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[MissMidnight]

For me I had to wrap my head around that I wasnt "normal" Normal to me when I was 16 was Straight, Bi, Gay, Lesbian, Pan thats pretty much how far my knowledge went. When I found Asexual it was like awesome I fit here and then it was dread of how do I explain this to people, and i felt more like a freak than I had before and finally I realised why should i feel like a freak? Asexual is just another sexuality like the others its just less known about and that made me feel better. It didnt matter what others thought about it because really only people who would know about it were my friends and those are the people who would understand as they knew me. 

 

Your different in the same way everyone else is different. No one is the same as another. You are just you and that is great!  

[Sean_Bird]

Cross-orientations? Like, being homosexual but heteroromantic?

 

Being comfortable in your own skin can take time, sometimes. For me, finally figuring out my sexual orientation was the biggest relief, but being genderfluid has always been a struggle. Sometimes just acknowledging to yourself who you are, whether it's by having a deep conversation with yourself alone or writing in a journal to process everything, can help. No one is perfect, everyone has feelings, and all of those feelings are valid. They can be unbelievably frustrating, but that doesn't make them any less real. Finding some form of self expression and being patient with yourself will help.

 

Something I also find comforting, is that the new labels being found/created to describe our feelings and orientations are really just describing things that people have felt since the beginning of time. Animals have orientations, some animals have gender, and only recently have we been able to distinguish "oh, this feeling/experience is actually indicative of this and fits better in this more specific category." I probably didn't describe it well, but the point is that different types of attraction have always existed, so they're not actually "new" or "strange," we just have more words for them now.