u/blahajenjoyerr

Is there anything you do to make yourself feel better that actually works?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people in countries where being NB isn't well known or most people see it as a mental illness

Especially if you're a woman or outwardly present as female.

I know this is a touchy subject, but it always comes up with shaving. People assume the only reason a woman/fem person shaves is to attract men, but i absolutely don't want men looking at any area of my body that i shave. It's my genuine preference, i have sensory issues with body hair and just like my skin being smooth, but then i see others straight up say people like me who shave want to attract weirdos by being hairless like children??? I'm fully aroace, i don't want to attract anyone 😭

These comments piss me off and make me feel like i might be an actual weirdo for shaving, even though i definitely don't do it to appeal to anyone sexually or to look like a child. It's even worse because aesthetically I'm more attracted to no/very little body hair... Maybe i have some kind of moral OCD because these comments genuinely make me worried that I'm secretly a predator, even though I'm aroace and hate being around children.

Yes, i felt too awkward to write the actual word.

I don't know if anyone can relate to this, but I've never actually finished. I've attempted to do it, just alone, many times before, especially when I'm ovulating because my body is being weird. But also because i have ADHD and even when I'm trying to fall asleep i feel understimulated and extremely, painfully bored, which leads me to do it.

But after like 2-3 minutes max i get bored of it and a little grossed out, then stop. The feeling in my body is still there, and i guess the stimulation feels kinda good for a little while, but then it just gets overstimulating and uncomfortable.

I really want to just not do it ever again. I don't feel super gross about it, it's just so pointless and a waste of my time. And no, i don't want it to feel better, i don't want to try new techniques or toys (I'm not willing to buy or own anything like that, no judgement to those who do).

Whenever there's nothing happening for a moment, i immediately feel the need to be on my phone.

While I'm trying to do something, whether it's household chores, gaming, going shopping i always have a video playing in the background that i can listen to. I've been told that helps ADHD people focus but i absolutely hate being this reliant on my phone and i feel like it doesn't actually help me focus more than i can already focus, it mostly just overstimulates and irritates me after a while. I'm just addicted to listening to something in the background. I also can only go to sleep while listening to someone reading reddit scary stories or something like that.

I pretty much have no stable hobbies, i spend all my time listening to/watching random shit on youtube, and not even anything educational (even if it is, no information stays in my brain). I don't have a special interest and my hyperfixations are very short-lived. I usually get into a video game for like 2 days, then lose interest and don't touch it for months. Same with creative hobbies, where there's also the problem of having no inspiration, or not having the brain capacity to plan, buy materials and execute the project.

I think the only activity i genuinely enjoy without my phone is cooking, but i can't just cook all day + it's energy consuming.

If anyone has read my word-vomit and has been in this situation and/or has advice, please let me know. I'm struggling :')

I know this is an ace sub specifically and this is romance related, but for me being aro and ace are very intertwined and I'm repulsed for both irl.

So basically, i (22/F?) have never been shown any obvious romantic interest until i was a teenager, but i was always scared of boys because i hated knowing I'm expected to be in a relationship and have sex with a man at some point.

In a way I've always known I'm repulsed aroace even before having a word for it. No guy has ever started talking to me purely because they wanted a friendship; i can either immediately tell they want something else, or in a recent case my only guy friend asked me if i wanted to date. He was very respectful when i said no, and we still talk, but the moment he asked my heart dropped and started beating faster in fear, i was shaking, and the corners of my mouth started turning downwards like when I'm barely holding back tears. I didn't cry but i felt like i was close to it. It's not his fault but I'm so sad and disappointed that i spent so much time trying to convince myself that he really just wants to be friends, only for this to happen.

Now I'm in a similar situation, AGAIN, when a guy from my workspace wants to talk to me all alone. I was hoping he'd forget about it but now he wants to arrange for us to talk outside our workplace and when he said this i started feeling extremely anxious and scared, I'm shaky and a bit nautious.

I also have social anxiety and autism so those could be at play here too, but is this normal for a repulsed person to experience? Basically almost have an anxiety attack whenever they're shown interest?

My body dysphoria isn't always there and it's not always that bad, but i hate it when people inevitably refer to me as a woman or compliment my feminine features. I also don't refer to myself as a woman/girl/etc unless it's really necessary because it makes me uncomfortable, but i feel like it makes me seem strange to others.

Can i somehow get more comfortable living as a woman? I'll try creating a character that's my ideal self, but i think i need to get comfortable with my real life female self too.

Basically ever since i really got to understanding what trans people are, and then found out about the existence of nonbinary people, everytime i hear somebody saying blatantly transphobic things or unironically making "my gender is attack helicopter" type of jokes i start feeling almost physically unwell. Like my stomach feels tight, i get a little lightheaded, and i just start feeling really uncomfortable, sometimes i feel like i could tear up.

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Is this something an overly emotional cis person could experience too? I've felt the same things when people are being homophobic, even though I'm aroace and not gay (but i guess that's still "weird" and most people in my country don't know it exists, so if I'm assumed to be not-straight I'm assumed to be a lesbian)

Everytime my therapist asks "how does that make you feel" all i can say is things like "kinda bad i guess?" or "good". Sometimes slightly more specific things like disappointed or angry, but I'm generally shit at knowing what I'm feeling or what's the word for it.

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It also doesn't help that I'm uncomfortable talking about feelings other than being generally happy, angry, or annoyed. Emotions in general make me uncomfortable, i can't even say i "love" people and I'm not even sure if i can really love anyone. I usually just say i have friendship feelings towards my friends and familial feelings towards family.

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Idk it's confusing, I'm not even good at wording posts because idk wtf I'm feeling 💔

I have a 'sex favorable ace' blog show up on my tumblr sometimes, and seeing their posts always makes me confused about why they insist on wanting to be in the same community as repulsed ace people.

In a lot of their posts it seems to me that they barely have any shared experiences with us and hate to be assumed to be the "same type of ace" as we are. They try to mask it but i feel like they just dislike repulsed ace people, or at least they don't like to hear us talk about our very real problems.

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At that point it would genuinely make their lives easier to just... not call themselves asexual. It's nearly impossible to talk about asexual issues when these people are there like "🤓👆 um actually, I'm ace and don't have these issues so you shouldn't say it's an asexuality related problem". How are we meant to be taken seriously when talking about the problems we face when people who happily conform to allo society?