Hiiii! So bear with me a sec because this isn't going to start off sounding positive but it ends that way!
I saw your aplatonic positivity post, and while I've heard platonic attraction/squishes/etc. In the past, it never really occurred to me that being aplatonic was a thing that was possible. I'm aro/ace and erenth (I don't associate with gender at all.) And I've been going through some major self reflection over the past few months, and I was considering if I was asocial or not because I prefer solitude but I also like playing dnd or talking to people from time to time.
But when I saw that post and did some digging, I remembered all the times people who grew intensely close to me really fast (on their end) would always be like "I love you" and while I smiled and politely said it back I was IMMENSELY uncomfortable internally.
I have had people/friends I say I love you to. But my understanding (now) of that love isn't the same definition as other people's. It me saying "I care that you are okay as a whole, but I don't have the emotional connection to it that you may infer from my words/actions."
I also realized that pretty much all of my intense friendships and what I thought was love was actually anxiety of disappointing them BECAUSE I had found such strong common ground between our interests making me intensely focus on that friendship. And that any time it started to fade, my anxiety spiked because I was taught by my family that constant monitoring of other people's emotions regarding their opinion of me to keep them positive meant safety.
And again, I know that doesn't sound like a positive statement, but it helps me make sense of something that wasn't sitting entirely right with my exploration of asocialness.
It made me realize that when I stopped trying to seek out and monitor other people's perceptions of me to ensure my safety, and made myself ignore and not reach out to maintain the relationship under those pretenses, that I have drastically stabilized my emotional regulation and started to flourish in my creativity.
I like being alone. I like not leaving my house. I like creating and sharing my work to the community as a whole without the need of individual connections or relationships. And accepting that has helped me find such a peaceful balance in my life that I'm a little floored about it.
I've started talking out loud to no one more because too much silence makes me feel caged. I've started letting myself not feel guilty about having a messy house because it gives me an extra excuse to turn persistent people away. And I'm learning, slowly, to not be disappointed when I do ask to spend time with someone and get turned down, because I'm not disappointed that they aren't available, I am experiencing residual trained anxiety that I wasn't able to monitor how they felt about me to ensure continued self-safety.
And it really just threw a LOT of my triggers into perspective so I can understand them now and keep myself from being upset and not understanding why.
I know this is long and rambling, but thank you for posting about it. You helped me on my mental health journey and in understanding myself better. I hope you have a fantastic day. (You don't have to answer this or post it if you don't want to. I am just putting it out into the universe 💛)
This is positivity! I'm glad I could help out!! Good luck to you, anon!
