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I’m not asexual, but due to various things, such as being queer and non-monogamous and kinky and antisocial and picky, having sexual “dysfunction” (I’m not dysfunctional, cis-hetero-patriarchy is!—but just try telling that to a doctor), the well-known side effects of SSRIs, etc.—I am functionally asexual most of the time. And I’m cool with that, mostly. (I am having to figure out queering celibacy on my own.)

But when I’ve been able to live with a romantic partner, it helps SO MUCH with disability. Just simple things like them waking you up in the morning and making sure you eat something. Having someone around who will notice shifts in your mood that you may be oblivious to. On the other hand, in my experience, this blurring of love-relationship and caregiving can really fuck things up. AUGH!

I was interested in what you had to say about needing a structure to the day, that things go wrong if the daily structure is knocked out of kilter for any reason. That’s so true for me, too.

I’ve been clinically depressed for years, but at the moment I’m not. I’ve also suffered from a panic disorder, and although I don’t currently have full-fledged panic attacks, I think my proneness to have them never really goes away (or it hasn’t gone away so far). I’m always aware that I may have a panic attack in certain situations, and while I now rarely do have an attack (an it’s likely to be mild), I still make some accommodations for myself. I don’t really need anyone else to make accommodations for me, and I know this propensity of mine is completely invisible 99.9% of the time, so I guess it doesn’t make a disability. At least I don’t feel it does, for me.

(The logic here is maybe not very good, because I know not all PWD need others to make a lot of special accommodations for them, and that some disabilities are invisible 100% of the time.) (When the panic attacks were bad, I guess I would have counted them as a disability then, because they sure prevented me from doing a load of things. I just did not know about disability activism back then.)

However, I’d like to be a good ally for people with disabilities, and I was really interested in this whole talk about sexual relationships being valued above all others / polyamory as a potential solution for some people etc. And (please don’t take this the wrong way!) if we knew each other, and if you happened to be interested in me, and if I were interested in you, none of your “issues” would be issues. I mean, I’m a bi female willing to go without sex and I even think mathematics is very cool. I’m not trying to hit on you, though – I just wanted to give you some explicit encouragement that there must be people that you could be partnered with very comfortably, in case you both liked each other. With some luck and effort, you may well find a wonderful relationship.

Not that being in a relationship is the most important thing in the world. And not that it would validate your existence, or your sexuality, or anything like that. Although I can totally understand why you would want some of the routine and care that a relationship brings. When I was depressed, it made a huge difference that I was living with someone and “had” to eat more or less regularly etc. I would have been much worse off without that routine, and yet it did not “cost” my partner any extra effort, as he would have eaten regularly anyway. (Of course my depression taxed him in other ways, but not in this specific thing.)

I feel I’m rambling now, and somehow I’m not even sure if I should be commenting (as I don’t feel I’m on the PWD spectrum), but thank you for your post and please try to stay positive about the whole relationship thing! And good luck on the activism front, if you decide to go there!

And in one of my high school classes, I had a reputation for writing a lot. In another class, earlier that year, we’d had a page limit for our research paper. So when the other teacher mentioned the pages required, I had to ask if it was a maximum. So he told me only I could turn in 10 page paper. (It was only 8 and a half. So sad.)

And then in my Modern Middle East Class this semester, the woman who sits next to me got points off for going over the pages required!

Kaz, your response does make me feel better. I don’t know, sometimes it seems that you have to pick something and you can’t change your mind! (Like the issues bisexuals face – there’s a tvtropes page called there are no bisexuals, or something similar.)

But I meant what I said. Finding out about asexuality was a huge relief, just like finding this blog. (And nattering away in the comments about unrelated points.)
.-= Kaitlyn´s last blog ..It’s so nice when one pic sums up your day =-.

I don’t feel that way. To me, there’s a pretty clear difference between “I’m asexual and happy so don’t fret about it please” and “I have difficulties with sex and it rather sucks”. Anyone who can hear those two things and not get the difference is just not paying enough attention, you know?
.-= Rosemary´s last blog ..2009 Fall TV =-.

Yeah, and it goes for friends and family too. I don’t know if it’s everywhere that you are barely eligible for any services if you live with a partner (or family, or anyone you form ‘a household’ with- regular roommates that you don’t form any sort of family with do not count), but it’s the case here. Recently, they’ve just begun building the first housing projects (that I’ve heard of) where autistic people can have assisted/independent living (i.e. not group homes or institutions in a ‘clever’ disguise) *with a partner*, until now it was all for single people. That’s nice, but it won’t do much good if we’re still not eligible for the services: very very few of us would be able to pay for it out of pocket (1: you’d need to be employed, 2: you don’t just need to be employed, you need to be so far above a modal income to be considered rich).

And yeah, a lot of stuff your partner can do for you isn’t really care as usually recognised and wouldn’t cause much stress in the relationship either. And if I were single then I’d be missing out on that, because a lot of that isn’t stuff that would work well being done by a stranger even if I could hire them for it, at least for me. Neither situation is very appealing, really, if you look at it from the outside, but then again when you’re in it it often seems “Well it’s not like I’m miserable like this…” Like I am happy living together. Sometimes I think about all the stuff I could get help with if I were single (not living together would pretty much end up as an end to the relationship, we’re both ‘out of sight, out of mind’ people that need very frequent contact), but as it stands now, I’m not willing to trade (which may change, of course). Though of course mostly I want to be able to get services AND live together. Not seeing that happening in my lifetime really. Maybe when I’m in my 70s?

But I think I’m derailing the topic there.
.-= Norah´s last blog ..I’m the world’s most irregular blogger! =-.