answer "sexual pleasure will fix the problem").

I learned a lot from this book https://www.amazon.com/Shame-Attachment-Loss-Practical-Reparative/dp/0997637307 but its a lot to read at once and its designed for therapists, so its harder for someone who needs to read. You can find a lot of free stuff about the authors ideas on his youtube channel Dr. Joseph Nicolosi
sadly he passed away earlier this year.

If it doesn't go to your unment same sex bonding needs but it goes to some incident(s), you need to work through your shame. You probably are tempted to keep revisiting the feeling of what happened, because you want to be free of that shame(sex makes it seem satisfying and helps cover up the feeling of shame, thats why its compelling.) but no matter how many times you revisit it won't make your shame any better. you need to embrace God's mercy and know he can forgive anything. Then you can forgive and love yourself as god loves you. This might involve facing the pain of what happened and can be difficulty.

In either case you need to face shame. you need to not be ashamed of yourself for having these (for eample: feelings for homosexual sex, masculine closeneses, or for fatherly love) regardless of whether or not the feelings are true. You definately don't have them on purpose. and you need to not be ashamed of what you did in the past, you can't change it, its what you do now that matters.

Sorry if that way all over the place, I hope it can help you,
I will pray for those struggling with homosexual attractions or addictions.
Remember that God has a perfect plan for all of us, even in the midst of our sins/mistakes

 

[Joe 73]

I have some more advice

Try to conquer your inappropriate contentography habbit first, it really messes your mind up, and teaches your brain that sex with men for bonding is what you need(addiction) and you forget the real purpose of sex, and the real ways in which you can bond with men. When you use the computer, make sure you have a specific reason, and say a prayer. have a reminder to be holy like a cross on your login screen. Masturbation is not going to help either. inappropriate content is the easier one to quit though. I took me a few weeks to quit inappropriate content, but about 4 months to quit masturbation, once i realized how serious of a problem they were.

and this is some advice I got from a priest in confession after telling him that I was frustrated I still struggled with masturbation from sexul temptation even though i really wanted to quit. He explained it this way. What do you think of when I tell you "Don't think about a pink elephant?" "A pink Elephant".
When you have a sexual temptation, don't try to face it head on by saying "DON'T THINK THIS!". "WHY AM I THINKING THIS?". you will become frustrated and give up. what you want to do is have some positive words about who you want to be, and focus on what you want to be instead of what you don't want to be, that way you can forget about what was tempting you and move onto something else. Instead you could remind yourself something like this.
" I am a son of God, It is when I give of myself to others that I find real happiness. God gave me my body for a wonderful purpose, either for connecting with my wife physiically and having the possibility of life, or so I can give up that as a sacrafice to be closer to god. God loves me unfathomably and I know I can trust and find peace and happiness in him."

 

[RedeemedtoManhood]

I agree with their posts, brother.

Try to get to the roots why you are attracted to the same sex. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal these roots, so you can cut it at the core in the name of Jesus Christ.

The common reasons are gender detachment, craving the love of your father, craving the approval of your childhood same-sex peers.

 

[Caliber81]

Thanks for the responses and advice. I wrote this post more than a month ago and was waiting for it to be approved to post up, but just kind of swayed away from the site from anger and frustration waiting for a quick response. But I moved on and kept myself busy and just prayed. Thoughts come and go but just don't put it in action. I know if I go and dabble with it, it would be a very bad backslid to me spiritually. As sin is like cancer, might start drinking or smoking pot again which I don't want. And going to quick hookup websites. But I remind myself "Yes I am a child of God!". Just have to keep resisting the devil. Thanks again people.

 

[Joe 73]

Thanks for the responses and advice. I wrote this post more than a month ago and was waiting for it to be approved to post up, but just kind of swayed away from the site from anger and frustration waiting for a quick response. But I moved on and kept myself busy and just prayed. Thoughts come and go but just don't put it in action. I know if I go and dabble with it, it would be a very bad backslid to me spiritually. As sin is like cancer, might start drinking or smoking pot again which I don't want. And going to quick hookup websites. But I remind myself "Yes I am a child of God!". Just have to keep resisting the devil. Thanks again people.

Glad to hear you are doing well!
Overtime thoughts should come less and disapear faster. If they won't stop bothering you try this: You want to respect your feelings (in a sense). A couple times I found myself infatuated with some guy, so instead of lusting after him, I decided to figure out what it was about him that made me interested. It would be perceived self confidence. or it would be a father who was close to his son. I longed those things for myself. basically I say to my feelings, "Thank you for letting me know about this, but sexualizing this person is not going to help me in any way, so I don't need to do that, In fact, doing that would be a disaster."
Your mind is no longer confused. it is convinced. "I don't want to do that".

Another thing to know is that old addictive habbits will always be a temptation, but they are especially tempting when you are afraid to face obstacles in life. They provide a distraction, so you don't have to think about them. Of couse this doesn't fix any problems. But knowing this makes temptations so much less tempting.

Always remember to turn to God with your struggles. There will be more of them. Once we beat are major sins, our other sins remain. We still suffer in other ways. God doesn't want us to just chill. He is always calling us to greater holiness. So he allows us to be challenged so that we may grow in love.

 

[Joe 73]

Thanks for the responses and advice. I wrote this post more than a month ago and was waiting for it to be approved to post up, but just kind of swayed away from the site from anger and frustration waiting for a quick response. But I moved on and kept myself busy and just prayed. Thoughts come and go but just don't put it in action. I know if I go and dabble with it, it would be a very bad backslid to me spiritually. As sin is like cancer, might start drinking or smoking pot again which I don't want. And going to quick hookup websites. But I remind myself "Yes I am a child of God!". Just have to keep resisting the devil. Thanks again people.

I am having deep discussion with RedeeemedtoManhood in private messaging. I could add you to the conversation, If he doesn't mind. If your homosexuality has any phycological cause, I think you would benefit in being part of the conversation.

Do you think this is an attraction that goes back along time? We have been doing very well at examing our desires, and figuring out the causes or insecurities behind them. I will conquer one aspect of my homosexuality, that is figure out what deeper desires lie behind the sexual feeling, and realizing sex won't fullfill these desires, only to have a another insecurity come up and bring all the desires back. This is a lot of work, so it really helps to be able to share with someone else, who can also give you a second opinion. Essentially we are sharing, examing, and healing really embarassing aspects of our same sex attraction.

 

[Caliber81]

Hey Joe 73. Yeah sure. Don't know how all this works. Kind of still new to this site and dont really know all the features but yeah.

 

[RedeemedtoManhood]

Cool!!

 

[John Goodness]

I am new to this forum, but I thank you for what I've read so far. I struggle with SSA attraction, and this year, through a series of difficult events, I felt God has called me to make my SSA struggle be known to my loved ones; and also to get the help I need to deal with addiction and sexual integrity issues. I'm a 41 year old husband and father to 3 teenagers. Will explore the other threads as well, but I'm happy this is a topic being discussed here.

 

[Joe 73]

I am new to this forum, but I thank you for what I've read so far. I struggle with SSA attraction, and this year, through a series of difficult events, I felt God has called me to make my SSA struggle be known to my loved ones; and also to get the help I need to deal with addiction and sexual integrity issues. I'm a 41 year old husband and father to 3 teenagers. Will explore the other threads as well, but I'm happy this is a topic being discussed here.

Hey, I can add you to the private conversations a few of us have had. It's not really active, but you might find the previous posts informative. Or it might start up again.

 

[tundrawolf]

In my 40 year struggle with homosexuality, I can tell you, triggers will always exist. And just when you think they are all gone, another powerful one will hit you hard. You must learn to deal with the difficult things. You must learn to hash it out inside of yourself, because you will never be able to fully leave the world. Do not deceive yourself and tell yourself you can ever be in a "Safe space", the only safe space is Heaven.

I have learned that there is no quick fix for this. We have to replace all of the good experiences we have with inappropriate contentoigraphy with cold, hard realities, and keep pursuing the "Painful good" while we turn our back on the "Pleasing bad". Over and over and over until it becomes a habit in our brains.

I can type all the encouragement I want, but the truth is I was nearly ready to slip up and do something bad just weeks ago. I was so close. But what I want to instill in you is a sense of military discipline. Every time I think I am free and cured of homsoexual temptations, more come along, when my guard is down. DO I want to live in defeat- of course not. But the Bible also WARNS us to be on guard! Lest temptation overcome us.

I want the woman God has for me. I want my wife. But I know that this is going to be a struggle. A terrible struggle, some times. And it may be until the day I die. But would I rather struggle alone, or have a mate by my side? I would rather do it God's way.

And even now He is working hard to repair the miswired connections in my mind, spirit, and soul, that tell me I can find any manner of lasting fulfillment with someone of the same sex. I assure you, I cannot- yet God has allowed for me to have powerful, deep meaningful relationships with other men- so long as I never cross that line that society tells us we can easily cross, without repercussion.

I say this treading lightly, as David and Jonathan had a very powerful relationship, yet we know they were abstinent sexually, because they could not be involved in an abomination, and Gos say, "David is a man after My own heart!" And in fact David will eat at the banquet table with Jesus in Heaven.

But it is a dangerous line. Be aware, because any of us could fall. Homosexual temptations promise us total fulfillment in every aspect of our lies- and utterly fail in every aspect. Remember, all sin is pleasurable for a while.

and the very first thing you will experience when you are tempted to look at gay inappropriate content or sleep with another man, is the desire to be loved. ANd yet you will never find it... As many men who come from that lifestyle claim many sexual partners even in one night, night after night- because they never find what the temptations promise. It is a very empty lifestyle.

Some times we must embrace the emptiness we feel when we turn from homosexuality, and then and only then does God replace it with wholeness that is truth and righteousness.

FInally, allow yourself grace. If you find yourself partying and doing drugs, multiple sex partners, filling your heart up with inappropriate content all at once, and you come to your senses, turn from it, suffer the punishment and loneliness for a time, and be made well- because God would not have you remain there. The condemnation you feel is not from God, because if God was that harsh on you, you would not even be alive! It is from the devil, God earnestly wishes for you to return to His fold. No matter how dirty you feel. SO return! A thousand times a day, return!