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Having a hard time with anxiety about relationships


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I’ve been having really bad anxiety about relationships, and attraction and just my future overall. For a little background, I grew up not really feeling anything that I would label romantic or sexual attraction to others. I always thought it was a bother, unnecessary drama like “Why do people even bother with relationships like this?”  Never had a problem reading, watching, or hearing stories about it. But I never really could comprehend it in a way I relate. I can just empathize.  In the past maybe 4-5 years now I’ve questioned whether I was lesbian, straight, or bisexual. The only one that came easily was aromatic and asexual.  I got really curious about relationships with women, and I do think I have some kind of queer attraction to them. I came out to my family as queer and was put down by my very religious father. 
 

mom and sister was fine with it, and i was happy, but after talking with him, I feel like I lost myself for a while. tried to force myself to fit in his religious bubble and had a mental breakdown immediately afterwards. Now my anxiety is through the roof, I’m finding it hard to ignore intrusive thoughts, and to stand my ground in my own beliefs, and trust myself. Im afraid that I’ll fall for someone. I never really cared about guys, but after all this thinking and overthinking, I can’t help but feel anxious when I see some attractive guy pop on screen. Or misinterpreting my aesthetic attraction as “I could be into him” 


I know In the past I never cared about relationships, romance, or being “intimate” in that way with someone, and while it seems like it’s a nice experience, it feels like I’ll always fall short when it comes to loving someone, or in order for me to secure a relationship with someone I care about, I have to be in a relationship with them. Even though I dread the idea of  the typical life script (married to a man with two kids) when I much more prefer being support for my mom to take a load off and relax, maybe even have a job in animation or art of some sort, or just a job to maintain my habits.
 

I want to know if anyone else has felt like this before, if you’re “out and proud” and how you got there. I’m so tired man, I wish I could just turn my brain off sometimes. (Anxiety included)

 

apologies for any grammar or spelling mistakes. It’s 1:14am and I’m exhausted 

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Picklethewickle

It sounds like the anxiety is coming from being forced to be someone you are not. You are trying to convince yourself that you could want a relationship with a man, but really you are just trying to please your father. You are worried that you will fall short in a relationship because you don't want to do the typical script, but really you just don't want the relationship.

 

Work on identifying your own wants and feelings. Dump out anything that anyone else has projected onto you. Dump out anything that serves to satisfy other people's wants and feelings. Those things that other people put on you: those are not yours, and you don't have to carry them. Accepting yourself and your own feelings provides stability in being "out and proud".

 

I'm sorry that your dad was unsupportive and pushed back when you opened up about yourself. Sometimes all you can do is live your life according to your own needs, and hope that the other person comes to terms with who you are.

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Thank you for commenting. I didn’t think anyone would. I reject the religion I was brought up in, while still keeping my spirituality. So we don’t see eye to eye with a lot of things anyways, I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut about it. Again he’s my father and feels it’s his duty to keep me in tune with his values, and it’s hard to tell him I don’t want to hear it. 

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Picklethewickle

I would like to emphasis a line from your post. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'm going to reflect on it anyway just in case it helps.

3 hours ago, Annonn said:

feels it’s his duty to keep me in tune with his values,

If he wants to keep you in line with his values, not your values, it's about him maintaining control over you. Sometimes when a person rejects who you are, they are making a protest against the parts of you they feel they can't control. These attitudes come from self-entitlement on his part.

 

Both you and he are going to have to come to terms with the fact that you are not his object to own and control. A relationship with him would mean loving him, but not loving his self-entitlement. It would mean telling him that he is allowed to interact with some aspects of who you are, but not other aspects. If he can't interact with your entire being with respect, you will need to restrict how he can interact with you. That's admittedly hard to do in a power dynamic skewed in his favour. Asserting independence and space from him can help.

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It is really helpful. Thank you. It’s really hard to disagree with someone that always had a say in what I do, or how I’m supposed to be.(a little less now since we don’t live close) sucks to feel like I lost a good relationship with him. I don’t even like how he is now, which is also really sad to say

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