Hi from a Red Crane

Hi everyone,

I just found this site existed, and I feel so happy I don't know what to do. Looking at all the threads and seeing how people are allowed to be so honest about their feelings... I don't have to be "normal"... I just feel so excited, ahh.

I have a lot of various neuroatypicality and general "strangeness" (among other things I'm autistic and was mute in my childhood, schizoid personality, mostly asexual, mostly aromantic, dissociative amnesiac and struggle with serious body image issues/the feeling that I don't want a human body, and have abuse in my past which also has affected my sexuality), and it's hard to find a psych who will listen to me and understand me because I have so many layers of experiences and it takes so long to explain and then after that, explaining that I'm not bothered by many of these or want to change them, but I have to explain them before I can talk about the problems that do come from them, usually confuses them. Recently I've been struggling with the feeling that I'm not meant for this world because, if I just had one or two differences it would be okay, but I'm so different from everyone around me that I don't even know how to start when I have to talk about who I am, or try to get anyone to understand me. It feels impossible.

And, I don't say that to try to be "special"... I don't want to be special, don't want attention (of course, it's okay if people do), but, when your goal in life is "I want to become an animal", when you feel no love for people, when you don't want a relationship, when you have no desire for goals in life but just prefer to live day to day as an animal, when you are thinking constantly about a surgery to change your shape, when your only sexual feeling is about something completely taboo... to find even one person who even will speak to you, let alone understand you, after you are honest to them, is hard.

But, looking at some of these forums and seeing that nothing is taboo... makes me feel so relaxed, you don't even know. I'm trying to find a psych right now who will help me deal with just my feelings of struggling in a world that is so different from me and all the things I value. But I think just looking at the place makes me feel more calm than I've felt in several days.

So, thank you for existing. And I hope I'll post in some of the other forums soon... right now, I'm a little overwhelmed by how many places! But, just knowing I can come here if I need to talk, is a big thing. Thank you.

That's a brilliant introduction, akatsuru. I think I've seen some of your posts in SPD already, but you're welcome wherever you want to post. Hope you continue enjoy it here, keep talking!

Hello akatsuru and a belated welcome from me too. It is good that now you have this as a place where you can come and open up about some of the issues you have been struggling to open up about as you have been feeling they are taboo to talk about elsewhere. There is a lot of really nice and supportive people on the forums here and so I hope you find it a good place to keep talking to people and to get some support.