{"id":315,"date":"2022-05-31T18:28:59","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T00:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/?p=315"},"modified":"2022-08-01T11:35:10","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T17:35:10","slug":"my-aromanticism-and-mental-health-neurodivergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/2022\/05\/31\/my-aromanticism-and-mental-health-neurodivergency\/","title":{"rendered":"(My) Aromanticism and Mental Health \/ Neurodivergency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a post as part of the May 2022 Carnival of Aros blogging event, which is hosted by AUREA (Aromantic-Spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy) in order to collect material for a book chapter on the intersection of aromanticism and mental health & neurodivergency.  Because I like giving people information, I\u2019ve answered all the prompt suggestions interview-style this month, instead of just picking one to focus on.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

#1: How have your experiences with mental health or neurodivergence shaped your arospec identity?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m autistic, and although I couldn\u2019t pin down how exactly – I\u2019m not an expert on neurochemistry or the like – I do feel that I can\u2019t separate being autistic and aro (and also ace).\u00a0 They are different things of course, but they aren\u2019t two unrelated aspects of what makes me, me.\u00a0 My being aromantic probably stems to some degree from how I relate to people and experience the social world more generally. [I also mention my mental state related to being aromantic in The Stability of Being Aro\/Ace<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#2: How have your experiences with discrimination or stigmas related to your arospec identity impacted your mental health?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one reason I love being autistic: most of the time, I don\u2019t internalize things like other people\u2019s opinions, which means I have a strong natural shield against other people affecting my mental health.\u00a0 Although stigma\/prejudice\/stereotypes around being aro bother me in the sense that they\u2019re socially damaging and people would be happier without them, it doesn\u2019t get to me in an emotional sense when someone makes unsolicited stupid comments to me personally.\u00a0 Those opinions don\u2019t align with my core values, so they simply go in one ear and out the other without affecting my day.\u00a0 (And it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if occasionally I\u2019m oblivious to someone\u2019s real intent and take what\u2019s meant to be a stigmatizing question at face value as curiosity and carry on the conversation as such :P.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, I have a great family and haven\u2019t yet had a bad experience with doctors regarding being aro or ace, so I can only speak from a socio-emotional angle, not a tangible-discrimination one.\u00a0 If I had been kicked out of my home, had to file a complaint against a doctor, etc., the practical concerns I would have to deal with around those issues would make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#3: How has your arospec identity shaped your views of mental health?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it gives me a better perspective on what should and shouldn\u2019t be considered \u201can issue.\u201d\u00a0 I have a copy of the DSM-5 sitting on my bookshelf right now (uni libraries are great resources) that I\u2019m reading for fun, and something I\u2019ve noticed is that the criteria for a lot of things include \u201ccause[s] clinically significant distress in the individual.\u201d\u00a0 But, it fails to specify whether it causes distress for personal reasons or because other people are giving the individual a hard time about whatever the perceived issue is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I have personal experience being in a group where a lot of people start off thinking they\u2019re broken because other people imply \/ tell them<\/em> there\u2019s something wrong with them (instead of realizing that being aro or ace is a completely acceptable difference that harms no one), this reliance on \u201ccauses distress,\u201d without clarifying the source of the distress, makes me question to what extent we pathologize individuals without recognizing when it’s a societal problem that should be addressed.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I would have that perspective if I hadn\u2019t personally encountered that issue with being aspec. [I also mention this distress issue in Is Asexuality a Psychological Disorder?<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#4: Do you identify with any of the following microlabels or any similar labels? How has this influenced your identity or life?<\/strong> [nebularomantic, neuroromantic, adfecturomantic, arovague, caed(o)romantic, acoromantic, requisromantic]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t identified with it in the past because I only now learned about it, but neuroromantic – \u201ca person whose romantic orientation is affected by their neurodivergency in some way\u201d – describes me I think.\u00a0 Adfecturomantic seems to mean the same thing based on the definitions provided in the original prompt, but I just vibe with the sound of the word \u201cneuroromantic\u201d more, so I\u2019ll grab that one to add to my label collection :).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(I\u2019m unclear on whether \u201chow has this influenced\u201d you refers to the experience of being neuroromantic, or specifically using the label, but I think I\u2019ve addressed both those questions already anyway.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#5: Have you spoken with a therapist about your arospec identity? Do you have any tips for others who are interested in speaking with a therapist?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t seen a therapist before, so I don\u2019t think I would be a credible source of tips for this.\u00a0 Although I will say that if your therapist tries to pathologize or \u201cfix\u201d your aro-ness, you probably need a new therapist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#6: Do you have any tips for finding a community that is supportive of your mental health?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know about specific mental health stuff, but I would definitely recommend trying to find an aro-focused group if you can, just for general support.\u00a0 Even in the aspec community, a lot of places\/people are more focused on aces, so finding that Twitter group chat, Discord server, etc. full of aros can be really nice, because you all already have the same knowledge\/experience framework and don\u2019t have to explain basic terms or why you\u2019re ranting about something, like you would elsewhere.\u00a0 (And incidentally, you\u2019re likely to find other neurodivergent people there too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoughts, opinions, things you want to add? Feel free to leave a comment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a post as part of the May 2022 Carnival of Aros blogging event, which is hosted by AUREA (Aromantic-Spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy) in order to collect material for a book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,49,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aromanticism","category-autism","category-personal-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}