Jump to content

Aromanticism and depression


Cassiopeia

Recommended Posts

On 10/19/2017 at 10:27 AM, DeltaV said:

But is there a general definition of mental/psychiatric disorder in the ICD?

Probably alloromantics can form friendships. :P It just seems that they are often regarded as “second rate”.

 

I didn't want to suggest that aromanticism in general is pathological, of course. Quite the reverse, that one could pathologize it on the basis of the DSM-V, which shows that its definition of “mental/psychiatric disorder” is problematic.

I'm sure that I don't suffer from depression. It doesn't get worse than having a tendency to feel emotionally blunted, or suffering from slightly melancholic dissatisfaction. The changes in this “psychological undercurrent” are also, like you experience it, slowly cyclic.

 

I don't know if that's a good coping mechanism (well, if we exclude the “wine” part –  obviously xD):

 

You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it — it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

 

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

 

– Charles Baudelaire

 

But it kind of makes sense to me. :gasp:O.o:/ Damn…

It's interesting that medication had no effect. There are so many people who claim that antidepressants have completely changed their lives. I don't have enough knowledge on the matter to form a decided opinion but it seems safe to say that their effectiveness is … still a matter of ongoing controversy.

 

Not that getting medicated doesn't have on average a strong, measurable effect; it's just that the placebo tends to have a very strong effect, too. Studies like this make me question that they are really the “life saving wonder drug” as it's often claimed.

 

Sorry about that, I misconstrued what  you were getting at. My apologies on the long winded response, too.

On 10/19/2017 at 5:35 PM, Untamed Heart said:

Well, it's hardly the fault of the aro-aces that she can't get a date. That pool of ace-alloromantic men must be pretty small, relatively speaking, not to mention spread out over the globe and the number of them she'd even be mutually compatible with is even smaller. That's just how it is and no amount of complaining and gross shaming/coercion attempts from her will change that.

Oh, I think I know who you're referring to. She was really sensitive and critical of men in general. I do believe she had many unarticulated

reasons for what she was experiencing. In the private messages her nickname was, "ticking time-bomb".

 

I still have my account on asexuality.org, are in the normal forums and AVEN sub-forums but I actually feel really out of place on that website. There is far too much sensitivity and hyper aggression to different orientations to be healthy. However, I haven't logged in almost half a month or more because of these problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/19/2017 at 3:52 PM, Mark said:

How did you reach this conclusion? It seems quite radical.
I often feel I have to try and explain myself or risk even more social exclusion.Especially if I'm confronted in some way.
 

Similar.

 

I've always found the "special someone"/"soulmate" thing just weird. Even taking away the romantic bit does not make it any less weird or remotely interesting/attractive to me. I'd still much rather have a diverse friend group.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if there's a minority who can't, but can handle romantic relationships.

 

Right, there are different styles and conditions within the aromantic orientation, easiest way to explain it is that aromanticism is a spectrum.

 

Just as there is romantic repulsion, romantic adversion or romantic indifference, which has to do with the psychological attachments of a given individual, which I prefer to call a "style" or how you a approach a specific situation and how you deal with it. Type type of platonic relationships also have a style associated with it. You're into having a lot of different acquaintances that don't

get that deep, which is fine. I'm fine with a lot of friends of acquaintances, too but also have the yearning to be another aromantic

woman that just gets me, preferably another hetero-demisexual (not that sex would ever occur, just looking to match up more parameters for compatibility purposes).

 

It's interesting in psychology and psychiatry, they talk about the attachments as one static set of measurements for the entire personality, not giving it a second thought that the attachments can't be generalized for every single transaction or situation a person could / would find themselves in. Personalities are multi-dimensional as are the orientations that help shape them.

 

The one place that lady may find what she's looking for might be on the following site;

 

https://www.not4dating.com

 

I've used this site a handful of times.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/19/2017 at 3:52 PM, Mark said:

How did you reach this conclusion? It seems quite radical.
I often feel I have to try and explain myself or risk even more social exclusion.Especially if I'm confronted in some way.
 

Similar.

 

I've always found the "special someone"/"soulmate" thing just weird. Even taking away the romantic bit does not make it any less weird or remotely interesting/attractive to me. I'd still much rather have a diverse friend group.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if there's a minority who can't, but can handle romantic relationships.

 

Here's the thing why I stopped giving a crap about other peoples' feelings and wants because it was to my detriment, because it causes the endless cycle of internal abuse.

 

1. I was worrying about how I was going to be perceived.

 

     a. People were talking shit about me regardless on how and why I explained myself.

 

2. I was worrying about how I was going to cope, if I was still living a lie to fit in with the rest of the society.

 

     a. They too are still living a lie; society isn't made up of 100% alloromantic & allosexual people.

     b. They wanted to attack me for being me, it was an unfamiliar mode of operation to them.

     c. People fear what they don't understand, as they don't want to understand.

     d. People use anger along with ridicule to attempt to minimize the  pseudo-threat to their own false image and operation.

 

3. Psychology and psychiatry have it wrong stating that low self-esteem and confidence have to do with all forms of depression, including but not limited to chronic depression.

 

     a. It's a widely held belief that self-esteem and confidence are one in the same, however, there's no real empirical evidence to support this belief.

     b. Self-esteem is affected by depression and not the other way around.

     c. You can have confidence with low self-esteem; they're mutually exclusive of each other, not connected in any way, shape or form.

     d. Self-esteem's real definition is how you see yourself, your personal image / ego and how your image / ego interacts with other people's image / egos.

     e. Confidence's real definition is seeing the real person, starting with yourself, throwing your own image / ego aside and addressing others likewise. Confidence is that of your real self, problem is, accessing it and telling your self-esteem to pipe down, watch and listen.

     f. People with chronic depression have a war with their persona  versus their real self.

     g. The persona / false image / ego, almost always wins. It's painful at first to deal with the truth, that nobody actually cares about you in the form you expect. Because, if everyone else is busy maintaining their image and not being the real person. How can you expect to have any semblance of a real connection with anyone? The answer is; you can't.

     h. It's better to be alone, rather than to fake your way through life, like so many other people are doing. Having a fake connection with society will get to you sooner or later when you have the epiphany that they're doing the same thing you're doing, when you don't actually get to know the real person behind the mask.

     i. It's hard to let go of that mask we cling to, we don't want to be hurt anymore. However, this very mask is continually hurting us, as individuals. People with chronic depression have a harder time letting go of the mask because they want what's familiar to them, to be comforted but they don't realize the mask isn't what's actually comfortable, you just think it is. Just remember this; misery loves company. That's one b*tch you should kick to the curb.

 

4. I've been accused of not understanding other peoples'  circumstances or why they do what they do.

  

    a. While these are patently false accusations; it doesn't suprise me that others try to play down and justify their actions to me, so they can keep on doing what they're doing. Abusing me and other people; as that's indicative of an emotional immaturity and cognitive disfunction. When they don't want to take responsibility for what they've done, let alone change their behavior, to fix their problems.

    b. Explaining to people your knowledge base and if you have a background in medicine, psychology, psychiatry and sociology does absolutely no good. For they have not reached out for help and thus refusing your help outright. As an example; You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

 

5. I do understand their circumstances and why they do what they do.

 

   a. The one thing I won't do; is allow them to hurt or torture me anymore. That is why I get all the wild accusations being thrown my way, people don't want to others to see their wounds and to have the tables turned on them. They want all the positive adulation and supply for which they're don't deserve to begin with, because nothing of what they're doing is original nor real. They want all of the nice attention and / or gifts just for being a fake. That's pretty sad!

 

6. I figured out that I didn't want to have fake connections with other people and didn't want to be surround by fake people at any level.

 

a. Self discovery was the first part of my journey. Articulating my orientations; who I really am, etc.

b. Had to realize that my confirmation bias and ego were way out of whack, had to reel it in and do a hard look / work to fix it.

c. As soon as I fixed it, I changed; just as I changed, the fakes in my life started having a problem with it and fought back.

d. I didn't fight them; just walked away from those idiots and didn't look back.

e. The more I articulate who I am, I realize what type of relationships I want and will take on, which ones I need to avoid, so that I can continue to grow as a person.

 

7. Chronic depression is actually a misnomer; as it's chronic but not really depression.

 

 a. It is chronic mistreatment of your real self.

 b. It is chronic mistreatment of your cognitive processes.

 c. Is is chronic mistreatment of your emotions.

 d. You're stuck in an endless loop in all three areas.

 e. What is called chronic depression has no medical basis, management nor cure.

 f. Therefore it's the domain of the mind, psychology and to a wider extent of society, thus sociology comes into play.

 g. Chronic depression has much in common with neurosis, neutrotic behavior, more specifically a more advanced and masochistic form of Obsessive Compulsive  Disorder (OCD) of the Cluster C personality types. 

 h. I need to make the distinction between psychotic and chronic depression, they aren't the same thing, they have completely different modus operandi, as with the causal links are different, too.

 i. The belief that you need to fit in, in order to be considered worthy, to be considered a friend, to be a human (or more human) is what drives this obsession with perfection, to ironically fit into a role that's less than real. At one level you know this to be a fact but the urge is so strong to have a connection with someone, you subjugate your own real self, to attempt to hold on to what you want so dear; kinship. Your problems flare up because you realize that no matter how hard you try, it's never good enough, you try harder. You get hit harder with the truth of the matter, it's not working. You try even harder after that, the point gets driven home again, even harder.

j. Rejection has a sting like no other but what hurts more than rejection from others is rejecting your true self. You don't realize by doing just that, you're hurting yourself twice. Once trying to keep up a false image of yourself for society in general and people you associate with and also not being true to / with yourself.

k. Once you realize all of this and begin to fix yourself, other people on the road to recovery will come find you, they want a real friend that knows what it's like to deal with this horrible crud that's named as Chronic Depression.

l. To get rid of what's called Chronic Depression is to start being honest with yourself, get a checklist of what you're doing now, bending to other peoples' will to get into / stay in a friendship or relationship (this applies to every orientation, regardless). Look at what's not working, what other people do that are authentic and how they find other authentic people, how they do what they do. More than likely, the more you let the real self out, it will probably match the lists of other real people of what they will deal with and what they won't. Another way to look at it is this; give people clear boundaries and what you expect of them, don't internalize your boundaries in your own head, this also pushes you further into misery. Boundaries, are to be healthy, which are rules of interaction between you and other people, as a said before never to be internalized because of fears of rejection. Yeah, you'll get rejected, however, it's how you deal with that rejection that will be for your better or worse.

 

What I do seems radical because it's so different than what you think and believe now. As you fix your own internal world, your thoughts and beliefs begin to change, too. This is the very thing that the fake people rebel against, it scares them really good, just remember this quote, "There is no knowledge that is not power". Don't be afraid to be your true self, besides you don't want to hang around fakes, you'll realize they're more trouble than they're worth and they'll give you a hell of a headache after awhile.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

About the ICD 10, there is a site to see how the ICD is currently organized, it's functionally configured.

 

http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/F01-F99

 

Those are for diagnostic codes themselves, the actual definitions are found elsewhere in the book. At least the book is set up for quick reference and not like a Microsoft software manual. (See this page, that page and if it doesn't work refer to this last page.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

This is a very interesting, thought-provoking thread. In my case, my struggle with depression started many years before i learnt the term "aromantic", although in retrospective, i already was aro, i just didn't know the "proper" word for it. But the two aren't related, because I'm not depressed because i'm aromantic. I'm depressed because it's just how my brain is wired, and this is how it reacts to stuff i've been through. Being aro isn't depressing in itself. Although when i'm at my worst, sometimes it's yet another thing that's wrong with me, another reason why i'm unloveable and will end up alone, and so on. So even though my depression isn't a cause of me being aro, sometimes when I'm really depressed, I end up thinking that I'm using aromanticism as an excuse  to feel better about being alone. In my experience, depression makes you second guess yourself a lot, and question everything you are. Which makes me feel even more depressed, because it makes me think my whole identity is a lie. So like i said, this is a very thought provoking topic :) I might be depressed, but i don't really want to second guess a huge part of who I am!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I only started identifying as aromantic after I became depressed, but the two things are completely unrelated. I've never had any interest in romance at any point in my life. I could talk about depression itself for hours, but I feel like that'd be off topic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/20/2016 at 5:24 AM, Cassiopeia said:

While I'm 100% sure that romantic love does not cure mental illnesses

I agree with this statement completely, but early in when i first started talking about my anxiety/depression/eating disorder, i relied super heavily on a few friends- one of the things they 'suggested' was looking for a romantic partner, for extra 'support' (and other reasons including companionship). At the time i didnt know i was aro, and since ive come out to them they've changed that suggestion, but at the time, i guess it just confused me...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Roanic said:

I don't think I'm depressed but I do feel I'm on my way to it if that makes sense, and I know it's because I'm lonely, it has gotten bad enough that I started therapy because of it and it was so disheartening when the first therapist I saw insisted that I'm only aromantic because of trust issues and etc, we all have heard that speech before, no? 

 

I'm not aromantic because I'm sad but I am sad because I'm aromantic, or more specifically because of how difficult is it to find people with whom I can connect.

 

It's weird because I like who I am and I feel that being aromantic and asexual has such an impact in my personality and my outlook on life that I wouldn't want to change it but I also can't help feeling that if I was allo I could be much more happy.

 

This surely sounded much more depressing that I wanted it to be.

 

Most therapists, psychologists, sociologists and psychiatrists are dealing with a doubly stacked deck. What I mean by that is, they only know and go by what the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) says on issues that pertain to anything that appears to be in relation to trust issues brought on by your attachment style and other attributes which will lead them to believe you're either; paranoid, suffering from PTSD (a form of psychosis), have Asperger's syndrome, land somewhere in the schizo spectrum (usually schizoid) or are a high functioning individual that has austism / austistic feature but can't be grouped into Asperger's syndrome.

 

Believe me, I've had to train some of these, "idiots". They're always talking about the need for sensitivity training but when it comes to them actually doing it, they're so hesitant, like I'm pulling their teeth.They don't actually realize that what they say without actually thinking it through, is quite harmful, let alone heavily insensitive. Snap decisions should never be made in the social sciences, it is a lot harder to psychoanalyze someone than the current crop of shrinks out there lead on.

 

If they don't go by the manta of following the where the evidence leads them and instead they give you a canned answer without actually engaging their brain, thinking along the lines of the DSM but isn't equivalent of the law to them. It's really hard to find a good shrink, finding one that is also a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and Empath would help you out greatly. They look at the problem from multiple levels at once.

 

As a note to you and anyone else that wants to go see a shrink, don't use their language like; psychosis, psychopath, depression, narcissist, etc. You will be labeled something by them in the industry and yes, word does get around. That also includes calling yourself depressed. Calling yourself sad and out of energy all the time is fine. It may or may not have a medical basis at that point, in which a psychologist / therapist / psychoanalyst can't do anything for you at that point, it's either a plain medical doctor or a psychiatrist can help. As I've stated before chronic depression isn't actually depression, chronic sadness brought on by your memories, emotional loading and negative thoughts, that are reinforced by negative on going events occurring in your life.

 

Real depression can't be treated by anyone but a medical doctor with a degree in psychology or a psychiatrist (since they're a medical doctor, too.), psychologists / therapists / psychoanalysts can't write a prescription. There is one other type of person that can write a prescription though, a licensed DNP or NP (Doctor of Nurse Practitioner or Nurse Practitioner); they're above that of medical or psychiatric RNs (Registered Nurses).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Roanic said:

I don't think I'm depressed but I do feel I'm on my way to it if that makes sense, and I know it's because I'm lonely, it has gotten bad enough that I started therapy because of it and it was so disheartening when the first therapist I saw insisted that I'm only aromantic because of trust issues and etc, we all have heard that speech before, no? 

 

I'm not aromantic because I'm sad but I am sad because I'm aromantic, or more specifically because of how difficult is it to find people with whom I can connect.

 

It's weird because I like who I am and I feel that being aromantic and asexual has such an impact in my personality and my outlook on life that I wouldn't want to change it but I also can't help feeling that if I was allo I could be much more happy.

 

This surely sounded much more depressing that I wanted it to be.

 

I've been running into this a lot, while I can connect with people, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and know it's only a matter of time before the friendship sours because the other party (romantic women) want to take it to the next level and don't give a $h|t about my feelings on the matter, it's as if I don't matter and that I'm there to fulfill their f*cked up fantasies of romance is supposed to be like. They'll hound me for "playing games with their mind", even when I'm not, they're just seeing their own reflection in me. To me, it's really saddening that I can't find anyone either.

 

I'm aromantic hetero-demisexual but I'm now thinking about stating I'm aromantic asexual because people have at least heard of this type of person, they don't believe in demisexuality. When they say that to me, I've retorted to them, "I don't believe in women that can't figure out that I'm not at all like them and just keep it at the friendship level which is where it should have stayed". I can't help it that they're stupid, that's all on them but the unfortunate thing is; I would have figured they could wrap their mind around it, some of them were college educated feminists but alas they only understood it from an alloromantic female pespective and thinking they understand men, when they do not. It's truly terrible that they believe that all men think and act the same. It's funny that the feminists are the romantic types that give me the most pain out of all the hetero-alloromantic women I've met and I erroraneously thought they be more unstanding and accepting of me being different.

 

I've gotten to the point right now, where it's better for to be alone and lonely than put up with any romantic woman's bull$h|t. As I would still be lonely in the friendship because they don't really value my friendship but rather want to own and cage me which as an aromantic, is intolerable. When I speak of finding that special someone, I mean getting a squish and that the other lady or ladies in my life experience the same thing with me but don't become jealous possessive over me as I won't get that way in regards to them.

 

I honestly believe we need to come up with a relationship database that represents all of our differences; how we interact with others and how we see ourselves, come up with an aromantic relationship friend finder website, so we don't have to face lonliness if we don't want to anymore. I know that aromanticism is a lot larger than we think it is, I've met several people that would fall into this category but they haven't articulated themselves as of yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Roanic said:

I have also experienced that sometimes the group that you would think would be more accepting is the most hostile toward anyone that doesn't submit to their particular mind hive, everything is too politic now, you can be part of the LGBT movement if you are the right type of LGBT, you need to speak up as a woman but only if you speak the right opinions, it's sad that these movements that had such an important message seem to have started to cannibalize themselves lately, don't take me wrong there are still good things coming from the feminist and LGBT movements but for me they aren't as open as they think they are, there are still many minorities being excluded, I think is just temporary though, the next wave will get better but for now I sadly can't even go to an LGBT+ group expecting acceptance.

I've, unfortunately, observed something similar happening with aro forums. Especially the largest aro group on Facebook.
Where I can find myself apparently the "wrong kind of aro" is wanting to stick with the dictionary definition of "platonic" which is fairly narrow. Rather than trying to use it to mean "not romantic". As well as not being ace, touch repulsed, kiss repulsed, anti PDA, anti dating, etc.
 

16 hours ago, Roanic said:

I don't know if there are really that many aros, we must be a pretty low percentage of the general population, but that hasn't stopped trans people from finding each other, I'm honestly surprised there aren't more aro meet ups, are there really so few of us? 

The few studies which have been done have come back with at least 1.5% (The highest being 6%, IIRC) Even one per thousand (0.1%) would be literally millions of people.
What few "aro meet ups" exist are de facto "aro & ace meet ups".

I suspect that the vast majority of aros are utterly convinced that they either "suck at relationships" and/or "havn't met the one yet". With there being no easy way for them to encounter even the concept of "aromantic".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/3/2018 at 12:34 PM, Mark said:

I suspect that the vast majority of aros are utterly convinced that they either "suck at relationships" and/or "havn't met the one yet". With there being no easy way for them to encounter even the concept of "aromantic".

 

Oh, I 100% agree with you on this. Since learning about aromanticism, and sharing it with friends, they've shared some of their own experiences and many of them fell somewhere on the Aro/Ace spectrum, which was surprising and illuminating. I think the more awareness there is, more people will find it helpful to put a word to their experiences, and start to normalize aromanticism as a legitimate way of being. Before I learned about aromanticism, I used both of those phrases frequently, lol - and I've heard so many people say something similar like 'I'm just not ready' or 'Why is it so hard to just be friends?'.

 

I think there are a lot of lovely and lonely and confused aro's out there - we just need to spread awareness and no-romo love to find them! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, ladyasym said:

 Before I learned about aromanticism, I used both of those phrases frequently, lol - and I've heard so many people say something similar like 'I'm just not ready' or 'Why is it so hard to just be friends?'

The obvious problem with 'I'm just not ready' is that aros will never be ready for a romantic relationship.
Could 'Why is it so hard to just be friends?' mean something like they desire sexual friendships, sensual friendships, queer platonic friendships or something other than purely platonic friendships?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Mark said:

The obvious problem with 'I'm just not ready' is that aros will never be ready for a romantic relationship.
Could 'Why is it so hard to just be friends?' mean something like they desire sexual friendships, sensual friendships, queer platonic friendships or something other than purely platonic friendships?

 

Could be as simple as “why is it so hard to just be friends”. I know you like to push the idea of sexual friendships and poly relationships. Don’t lose site that something you desire might be just that, something you desire and not necessarily anyone else who’s aro. I already have to constantly deal with asexuals pushing the idea that all asexuals want sexless relationships. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Mark said:

The obvious problem with 'I'm just not ready' is that aros will never be ready for a romantic relationship.
Could 'Why is it so hard to just be friends?' mean something like they desire sexual friendships, sensual friendships, queer platonic friendships or something other than purely platonic friendships?

 

2 hours ago, Just like Jughead said:

 

Could be as simple as “why is it so hard to just be friends”. I know you like to push the idea of sexual friendships and poly relationships. Don’t lose site that something you desire might be just that, something you desire and not necessarily anyone else who’s aro. I already have to constantly deal with asexuals pushing the idea that all asexuals want sexless relationships. 

 

Well, you're both right. The 'Why is it so hard to just be friends?' has a multitude of different meanings and interpretations, and it all depends on context and individual experience. I've heard it used by some people who /just/ wanted friendship, and were feeling frustrated that other people always seemed to want more from them. Personally, I've used the phrase in both contexts, in relation to different people/experiences. Rather than attaching a 'one-size-fits-all' interpretation to these kinds of phrases, I think it's more important to read between the lines, and listen to the context and experience the person is describing, and legitimizing their frustrations - regardless of whether it relates to a sexual/sensual friendship, or a purely platonic one. :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...