greyzoneeeeee
greyzoneeeeee
Ace-eem To Not Know
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greyzoneeeeee · 2 years ago
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Ever so present, but invisible.
I had my first panic attack when I was 12. I went to the doctor once as a teenager(around 16/17) about it because I wasn't coping- at that time it was some sorta "Acute Anxiety" and I got a Valium elixir to help take the edge off. That actually did help, but he wouldn't repeat the prescription because it was easy to get addicted to it. Which was a good decision in hindsight. I did start getting better so never really went back to the Doctor about it. However I would say I was just getting used to living with it, and knowing it was anxiety. So I'd say I'm currently living with some sorta functioning chronic anxiety of some sort. But I can't be bothered going to the Doctor about it. Anyway, in an effort to sooth whatever is bugging me atm, and to reassure others out there, here's a list of every anxiety symptom I've ever had.
Age 12 - Random sudden onset panic attacks. Related to flying away from home for the first time and starting high school soon. Obviously didn't even know the word "Anxiety" then. Mum and dad didn't really either but the mobile doctor told me to breathe into a paper bag and that was it lol. For reference this was 2004/2005. So it was a different time back then. Age 13-15 - This was the first three years of high school. I didn't really have panic attacks and my only symptom was "weird breathing". That was the only way I could describe it at the time. Essentially it's the obstructed breathing. Either inhaling or exhaling would feel like I was breathing through an obstruction. But at the same time I knew I COULD breathe, which I think is how I've been able to keep most panic attacks away. I'm definitely prone to health anxiety, and I've always been scared of having trouble breathing (Mum had asthma). So I learnt very quickly that the only person who was gonna be able to reassure me...was myself. Year 12 - Despite being scared to go to high school, now I was scared to leave the security of school. So this year was absolute anxiety hell lol. I watched a scary movie at the cinema and it just set all the symptoms off and running into most of the year. Weird breathing, occasional panic attacks if I let myself entertain the anxiety too much, light-headed, trouble focusing and staying present at home and school, numb/tingling/shaking hands and feet, feeling an obstruction in my throat when swallowing(this one + the weird breathing kept me up at night), feeling like I couldn't breathe if I was lying flat so I slept on like 7 pillows, difficulty falling asleep, mild stomach cramps/indigestion. I'd have weird breathing basically all day and night, every day, at home and at school. The only time it left was when I played sport at school or did after school stuff. Again, this worked as a reassurance that it was JUST anxiety, and nothing physical. Despite being anxious constantly, knowing it was anxiety was the only thing keeping it from getting worse than it was lol. That was the year I went to the doctor to get Valium. I think by the end of the year I was mooostly better. For a long time after that the only anxiety symptom I would get was the "weird breathing". Most times I didn't know what I was even anxious about, but it would quietly just exist for a bit then leave. Because it is one of the oldest symptoms, I'm very familiar with it. So it doesn't stress me out much anymore when I have it.
In the last few years a few new friends have appeared. The older one is a new branch of weird breathing where I can breathe clearly buuut it feels like my lungs are too small for the amount of air I want to inhale, like I can't quuuuite get a full breath. It ends up making me yawn a lot, and if I distract myself or wait a bit I can get that good full breath I'm looking for. Doesn't happen all the time, but comes and goes in phases. It's not particularly stressful to have...but it is annoying. I had a random sensation in my throat for like a week, constantly. When swallowing, when eating, when doing nothing, it was really getting to me. Then when I went drumming for a few hours it left and never came back. So that's how I knew that was anxiety. The second friend came a little bit after that throat sensation. I went to swallow some food and my throat basically panic blocked it from going down. I FREAKED out, internally. Heart rate shot through the roof, full flight-mode hahaha. Swallowing issues really freak me out, and I think it's closely connected to the breathing anxiety. So basically any sort of suffocating/choking/inability to breathe/drowing are big fears that I seem to have always had. Anxiety is really good at finding those fears and manifesting them into physical symptoms lol. Anyway, the only thing that calmed me down was that it was the same sensation I had when I was younger and tried to swallow tablets. I was scared of swallowing tablets (hence the Valium elixir), and my throat would panic block them from going down - which in turn makes you panic more cause you feel like you're choking. It was the exact same feeling. That plus the fact I knew I was swallowing liquids just fine. So eventually that settled down. It does come and go still. It has also resulted in me being a liiitle spooked when eating certain foods like noodles in any broth, ddeokbokki, japchae because the noodles are so slimey. I do think about it when I go out and eat those foods, which means it tries to creep in. I'm able to be more present now though and not just panic, so if I feel like a bit of food swallows awkwardly I stop, take very mindful inhale through my nose, work some saliva in my mouth and push the food to the back of my mouth with my tongue then swallow it. Again my reassurance is it's not with every food, and it's never at breakfast and lunch, it's only dinner. It's anxiety, it's your brain, you are physically okay.
Mum never resonated with anxiety until she got it in her later years, but she always wished she could help me when I was younger. Dad I think instinctively knew I wouldn't gain anything from telling him how I felt LOL. Most of my friends weren't helpful, one of them didn't even think anxiety existed. I had one friend who I think was going through something similar, but we were young and she would listen to me but couldn't really help me. That was as a teenager. Now as adults we both talk about anxiety openly, she's incredibly reassuring to talk to because when she talks about her symptoms I know I'm not alone in how I feel.
I also was getting mild tooth aches near a tooth I was sus about earlier this year. I hadn't been to the dentist since pre-covid so I think I was stressing about the fact it had been a while and what if something was wrong, and I kept putting off booking an appointment cause I hate ringing people lol. Tooth ache left within days of booking that appointment, teeth were fine and I didn't even need any fillings. I was shocked hahahah.
Also sometimes if it takes me a while to sleep I'll get anxious about not being able to sleep. Then my brain keeps thinking and thinking and thinking. Mainly before a big day or event if I have to be up hella early for it. I kinda just put up with it, tell myself I'm being a turkey, distract with my phone if I need to. But above all that, DON'T LOOK AT THE TIME! For me at least, knowing the time makes it worse. Even if I'm not actively stressing....It'll quietly niggle at the back that I'm "running out of time". Even though I know I've functioned just fine with no sleep before, and the sleep the night after is suh gooood.
So....yeah that's where we are now in the early 30's. There are a few more obscure symptoms I've had but I don't remember them atm, will add them if I remember.
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greyzoneeeeee · 2 years ago
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Attractions?
As a teen I assumed I had crushes. There were definitely guys that I thought looked good and were nice, this was in the early friendship stage. I found once they had become a friend and I knew them well, those initial "crush" feelings disappeared. Once I learned more terminology in later years I just assumed they were "squishes".
Romantic attraction took me a while to figure out, especially because these initial feelings disappeared when people became solid friends. I read something along the lines of "If you're wondering what romantic attraction feel like, that's your answer", so at the end of the day I chalked myself up to being "Aromantic".
Haven't found that to have changed so I think it's still applicable. If anything I resonate with it more now. I'm more drained than I used to be so any sort of "squish" is few and far between lol.
I think it's easy to be confused for a long time when you love the romantic comedy genre. I will RELISH in romcom fiction. Spent a decade immersed in shojo anime and manga, kdramas, jdramas, tv/movies/books. I still consume all this. It's exciting, makes me happy, I get so absorbed in their worlds, I will fantasise being in it. But with people in reality, those romantic feelings are just not there.
My eyes really opened a couple of years ago when I discovered the Lesbian MasterDoc and learnt about Compulsory Heterosexuality. Quite a significant portion of that read really resonated with me. I don't think I have any Lesbian-leaning feelings, but I realised very quickly how legitimate compulsory heterosexuality was.
This lead to a new set of hurdles though. Had I had all these squishes on guys(at the time, but their genders aren't all cis men now) because that's what I was "attracted" to? Or was that compulsory heterosexuality?
The first good half of my kpop journey was definitely focused on boy groups. I did listen to girl groups too, but the ratio definitely favoured the guys. I also had a guaranteed bias in the male groups I listened to, whilst I didn't give that same energy to girls. This also applied to outside of Kpop. I definitely had favourite band members or actors and they were guys. At some point close to, but before discovering CompHet, I started liking girl groups more. I didn't necessarily have more biases, but my eyes were far more drawn to the girl groups visuals than the guy groups. At the time I thought that was purely aesthetic and was being influenced by being so immersed in Kpop where fashion is a big component of it.
Through more learning I realised I could feel aesthetic attraction VERY strongly. Sometimes I thought this meant I liked the person more than a friend, or that it meant I might be bi-romantic or homo-romantic. Sometimes I'm still not sure, especially now that in the last year or two I really gravitate towards women more. But any feelings still don't really exist beyond becoming friends. Then I'm also aware that I feel more comfortable doing any sort of physical exploring with a woman than a man, but then there's still something about a man(but maybe that's the CompHet speaking and anyone masc-presenting could be appealing lol).
At the same time as the aesthetic attraction to women grew, the general disdain for men also grew. It's definitely not all men. The men I know are good, but any sour encounter I've ever had and any time I've felt an uncertain/vigilant/unsafe energy from a stranger, it has been cause of a man. So has that unsafe feeling redirected me towards women?
Once I really looked into aesthetic attraction it made me look back on people while growing up. Were those characters in the tv show I liked my favourite JUST because I thought they were cool? Or was this the early version of feeling attraction as an ace kid. Was I just mesmerised because I liked the characters or were they the ace kid aesthetic attraction version of "An awakening" haha.
Currently I'm sitting with "Aromantic with strong aesthetic attraction". It's just that sometimes it's really strong, to the point where I wonder if it's an actual relationship-type attraction. Is this person just amazing to look at or would I be open to physically exploring if they asked me?
Another thing is that all the grief I've gone through over the years has left me...feeling like the outer husk of a human. I do feel lonely but it's not an intimacy lonely. It's a loneliness for losing the past where things were easier and where I was happy and hopeful and less stressed and unbothered by most things.
Sometimes I want "a person", sometimes I'm curious and wonder what physical interactions I'd be okay with if I trusted and felt safe with the person.
Keeping in mind I hate being touched. But sometimes I don't mind reciprocating a hello/goodbye hug, but then sometimes I don't want a person touching me at all(whether there's a reason for that particular person or not), but then there are people where I don't mind touch. Like if our hands brush when walking, or our shoulders touch when we both look at a phone etc. Casual touches like that are sometimes okay. Sometimes once I'm touched, even accidentally, I need that person to move away and stay in my line of sight until my flinching at movement settles down.
Went on a bit of a tangent there :P
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greyzoneeeeee · 2 years ago
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Intro
I felt inspired by Pride Month, and occasionally throughout the year I get curious about #asexuality on tumblr, so I'm writing some stuff. :)
I've known I'm asexual for quite a while now. I'm a Cis Woman in my early 30's, but probably discovered the term "asexual" when I was....18-19 maybe? I don't reeeeally remember how I found out about that word but it was a very underwhelming moment haha. It wouldn't surprise me if I discovered it through tumblr though. I remember seeing the word, reading about it and being all "Oh that's me! wowww, well there you go", went about my day, and now here we are lol.
I've been incredibly lucky with the timeline of my sexuality. I did obviously grow up in a world where the default was straight, LGBTQIA+/LGBT I don't recall ever hearing or seeing. So when there were questions like "What does your ideal man look like", "What would be the perfect wedding" etc, I could answer those. I never had much thought or feeling behind it, but they weren't really hard to answer. I think that's also another benefit of being a naturally quiet/shy/introverted kid growing up; you're not really as involved in conversations. I was able to grow up with almost no hounding about who I like, why aren't I dating, do I have a boyfriend, etc. Also romantic and sexual conversations were quite...minimal? I wasn't ignorant to the fact that it all existed, but I wasn't in social circles where it was frequent conversation either? It allowed me to live in a very quiet bubble, so quiet that I never actually felt different from others and never got upset that I didn't have a crush or whatever. I kinda just assumed it wasn't my time yet, it'll happen eventually, and I kept thinking that until I found the word asexual haha.
On the flip side it made it a bit more difficult for me to resonate with #asexuality on tumblr. For the most part the posts I saw were about feeling like an outcast/different from everyone else, having trouble explaining asexuality to people, all sorts of things. All of which are incredibly valid, and I'm lucky to have lived a basically stress-free asexual life so far. Me who lived in my bubble for so long, who isn't "out" to anyone, means I don't ~feel~ asexual cause I've never felt....different. Or just different enough to care. Over the years I discovered more ribs under the asexual umbrella, and some of them I've thought "oh yeah I think that explains me more", but then I'm also never quite sure either lol, so I just stick with the broad term asexual. s*x mentioning below.
In regards to sex I think I float between positive-neutral-repulsed lol. Maybe it's because we grow up so exposed to sex being part of an intimate relationship, so in works of fiction I can look forward to that. Especially when it's the first time for a couple. Most of the time I stay in neutral in regards to myself, and then here and there float towards repulsed. Funny ole brain. I have noticed over the years that I can get exposure fatigue? to it. I can enjoy written sex scenes in fiction but if it's happening often in the book I get sick of reading about it. The same thing happens with TV shows, so you can imagine Bridgerton gets a lot of random skipping ahead from me hah. Also I find p*rn far too graphic so I don't watch it. I think I like the silhouette of it from afar? So basically movie/tv/book romance sex.
Attractions musings are next.
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