Not Sure How To Identify? Understanding Unlabeled Sexuality
Discovering your identity can feel overwhelming. It is perfectly normal to feel uncertain or pressured while exploring your sense of self. A label might feel freeing for some and overwhelming for others, but both experiences are valid! Each and every one of us have our own journey of self discovery to make. If you aren’t sure what label fits your identity, you are not alone. It is okay to explore and define yourself on your own terms. ALL IN provides extra support for LGBTQ+ individuals as they need it, where they can question, discover, and define themselves at their own pace.
Why Labels Can Feel Hard
Being a part of the LGBTQ+ community comes with its own unique set of challenges. Finding the right label to express yourself can feel so important, sometimes so important that you feel pressured or overwhelmed. That pressure can come from peers, or family, or your wider community in general. Questioning who you are is a part of every person, but even more so with LGBTQ+ individuals, where questioning is a vital step to finding your true identity.
On top of this pressure, LGBTQ+ individuals also face internalized stigmas. It is very difficult not to internalize some forms of anti-LGBTQ+ bias. Internalized queerphobia comes from unconsciously absorbing shameful messages we hear. This can be from experiences as children and young adults, to things we witness as adults. These outside messages work their way internally and often produce shame for either themselves or the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, making finding and using the labels that are right for you even more difficult. This process can be conscious or unconscious. Either way, it is a common challenge that carries a stigma within and without the broader community. Talking about or holding these sorts of stigmas can be seen as weak or self-hating. Working to acknowledge these stigmas and working towards a healthier perspective with less shame and more acceptance is what therapy is all about.
Perfectionism is another common challenge that can make finding the right label for you even more difficult. Trying to be perfect is one way to manage feeling like you are an outsider in your own home, school, or community. Putting all of your effort to appear perfect on the outside can lead to feeling tired and depressed on the inside, which can compound feelings of shame or other internalized stigmas. Not feeling accepted for who you are as a child can lead to constant feelings of insecurity and worthlessness that carry on into adulthood. Finding the perfect label for yourself can come with its own challenges as well. Perfectionism can be a defense mechanism against these feelings, a way to prove yourself to others as being worthy that can help make you feel more safe. Instead of being comfortable showing people your true self, there can be an underlying fear that any sort of imperfection is a flaw that will stop people from truly accepting and loving you.
Our inclusive therapists at ALL IN can help address the impact perfectionism has on our self esteem, self image, and mental health. Working to find a cohesive connection between your true self and your LGBTQ+ identity takes a lot of inner work, which is even more difficult when done alone. Therapy provides that safe space to overcome fears, anxieties, and negative thoughts while not having to be perfect. You are already more than enough!
Identity Isn’t a Deadline
Finding the right label or identity isn’t a race, there is no looming deadline that needs to be met. Having questions is normal, even crucial! It is also important to acknowledge that there isn’t some specific test or set of guidelines that must be met to meet a certain level of queerness or to perfectly fit whatever label (or no label) feels best for you. The process is a fluid unfolding, a journey of exploration and self discovery. Your criteria and definitions should be all that matters, your process should be whatever works best for you.
Therapy offers the space needed for this process of discovery. It allows you to find comfort in exploring your identity at your own pace and can help provide the personal freedom needed to discover who you are without all the pressures from within and without. ALL IN Therapy Clinic is a validating, inclusive, and trauma-aware space that allows people to define themselves at the pace they need. Our therapists are here to help you discover your own sense of safety belonging, to provide the space needed for questioning and finding acceptance.
Exploring Identity with Curiosity
Curiosity is key! We all want to feel safe in our personal expressions, to find acceptance and belonging, and being curious is one of the best ways to find ourselves on this journey of self discovery. Labels and identities are not permanent, just like how we all change as we grow and live and experience new things. Trying on different terms and labels without commitment is a great way to stay curious while questioning your LGBTQ+ identity.
Being curious also allows you to find safety and acceptance while building a supportive community of others with LGBTQ+ identities. There is room for all, putting yourself into a box can make exploration and honest questioning more difficult. Trying different labels and identities without commitment for yourself can be a healthy path towards self discovery, without the added pressure that having an LGBTQ+ identity presents.
One helpful strategy to explore your identity with curiosity is to journal. Take note of questions and feelings you have as you explore your identity more and more. The simple act of slowing down and thinking and writing down your thoughts and feelings and curiosities will help you further explore your identity in a healthy and successful way. Questioning is great! Having some documented feedback and a way to measure your progress and process is also a great way to honor that journey wherever it leads you.
How Therapy Helps
Therapy helps provide a safe space for personal discovery. It works to support whatever your personal pace may be, not society’s timeline. Pressure from peers, family, or your community or society at large aren’t in the room with you. Therapy allows you to let go of all that pressure and work on yourself, work on what is most pressing and important for you to feel safe and accepted.
Therapy also works by providing a safe space that is validating, inclusive, and trauma-aware. Our therapists use this approach to help remove shame, allowing personal growth and self discovery to have the healthy space it needs to find itself at the pace it needs.These strategies also work to encourage self-trust. LGBTQ+ identity requires trusting yourself most of all. Therapy offers the tools to actually feel comfortable and safe enough to trust ourselves and to express our true selves, and to do so without shame.
Figuring out your identity and what label you want to use (or not use) is difficult enough. Therapy provides another space, an escape from the world out there with a lower pressure environment that prioritizes safety and trust and health. Figuring out all the intricacies of your identity and sexuality and what label works best for you doesn’t have to be done all at once. Therapy allows you to slow down and work at your own pace, with the support you need tailored to exactly what you want to work on and when you want to tackle it. Questioning your sexuality and LGBTQ+ identity is normal and healthy, therapy works to make the process easier and provides the tools needed to find acceptance in your own self expression.
Bottom Line
Not knowing how to express your proper identity can be really difficult and confusing. Finding the right label and way to express that identity takes time and a lot of practice and patience. No matter what stage of the journey you are at, it is important to know that you are not behind, you are becoming. And you don’t have to figure all of this out on your own! Whenever you feel ready is the perfect time to schedule a session with an LGBTQ+ affirming therapist at ALL IN.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is it okay to not have a label yet?
Of course! Labels are a deeply personal thing that take time to discover.
- How do I explore my gender or sexuality?
By being curious and allowing yourself the grace to go at your own pace. Doing so without demanding commitments helps as well.
- Do I need a label to go to therapy?
Not at all, in fact therapy can be the perfect setting to help explore what a label means to you and what label feels best.
- Can a therapist help me understand my identity?
Absolutely. Our therapists provide trauma-informed, identity-affirming care that meets you where you are with warmth and understanding.
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