You wrote that you've had your fetish since around age 10 but didn't really know what it was back then. I know, in my own case, I spent decades not understanding what was going on with me. (I don't think that's all that unusual.) And, actually, I didn't really even think about it that much. The things I did were simply things I knew I had to do (&, truth be told, wanted to do.)

I presume somewhere in my psyche I understood that it was "weird". I certainly learned early on that it was all stuff I had to hide & could never talk about with anyone. That is one great thing about the internet. It has really blasted away a lot of the isolation people who have things like fetishes can feel because, pretty-much no matter what it is, one can find others who share the same kinks. For someone like myself who spent the majority of life in hiding, it is little short of amazing!

You also mentioned having acted out a few fantasies but finding the fantasies were better. I would agree with this. I don't know why it is. But actually being able to put something, such as a fetish, into practice seems to drain a lot of the excitement from it. Suddenly it becomes mundane... just another thing you do. Perhaps it's like having a secret. It can be titillating to have a nice juicey secret. But once you tell it, it's no longer a secret & it's not exciting anymore... if that makes any sense.