Why is my brain so black and white and so closed?

[Lily R]

I just want to say in advance, I sincerely apologise if you find anything within the question offensive. I really don't intend it to be offensive.

I like to think of myself as open-minded but I know that I cannot really say that as my brain really struggles with things outside of what it considers normal. It likes black or white, A or B.

I mean when I was really young and just starting high school my brain was in a very black and white mind set. It just had certain rules it could only accept:

Girls are weak, men are strong.

Being gay is wrong, being straight is good (plus the idea of a guy liking a guy or a girl liking a girl was was incomprehensible and both, just I had no understanding in the world how that could be possible)

I was in very A or B categories.

Boys are born physically male, girls are born physically female.

You can probably imagine. I was a great person.

During all this I was going through gender confusion, well it wasn't exactly confusion. Since 9 I knew I should be female (I was born male) and like I knew I could get a sex change one day, I asked my Mum a few weeks after the realisation and she must have took my asking as child curiosity, I just asked "Can people change sex?" and she said "Yes". Turns out my Mum is very anti-LGBT though :\ On top of this I liked girls too. Just my default setting in my mind I guess. Given how black and white I was at the time, "I'm born a boy so I have to like girls". I kinda just pushed the feelings of being female to the back of my mind not letting it click I like girls and want to be a girl making me in fact a lesbian. At that age too when I did indulge my feelings of wanting to be a girl in private, I always imagined being with a guy. The black and whiteness of my mind at work again.

Skipping to the end of high school now, I'm out of the closet and I now have my new black and white categories:

You like boys or girls.

You identify as male or female.

You are born the sex of male or female.

You get the picture, still A and B categories.

Anyway I joined an LGBT youth group where I first met one of my best friends, Rachel and at the time she identified as bisexual (she now has figured out she is a lesbian) but like that just had my mind blown. It didn't fit into my A or B categories, it still doesn't really but over time I guess I have got used to it. But I used to really struggle referring to my friend as a lesbian which understandably pissed her off. I just struggled so much to get my head round it though. I actually have nothing against it. My brain just struggles processing it. I eventually got it in my head though, that she is bisexual.

A year later, the confusion is now entering my mind that I may also like guys. Yep, I'm bisexual and the struggle hits me all over again cos I want to either be a lesbian or straight, bi just doesn't make sense to my mind. So for the next couple of years my "Interested In" section on facebook changes a million times from male to female, from female to male. Never both.

To this year, I finally settle down with the idea that I am bisexual and can now just accept it. I encounter a person who is gender fluid and three people who identify as having no gender at all. I this time didn't struggle as much getting my mind around it as I did in the past. Shows I am getting a little bit more open minded I guess. BUT my sexuality shows some fluidity, some months I like guys more than I like girls and vice versa and now I am hitting another thing my black and white mind is struggling with, fluidity in my own sexuality. It confuses me way to much. I struggle way too much with this stuff.

Why is my mind so black and white like this? It really annoys me, I am part of a massively diverse community and I have a mind that seems to only like black and white categories which it just can't simply create for such a community.

I don't like having this mindset. I just don't get why I have such a mind set though. Why am I so black and white and why do I struggle with accepting things that are new to me as much as I do? Is there maybe something mentally wrong with me? My Dad has said recently he actually thinks I might be autistic. Does this behaviour match that of an autistic person? I don't know much about autism to be honest but apparently it is common in my Dad's side.

Why am I like this though? It is one thing I really hate about myself.
bara, Gender Identity Dysphoria is a recognised medical condition. Get an education.
All hat, Gender Identity Dysphoria has been proven by the use of brain scans and there are two universities in the UK and Spain working on methods to diagnose GID in the future via brain scans. If you can measure something via medical equipment I think it ceases to be an opinion and to compare transsexualism to disgraceful acts such as cannibalism and slavery is just absolutely downright disgusting.

[Bara]

Be what god made you to be. Live your life as that. And stop think about it for a while, I think this will work. Please changing sex is not going to get you anywhere it is just not natural.

[All hat]

I wouldn't be so quick to insult the other user who answered - that's that person's opinion. Like yours.

Also, in some places they accept flying commercial airplanes into office buildings. In other places they accept cannibalism. "Accepted" does not mean that much really - it depends on who is doing the accepting and on what basis.

For a long time slavery was "accepted" in this country.

[Chris]

in my opinion you should just be you, and stop worring about the black and white parts of life. maybe your autistic. you said it runs in yout family on your dads side, but that doesn't change the fact that your a person. stop worring about black and white. it's just like the dumb religion thing 14 years ago about whether your religious or devil worshiper. it's pointless because they only thought in two perspectives. like a split road that you decide paths. what no one has figured out is you can decide and make your own new path and just go in the middle. somewhere inbetween the black and white like red, blue, green, and yellow. what i'm trying to say is just let it go and just be you and you will figure yourself out without questioning it. only when we stop questioning things is when we finally come to realization of things. let it go for a while and just take a break from it. the answers will come to you when you least expect it.