fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2649 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2649 ⌋

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

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04. http://i.imgur.com/eD4bGbG.jpg
[frozen, full nudity]

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[AlternateHistory.com : Malê Rising]

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[Amelie]

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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

11. [SPOILERS for Superior Spider-Man]

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12. [SPOILERS for Believe]

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

13. [WARNING for rape]

[Orwell]

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14. [WARNING for rape]

[Colditz]

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15. [WARNING for child molestation]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #378.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not information I'm looking for. My capacity as a therapist here is limited to trying to direct you toward finding your own answers... many of which you seem like you are already fairly aware of.

I don't know how much psychology you've taken in the course of your studies in health care, but one of the most essential pieces of knowledge about human behaviour that the discipline resolves is the pervasive idea of a "normal" mode of feeling or behaviour. Simply put: there isn't one.

There are destructive modes of behaviour, and ones that conflict with your personal happiness, your own welfare, or the welfare of others, but there is no normal. People vary so widely in what they think, like, do, and the correlations you can make between one aspect of their behaviour and another, that for most things it is quite literally as good as a coin toss.

You are under the impression that a normative feeling exists about what kind of relationships people actually want, and that just isn't the case. There's an average because most people are told what they should want, and it's that belief which is most likely causing most of your current strife.

For what it's worth, in my personal and professional opinion everything you have told me about your feelings, fears, and desires is both completely valid, and is something I have heard from others before. You are, in that sense, totally normal.

I do think this is something you need to work on resolving with someone who can devote a little more time to helping you figure yourself out. If you have access to someone at your place of work who has a counselling role, I would suggest ask them if they could recommend a good local sexologist or sex therapist to you. Hashing this out with someone who has a lot of experience with these issues should really help you to get a sense of your own identity and your place in the greater scheme of things, which seems to me to be what you're really lacking.

If you'd rather not bring this up to anyone at work, a google search for sexologist and your locality might bring up some avenues to explore.

If you're SOL and you need more help, please make another thread here and I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out.

I've only had one psychology course (I'm in orthopedics so there's not much need for it) but I did learn that there really is no normal like you said, I just never got to that place where it was really incorporated into my worldview or whatever you want to call it. Maybe that's because I didn't study it beyond the one class, I'm not sure.

But yes, I feel fairly sure that most of what's bothering me is knowing that I don't want what I feel like I'm *supposed* to want.

I've done a little bit of research on therapists in the past and it seems like if there's a lack of interest in sex, a sex therapist's focus is to help you figure out why that is, and what's 'wrong' with you (asexuality is considered a condition that needs to be fixed), so I'm a little hesitant. I feel kind of conflicted on that...part of me thinks it absolutely is something that's wrong with me and it needs to be fixed but then I know there's also the group that thinks it's perfectly fine. I'm finding myself wanting to side with the second camp because obviously that seems preferable to torturing myself over it but...I really don't know what to think.

I think you're right that I'm not quite sure of my place in the scheme of things. I feel like there's the 'normal' group over there with all the regular people who want to get married and have kids, or at least have sexual relationships and then...there's me over here being abnormal and weird. Even if I may know intellectually that there's technically no such thing as 'normal', there's definitely common, and that's not me, so it can be a little...alienating.

In one way I feel like I have most of the pieces to figure this out myself, I'm just not quite sure how to put them all together.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading all of this and taking the time to respond, I really appreciate it.

Well essentially everything you've listed is why I recommended seeing a sexologist first and sex therapist second. They're a little hard to come by, but they deal with all sorts of questions including sexual identity. They also have the benefit of talking to many, many people in a professional capacity about exactly the kind of issues you're currently struggling with.

It's not strictly necessary, of course, but it's something you may want to take into consideration if you find that you are still struggling with it and unable to come to any reconciliation.

Good luck and good journey. :)

Ah ok...I didn't realize there was a difference between a sexologist and sex therapist so thanks for clarifying that!

Thank you! :)

I do have a question if you don't mind, you obviously have experience with this kind of thing and I'm wondering what your take is on the whole asexuality thing? Do you think it's something that someone should try to change with therapy or is it more along the lines of a sexual orientation like gay/straight/bi like some people say? There seem to be differing opinions on it so I was just curious what you thought.

Well, I think there are a lot of things that factor into one's sexuality in the first place. There is certainly a genetic component that limits what kind of things one is attracted to, but on the other hand one's mental health, physical health, the kind of medications one takes and even in some cases for women a the stage of the menstrual cycle can affect sexual desire.

What I'm trying to say is I don't think it's useful to be prescriptivist when it comes to sexuality... and what I mean by that is I don't think people's tendency to say "I'm straight" or "I'm asexual" and use those labels as guidelines to behaviour is very useful or realistic (ex. assuming 'I'm straight' means 'I can never have the possibility of being attracted to a same-gender person).

That said, I don't think that trying to become more sexual is something anyone should undertake if they are not comfortable with it and it isn't something they're doing because they want to explore their body with someone else. I think that's potentially very harmful, actually.

In essence, I think there's no harm in experimenting to see where your sexuality goes, but you shouldn't feel like you need to change it if it turns out that you have no sexual feelings for anyone. Asexuality is absolutely a real sexual orientation along the same lines as gay/bi/straight for certain people, but don't take that to mean that those labels and the way you experience your sexuality necessarily needs to fall neatly under one of those orientations all the time.

Bottom line: sexuality is fluid. Who we are attracted to and how much we are attracted to people in general changes over time and with life circumstances. :)

That's really interesting so thank you! Hopefully I can figure it all out. :)

[ SECRET POST #2649 ]

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