u/just3lue

Yeah, hi. I'm aroace, and I am pretty much self aware of that for 4-5 years now. Currently, I'm in the pretty queer open and accepting community, I never got mistreated or badmouthed for opening up about it. And the label? It feels like a puzzle piece fitting in.

However, no matter how many nice things come around, the self acceptance is never there. I know thats the way I am, I can understand that my feelings towards people are more queerplatonic and liminal than romantic/platonic per se. They feel like something thst doesnt fit in neither of cstegories but is awfully strong once it settles. But no matter what, I can't get rid of a feeling of lacking something fundamental. Like having diffrent sort of feelings for people will never be enough. I'm currently going through a fallout with my closest person [with whom I discussed getting into relarionship with, but posponed it due to our mentla healt being not in the best shape], and one of the reasons is that they just claimed they can't see things going forward with me being on the spectrum. Seeing all my friends discussing relationship, emotional comfort shared with someone else, all these ideas and activities?

It stings. So bad. Because the gnawking feeling thst I'll never be able to get such treatment and find someone who I can call my own person hurts so bad I wish I wasn't aroace. That the way I feel will never be fulfilling enough for anyone to stay and stick around, let alone entertain anything.

I know there's nothing bad about it, don't get me wrong. I think it's beautiful that feelings can be so variable, diffrently percived, and that logically I'm not lacking. But the haunting feelings are still there. And many times I find myself wishing I could just conform to the majority and accualy expirience those things without overthinking and doubting, that in the end, no matter how hard I try and how much effort I put it what I feel won't be 'proper' and seen as lesser.

sigh.

I feel pathethic posting this but few people I could vent to are going through their own shit and I don't have therapy until next week. So buckle up.

There are mentions of self harm. So be warned

I know a person. We've been absoluetley close friends for 5 years. For maybe two years I had some sort of feelings for him, but due to old mishaps it was really hard to accualy name them and not rationalize - it takes really hard time for me to get attached and open up, it can be counted in literal months. They also had feelings for me. And they alao had a pretty screwed up mental health. But we never got together. What seemed to be a mutual consent to put off packing ourselves into something deeper until we both get to a somehow stable state and will be willing to pursue - classic case of situationship one might say. It was a person I thought could accualy underatand me, and for the first time in my life I felt accualy appriciated and seen. Like I could tell them about everything and not be judged for once.

However, last half a year, since September, it was hell. Their mental state was so bad, they almost got suicidal, pulled out of therapy, shortened temper and was the most fragile I've seen them in. It started to affect my mental state aswell, but I tried my best to stay, make sure they'll be fine, and try and not let this break us apart, despite there being many cases of them forgetting/igonring stuff that I voiced made me feel uncomfortable. It got to the point where I also relapsed multiple times, went almost apathethic and devoid of a ability to be emotionally present. Recently it started to look solveable - last month seemed to be stable, they got back to therapy, we started talking more normally, we had a talk that after such situation it'll definetley require some time to get back to what we used to, but we keep going.

Until two days ago. For few days i pulled out of talking more activaly due to still lingering mental exaustion, it got to their overthinking, they spiraled. On a videocall \[we live almost 60 km away from eachother\] they told me they don't really see a point of trying. And that they want to be simply friends, to prevent such 'toxic situations' from happening. And that they stopped feeling that for me over this half a year. That they still see me as the most important in their life, but dont see a point of keeping the situationship.

I don't know what to do. I feel sad, I feel pissed, I can understand where theyre coming from and yet for two days all I do is cry myself to sleep and see anxiety symptoms coming back full force. In three weeks we'll see eachother in person and make any final desicions. And I still have feelings for them, damn strong at that. I thought that once we get over such screwed up time and give time to heal and reflect it could be out back together, and maybe, accualy get together this time. The feeling of a guillotine hanging over my head until we meet sucks so much, because i dont think I could handle seeing them be happy with someone else after that. When I brought that up, that I might need time of no contact, they got really panicky over it, for two days we can barely text without tension.

And I geniuenly don't know what to do, or how to do stuff to make it fair. On one hand, I want to be respectful of their wishes because I still can't see them in a bad light, but in the other I feel used up and discarded. I can't blame them logically speaking. And I'm at this huge crossroad of what seems right and wrong, my anxiety is starting to act up and makes going through days harder and I feel so goddamn lost and alone. Like I fucked up my only chance and can't do shit to make amends.

Noone really needs to reply. But I had to put it out somwhere. Hope this day is kind to you.