fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3357 ]

[ SECRET POST #3357 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3357 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 078 secrets from Secret Submission Post #480.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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Why does being aro automatically = miserable to you? Have you spoken to someone about this? I don't mean this snarkily, but as someone who has no interest in anything other than platonic/familial relationships, I've never equated anything about it to being miserable/horrible.

I was wondering this myself. If not being in a romantic relationship is bringing that much misery and making you think of yourself as 'broken', that's...really kinda something you need to get figured out. I admit to not being very familiar with a lot of aromantic people but I mean I thought the whole point was that romance wasn't a thing for them. They certainly never mention having negative emotions from not being in a romantic relationship or anything.

AYRT

I do understand that if OP is young (and this isn't knocking them if they are) that you get a LOT of flack and comments from every tom, dick, and harry about not being in a relationship and that can honestly chip away at you if you let it.

I was lucky that my parents never ever joined that, "Well WHY aren't you in a relationship?? YOU'RE JUST NOT TRYING!" thing that a lot of people around you do tend to comment, just because we do seem to be wired/influenced by culture and media that relationships are either romantic or not at all.

This is why I think OP should talk to someone if they're feeling broken or wrong about being aro/ace, because not wanting a romantic relationship should NEVER make you feel that way.

*nods* Exactly.
And unfortunately, it's not just young people who get it. Especially if you're female, you're probably going to be getting those comments throughout your life (I'm almost 30 and still get them from time to time). :/ sooo yeah, the younger you can make the tools to build yourself up and deal with the things that brought you down to begin with, the better.

(I'm not aromantic, but I'm asexual/childfree. My tool for dealing with jerks was mostly being completely mind-boggled at the suggestion that I should be unhappy or that I wasn't 'truly happy', like wtf I am really happy right now, why should I consciously trade that in for unhappiness where is the logic in that????)

*high fives~* 32 and ace/childfree. I still get some of those comments from co-workers (especially new ones), but I'm happy with who I am, with friends and family, why on earth would you feel 'bad for me' because I'm not living the life you have?

My excuse is always "I have a hard enough time taking care of myself, why would I want to add another person's problems into that?" :p
But I mean seriously, if my life was making me so unhappy, I'd say so. But I'm not, so I don't. Stop trying to harsh my squee, man.

It's really not easy to accept an uncommon orientation or sexuality. I mean, it's not always easy for gay people to accept their sexuality and by now most of the world at least acknowledges that's a thing.

I have accepted that I'm ace (which is different from aro), and most days I'm pretty cool with it. But other days I feel like a broken bit of scum for being different.

It's easy to say "you need to work on that" if you've never experienced how miserable it can feel being outside the norm and getting that message all your life about how weird it is not to be (fill in the blank).

:/

It can be hard when you don't fall completely withing the bell curve of 'typical human experience', which, for the record, yes, I have experienced in a few ways. When I say to work on not disliking yourself so much for being different, it comes from a place of experience and sincerity. Will it be easy? Not always, and not at first, and there will always be days you'll be questioning why you're the way you are, when something happens to make your insecurities rear their ugly heads again. But learning ways to quiet the negative voice is important, 'cause you're kinda stuck living with yourself your whole life so you might as well make it as comfortable for yourself as possible. ;}

It's entirely possible that OP isn't actually aromantic, they're depressed and feeling unable to connect in very fundamental ways with other people, which feeds back into the depression. Which also suggests they should talk to someone, but not necessarily about ace acceptance.

I agree with this. I'm also aro and couldn't be happier. You really should speak to someone or at least figure out why you think you're "broken."

OP here - I connect aro --> miserable because I WANT to be in a romantic relationship. I WANT to feel romantic connection to others, but for some reason I can't. I've dated, slept with people, and been in relationships but always felt nothing romantic towards the other person. That is the part that makes me feel broken.

Also I'm 25, not sure if that fits into the discussed parameters for "young" or not. I would LOVE to outgrow this but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon :/

(sorry was I supposed to put that in the subject line, I don't post here often)

Talk to a therapist, anon.

It could be that you're genuinely aromantic, in which case you need someone to help you come to terms with that and find a way to be happy with who you are, and to develop platonic relationships that will meet your need for closeness.

It could also be that your inability to form the connections you want is symptomatic of some other issue that you need to resolve rather than just being how you're wired, in which case you need someone to help you sort that out and get to where you want to be.

Either way, trying to struggle through it alone is just going to make you more miserable.

You seem like a nice person who genuinely wants to give good advice, so if I sound pissy here, please know that I'm trying not to. But honestly, where do all of you people come from who keep saying "talk to a therapist"?!!

I'm Canadian (so not the most socialist country, but considerable better than some), and to my knowledge there are no free handouts for therapy hours. There are some short-term generalized group therapy courses one can take for free, but beyond that, have fun paying $130+ an hour for your therapy sessions. Which, when you make $10 an hour, is nothing short of insanity. I mean, by telling me to see a therapist you may as well tell me to move to a castle in the Swiss Alps for how attainable it is. Like, yes, I could maybe scrape together enough money to see a therapist once a month, if I gave up every other non-essential expense in my already frugal existence. But that would only be once a month, and given how successful the average one-on-one therapy engagement has been shown to be, when documented over a ten year period, for me it would be a pretty huge investment for a very small chance of success.

In short: for the meager chance that a therapist could help me, I would happily go see them multiple times a week if I could, but that is so fucking far from being an option I can't even wrap my mind around how there are people in this world who can pay the fees.

I'm not one of the people that's said "Go get therapy!" but I find that interesting.

I'm in the US, and for once, it sounds like it's signifcantly more accessible here. At least sometimes it's covered by health insurance, and there are therapists that work on a sliding scale, so you pay depending on how much you make/how much you can afford (someone might only have to pay like $25-30, or possibly even less, depending on the situation).

Which province? Because therapy offered by medical doctors - psychiatrists, primary care physicians who offer talk sessions - is covered in both the provinces I live in, and may be covered in others. Psychologists and other pure talk providers may also be covered, depending on whether or not they're working in a government-run clinic or other facility.

*lived, I only live in one now

I live in BC.

I do know seeing a psychologist is covered. But what happens there is you see them, you briefly explain what is wrong, and they give you a prescription for something they think might help. But the last time I checked, they don't make any drugs with the function of "making the drug-taker attracted to people." So.

And I have zero knowledge of any primary care physicians who do talk sessions. I have a GP, and she certainly does nothing of the sort. And the Mood Disorders Association of BC has an open group therapy session once a week. But it's extremely general and surfacey, spending a couple of minutes on each person before going on the the next.

I'm on disability, so if anyone was going to be eligible for covered therapy sessions, I'd think it would be me. But I have expressed interest in pursuing regular therapy sessions with multiple healthcare practitioners and none of them have been able to suggest anything that wasn't either extremely limited (you get four sessions and then you're done) or extremely expensive (at least $100 per hour, if one is willing to see a counselor rather than a fully registered therapist. Therapists are all up over $120 now).

Same anon as before, and I just wanted to say that after reading your comment, I went and googles some stuff, and it seems like the healthcare professionals I spoke to about this were kind of screwing me over and not giving me good information, because I did get some results for potential counselling facilities at reduced rates. I didn't see any that would allow me to see a fully registered psychologist, but at least I can maybe look into seeing a counselor. So uh, thank you. :)

Just wanted to say you're not alone. I would love to find somebody to love but I just can't seem to jump that friend hump and feel romantic (or sexual) attraction. It does make me feel broken nd wonder if it's some sort f chemical thing in my brain that can be helped with medication like depression, bipolar, and any other number of mental illness (and a preemptive fuck you to anyone who crawls up my ass for that comparison).

Because even though I haven't worked up the nerve to do anything about my lack of feelings (because honestly a lot of the time I don't think about them) the idea a that that's all there is and I just have to accept it is crushing.

I'm not going to crawl up your ass. I am going to say seriously, if you at all can, talk to a doctor. Because yes, lack of attraction can be symptomatic of mental illness, or of endocrine issues. If it's not, that's fine, it's just how some people are, but if it is, it's better to know and get help.

You're not broken either way, though. Seriously.

I'm the anon from down thread who identifies as autochoris, and this is me too. And yeah, it's pretty crushing. I deal with it fairly well, day-to-day, but I know it's going to get harder as I get older. I mean, I was totally fine with it when I was seventeen, but by twenty five I was struggling, and now I'm almost thirty and by now the reality of it has really thoroughly settled on me.

Though in my case, I think if it's not just genetic (which it very well could be), then there might be some childhood trauma that caused me to develop the way I have. I dealt with some pretty intense parental abandonment and estrangement throughout my entire infancy and childhood, which could potentially cause one's sexual and romantic inclinations to reject the involvement of others, I guess? Not that our parental relationships are romantic/sexual, of course - just that they basically serve as the template from which we learn about relating in general.

I really wish there were a way of (respectfully, unintrusively) getting more information/first hand accounts from others who are "unhappily ace/aro." As it stands so little seems to be known about us. Like, almost nothing. :/

given your history, it would not surprise me at all if you have some serious trust issues that might be contributing to how you feel.

The thing is, though, if it were something psychology based (as opposed to genetic based), it wouldn't be something like "trust issues." We'd literally be talking about who I am as a person.

I mean, this is an uncomfortable example, but it's sort of like how there's no treatment for psychopathy. Because what you need to do there is change who that person is as a person. You would literally have to crawl back through the years to when they were just becoming a person - at six months old and two years old and five years old and eight years old - and change the circumstances that cause that person's propensity for psychopathy to become realized.

Well, I'm relatively certain that in order to change the nature of my sexuality, that same impossible feat would have to occur. Because we're not talking about a really bad one-time trauma that happened when I was eight and already halfway formed - something to be rooted out and addressed and made peace with. We're talking about the utterly constant circumstances of my becoming a person from the time I was six months to the time I was fifteen. You can't root that out, address it and make peace with it, because it is who you are.

Which is why the whole "Is your sexuality genetic or is it down to some kind of disorder/trauma?" question has always kind of stuck me as somewhat useless. Because it doesn't really matter; it's who I am either way.

Yeah. I'm actually pretty happy being aro? And I have suffered for it, and I DO feel really bad for OP if it's causing them so many issues, but being aro is not synonymous with being miserable.

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[ SECRET POST #3357 ]

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^OP

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