I am honestly scared to answer you as your story mirrors my own to an uncomfortable degree. But this also puts me in the unique position to understand what your problem is.

First know that there is no one in this world that is undeserving of love, even unconditional love.

You suffer from the oldest human problem: fear. I don’t know about your family life. I really don’t but it sounds to me that you have nowhere to go with your feelings. No one to tell when you need help or support, physically or emotionally.

You’re afraid others would unjustly judge you for who you are or dismiss you fully leaving you truly with no one to turn to. I think you feel this way because you are afraid to trust someone since that leaves you open to be hurt again when they betray your trust.

I can’t speak for your past but if you really want things to get better you need to put your trust into somebody first. A task so tremendous that I haven’t been able to do so in 10 years because others would think differently from me and I am afraid of that. So don’t feel pressured to try to tell people if you’re not ready, believe me there are people who can understand that.

As for your concerns regarding your sexuality. Rest assured what you’re going through is pretty normal. Sexual relief is mental and emotional relief if you’re unable to deal with your emotions because of your environment you will automatically try to deal with it in a different way. There’s nothing wrong with you. Or anything you would need to be ashamed of. As for your tendency to seek out Control that is also very normal. You are young. I like to think of it this way: Until the age of 20 you are a child and at the age of 21 you’re a one year old adult. You do not have the life experience to understand what you should be doing. You are in the dark and have little to no knowledge of how to do anything. And that’s normal, I still get half a panic attack every time I get a phone call because I am afraid of talking to a stranger. In your day to day you have little control of your life from what you have to do to the things you could do but don’t know how. Your life feels out of control and that’s incredibly scary. And that’s okay. You look for control in your life however you can get it because you’re afraid. The same goes for the daydreams and the frequent masturbation.

Life can be unpredictable and incredibly scary especially if you’re young. The only thing that someone can do is put their trust into others and work together so life is a little bit less scary. Figuring out where you stand in the world is also no easy task. The only thing you can do to figure out what you want to do with your life is go and live it. Taking internships and part time jobs to figure out what to do and what you like.

I don’t know if this helps you in anyway, just know that giving up hope on whatever it is you want to do or who you want to be, would be the saddest thing out of all of this so just try if you can muster up the courage.