hemogoblin

Umm... this close? *holds out arms in vague gesture*

Every Xylophone Carrier Expects People To Investigate Our National Apple Loss OAR

Resigned

My natural genius perfectionism is screaming that I must be the best expert in one particular skill. Would you rather have to compete on a social reality TV show (Big Brother, Survivor, The Mole, The Bachelor) or a subject/task reality TV show (cooking show, Fear Factor, SYTYCD, Great Pottery Throwdown)?

A regular sized muffin tray with only one muffin hole

Noun

True-ish? Depends on the authority. TBBM got their hair cut within the past two weeks

garviel cousland

(Copied to answer someone's question on if Velma was the kind of bad that was fun to hate watch or the kind of bad that should just be left to slowly die) Haha, it was a tumblr tag situation.

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Say what?

I came out as aro online only, so no one ever really addressed it, so the best response I got was meeting up with someone from HS years later and them remembering and validating me at their own bachelor party. It was very thoughtful.

I'm not sure if this is true or just what it seems like to me, but I've found the amount of struggle with self-loathing and internalized arophobia a lot more prevalent/loud in the aro community than I ever found it in the ace community, and it's definitely really heartbreaking to know people feel that way about themselves.

I found names easier to find when I stopped and gave myself some direction. Figuring out what I liked in a name was a more helpful step than just spending thousands of hours mindlessly scrolling through baby name sites. At first I tried searching based on things that I liked (ex. I like geology, so I tried out some rock/mineral names), but it turns out I didn't like those as names. I always liked the symbolic meaning of my names, so I started searching by name meaning instead and almost instantly found names I liked. There was definitely a degree of luck in that, too, which you can't control!

EDIT: You know what. Changed my mind.

Good luck with the consults! I know not every surgeon is gonna be the same, but in my experience, my surgeon and his staff all had the spiel down pat and knew exactly what information to provide me with. They went over all of my questions before I could ever ask them. The appointments were generally waaaaaaay easier than I was expecting. Doing the research and setting the appointments definitely ended up way more nervewracking than the appointments themselves were. Good luck on money, too! I paid for mine out of pocket since I don't have insurance. On one hand, I definitely didn't have the money to do this 10 years ago, so it's nice that I didn't start seriously considering I could get top surgery until recently. On the other hand, having to pay out of pocket meant I didn't need to deal with any complicating letters of recommendation to prove to my insurance they should pay for it. I was stressed enough just thinking about having to deal with that stuff, so all the more luck to you to trying to navigate that! I fully support straight up lying about your gender in order to get approved if you need, tbh. I hope your insurance does help you out!!! I'm doing good, thanks! Returning to work Monday, so I'm just trying to emotionally prepare for that.

I could be misunderstanding, but what I get from your approach here is a common misunderstanding I see about what we mean by gender being a social construct. When we say gender is a social construct, we're not saying it's not real or that it's totally meaningless. We mean that it only exists within the understanding of a human-defined perspective. We mean that it exists and is real but is highly contextual (which is why different societies throughout history have defined the spectrum of gender differently, from having two-spirit to hijra to the eight genders defined in ancient Judaism). My favorite way to help illustrate this is the explanation of how vegetables are a social construct. Vegetables are a real, tangle, physical thing - but the things that make vegetables vegetables are a social construct. And I think this illustrates something else poignant: the world is way weirder and messier than the human brain likes to think in. There is no clear, objective distinction of what makes a vegetable a vegetable and not some other categorization, as displayed by the "category bending" vegetables like tomatoes. Same with gender. There is no simple, easy, or concise standard or set of standards that defines or categorizes genders/what gender is. I can't tell you what scientifically makes us feel a gender (neither can science yet), but I can tell you the annoying vague answer to what's the difference between being trans and gnc or what defines you as a woman: a person's feelings. Their feelings may be influenced by a variety of factors: anatomical, societal, personal, neurotypicality or neurodivergence, other. Their feelings may be a result of one, some, or all of these in various intensities/capacities. What makes someone gnc and cis versus gnc and trans or gender conforming and trans is just how that person feels and decides to label. There is no clearly defined line because human nature is as messy as the natural world is. Two people could describe very similar experiences and thoughts and each come to a different conclusion about what it means for their gender because feelings don't follow a basic mathematical equation with a correct or specific answer.

Non-human aro-coded villain + arospec flag. 😄 Pentacles for the tarot suit! Love that.

Didn't understand this even when I experienced romantic attraction! Even less so when someone gets a whole portrait of another person tattooed on them. It's just.... Not for me. . Myself, I never understood the emphasis on anniversaries. Especially people who did several monthiversaries. Especially people who kept track of first date, first kiss, first time having sex, etc. So many dates to keep track of! I'm just not really a time-oriented person. Wasn't important to me even when I was dating.

I'm a bit late, but here are my tips for self-acceptance! Immerse yourself in the community. Seclusion can help breed hate. If you have people around you who support you, uplift you, validate you...that hate can be a lot harder to maintain. Lurk in aro spaces. Participate in them. Go to Pride. Absorb the positivity around you. Look for the positive. Is there ANYTHING you like about being aro? The community, maybe? The way it helps you better appreciate friendships? How it forces you to focus on yourself and know yourself? Whatever that is, celebrate that. Respect your feelings, and give yourself room to grieve and/or otherwise be sad. Toxic positivity can be just as harmful as toxic negativity. Your feelings are valid, even if they're negative. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to need to be sad. Give yourself the room to feel those feelings and they may become easier to cope with. Aim for self-neutrality if/when that is more accessible than self-positivity or self-acceptance. You may never not be sad about missing out on experiencing romantic love. Everyone has regrets in life. Everyone has missed experiences. Recognize this. Don't beat yourself up over it. "I am sad that I haven't experienced romantic love" (validating and respecting your feelings) vs "I am broken for not experiencing romantic love" (putting yourself down and berating yourself for your feelings). Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the basis for a lot of therapeutic thinking techniques (such as DBT and ACT) for good reason. Being mindful of what we think and how we approach ourselves is the first step to being able to challenge and confront any harmful thinking patterns we have. (You may not be interested in learning techniques like this in further detail, but I will throw out looking into the concept of defusion, which I've found personally really helpful for reframing the way I treat myself.) Learn about systems of thinking and living that challenge the one view society has forced upon you. Society has pushed amatonormativity and taught you that in order to be happy, you need a monogamous, romantic marriage in which you have kids. Reading about polyamory (aromantic-styled polyamory), ethical non-monogomy, queerplatonic relationships, relationship anarchy, lovequeer, lovepunk, loveless aromanticism, and similar concepts may help give you new perspective and appreciation for the experience you do have. And I don't talk about these because I think you have to relate to any/all of them or want them. They're just ways of approaching love and relationships that go against the norm and reading more about them and the people who live this way can help broaden horizons and introduce new ways of thinking to your own life. Experiment with ways to access what it is you want to access in a way that you can and see if that brings you any comfort/joy. Maybe you date and perform romance. Maybe you write romance. Maybe you take in a lot of romantic media. Maybe you celebrate your friend's romantic relationships. Maybe you partake in shipping culture in fandoms. Maybe you work at a couple's resort. (And maybe these things are too hard for you or make you more sad than happy. That's fine! Pivot and find other things in life that bring you joy instead. Maybe that's working with animals or volunteering at a soup kitchen or spending time at the library or watercolor painting, etc.) Journal. I know it's so suggested that it seems hokey even to a lot of self-help circles, but a huge way that humans process information and experiences is via communication, which is why talk therapy is so big and can be so effective. Journaling helps you direct your thoughts in a more pointed manner than simple thinking and introspection, which can lead to rumination and getting stuck. Journaling is like a self-conversation. Through journaling, you may discover self-acceptance. You may come to new conclusions. You may find your own ways of finding acceptance or happiness that no one has suggested here. Focus on completely different things. Sometimes focusing on a thing, even if you're trying to make it better, can just make you feel worse. As well, hyperfixating on something can cause you to get stuck in patterns of rumination rather than productive thinking/actions. So, counter-intuitive to a lot of the stuff listed above: give thinking about this a break. If it comes up, recognize it, then find something else to do to get your mind off of it. Let's find other ways to spark joy. Go for a run, play with a pet, learn a new language, plan out a road trip or other vacation, call a friend, play sudoku, learn a new musical instrument, sing karaoke, read a book, write, try skateboarding, learn a new style of drawing/painting, play paintball, sew your own shirt, try a new recipe, etc. Fill your life with things you do enjoy. Experiment to find new things you might enjoy. Negative feelings are a part of life, but so too are positive ones. Make room for both. Good luck. =)

There was recently another topic on here about how to come to terms with being aro and feeling better about it. You might get something out of reading through that thread! I think this concept you're grappling with of "What is my self and what is societal pressure?" is one that is extremely common in the queer community. Am I bisexual or do I just think I like men because of heteronormativity? Am I nonbinary/a trans man or am I just too turned off and hurt by misogyny? Am I asexual or is it religious trauma? Am I aromantic or is it intimacy/commitment issues? Am I gay or do I like them in a friend-way and am confused because I seem to value friendship more than society does? And the truth is that I absolutely think identity and these confounding factors can interplay. You can 100% be aro and have a fear of intimacy. The fear of intimacy may even be related to your aro identity (eg. romance repulsion) or it may be separate but confounding to your identity (eg. experienced a chaotic childhood with caregivers who modeled a dysfunctional relationship that gave you a negative view on intimate relationships). I like to encourage people a lot of the time to follow what they want and what makes them happy, but even this can be difficult and not the best model. Amatonormativity means that many of us can struggle to accept not wanting a relationship as valid when we feel so pressured to be in an intimate relationship and are told the only way we can achieve happiness and satisfaction is by finding that relationship. But I do still think the best model of choosing how you want to identify is by you respecting your own feelings. And this may be a process! You might decide for a long time that identifying as straight is what makes you most comfortable. And it may be through doing that for years that you realize that you simply don't connect with the identity and it doesn't actually make you happy - you just wanted it to make you happy because it's what society presented as being the best and most acceptable option. Unfortunately, there's no quick, simple, or magic way to cut through figuring out how you feel and what is propaganda that society floods us all with. A lot of that comes with time and experience. I also want to confirm that there is nothing inherently wrong with something being a phase. Life is full of phases! Hell, life itself is a phase. This isn't a bad thing!!! It's pure cishetallonormativity that we've been taught to believe this. Being a teenager is a phase. Liking specific music artists or TV shows can be a phase. Working in [x] career can be a phase. A phase is not a bad thing. It's just a period of time. It doesn't mean you've done wrong or bad. It means that, since that time, you've learned/grown/changed and now your feelings/interests/goals/desires are different. There is never any point in time where you can confidently identify as something and know for 100% confidence that it will never change. There is always a possibility that things will change. Humans are a product of nurture and nature. Even if nothing internally changes, outside forces can crash into you and create change. Identifying as one thing at some point in your life and another thing at a different point in your life isn't bad. It's just life! It means you learned more about yourself. And that, to me, seems like a good thing. Not a bad one. Also, also: labels are a tool. They are not a definitive and rigid organizational system for humans. They are a tool to help us find community, communicate with others, etc. They are a vast simplification of a complex set of human feelings and experiences. Humans process information by finding patterns. That's why we like labels. They help us to organize and sort complicated information into bite-sized pieces that are easier to digest. If you experience romantic attraction but have a fear of intimacy/don't want to act on this attraction in such a way that you relate more to the aro community than the alloro community or find it more useful to communicate your desires to others if you adopt the aro label, those are 100% valid reasons to identify as aro. Identity is all self-determined. You don't have to have some subjective level of a "good enough" reason to identify any one way. Your identity isn't something you're defending in a court. Your identity is how you feel, and you get to label it based on what you want to communicate with others. "Aromantic" doesn't need to convey the vast depths of the entirety of your feelings. It can just convey "I don't experience romance like most people do". Besides that, a huge part of figuring out if a label is for you or not is using the label. It's like clothes at the store. Sure, you can hold the clothes up to your body. You can ask for opinions. But the best way to know if you're going to like wearing those clothes and seeing them on yourself is by trying them on. And just because you try them on at the store doesn't mean you'll like them out of the store (where your mirrors and lighting will be different). Sometimes you gotta do a whole trial run to figure out if clothes fit you right. Same with labels. Best way to know how you truly feel about the label is to immerse yourself in the label and try it on for a while. I always suggest at least a couple of months at minimum. I am confidently nonbinary and genderqueer now, but it took me years of experimenting with the labels to come to terms with that. And a large part of that was a byproduct of self-gaslighting due to cisnormativity convincing me there was only one way to be trans and that I didn't meet it. It was only by actively fighting against those beliefs and giving myself a chance to use those labels that I was able to cut through all the crap and honor my own feelings. And now I'm gonna go try and comment in the thread I linked about coming to terms with being aro because I've been meaning to add my thoughts there.

Thank you everyone! I super appreciate all the reacts and congrats. <3 <3 <3 You can be both! That's extremely fair! Good luck on your own journey! This is an absolutely HUGE post, so I don't expect many to read it, but I did write out a whole synopsis from research to post-op so far as a resource for others if anyone is interested in learning about the process especially given my particulars. My post-op experience has been overall really good! Minimal discomfort. Mobility and independence returned really quickly for me. Maybe too quickly, tbh - I'm having to be really mindful to not stretch my arms out too far or too much because it feels fine to do so, but I know that can impact healing and scarring. The drains were definitely the worst part, so thankfully those were only a part of it for less than a week. I don't like the compression vest either (I was never someone who did binding due a combo of sensory processing disorder + asthma), but I know it's not forever, so that's helping a lot. It did take a week for me to be able to actually focus and partake in mental stimulation again. It was kind of amazing after this started returning to look back and not realize how foggy I had been feeling, lol. My sister was my caretaker, and she did amazing!!! She was really on top of making sure I was comfortable, offering me food, making me take my meds, and bringing me water and tea. She drove me to appointments and even took my laundry to do and still does my dishes whenever she comes to visit me. She never complained. She regularly checked in. I'm really grateful for her and currently considering how I can best convey this to her because I really need her to know how great she was and how much I appreciate it. I told a long distance friend who's also been really great. She's had to go through surgery alone before, so she really wanted to be here for me, so I ended up not telling her beforehand because I wasn't looking to travel to her for surgery and didn't want to put pressure on her to travel to me. She's been checking in on me every day, though and been really sweet and supportive. Other than that, I haven't told anyone else irl yet. So that'll be interesting when I return to work and see my parents again. But I'm not complaining because everyone I have told, online and off, has been amazing. Emotionally, it's absolutely wonderful. I always knew that I didn't enjoy my chest (or many of the things puberty brought) far, faaaaar before I realized I was any flavor of trans. I've always done whatever I could to avoid bras and distract from my chest. I think so much of this was focused on what I didn't like that I didn't think that hard on what I would like. I just knew my chest brought me no joy and I'd wanted my boobs to disappear as soon as they started growing in. Getting to actually see my flat chest and see the way clothes just hang flat on my chest now... It's so special. It's so right. Knowing I'm never again gonna be cursing nipples when trying to figure out how to wear a shirt I like...I cannot wait. When I got my first view of my chest, I was just genuinely happy. It wasn't weird or startling because it was different. For the first time in my life, it just felt right. It felt like me, how I was supposed to be. I'm so grateful I was able to access this care - and so grateful to everyone along the way who helped me realize that I could pursue this and that top surgery wasn't just for trans men. The joy and euphoria is definitely a lot greater than I ever expected. Thank you so much for the congrats and the chance to reflect!

I got top surgery Dec 30th, and I'm not done celebrating, lol. Just wanted to share. I'm super happy with the outcome so far. <3

Finding astrology fun but feeling absolutely attacked whenever it inevitably focuses on romantic relationships and finding romance =_=

Album Mildred by Grim Salvo on a twitter rec. Really digging it.