farren/ren

My friend, if you do not see the difference between unlabeled being a label because it has a community of people sharing their experiences and a flag to rally behind

And unlabeled being a label because it tells you which people you fall in love with and how/how you experience gender, then I don’t know what to tell you

Unlabeled = I choose not to label my gender or orientation

i had to look up what imposter syndrome meant so i apologize if my advice isn’t that fitting or if it doesn’t help,

i often feel like i’m lying to myself, or that i’m not the person i think i am, or im a different person than how people perceive me, and it’s got even worse once i started to stream.

as for feeling like u don’t know urself and therefore are lying to yourself:

i think a big thing we have to realize is that we are allowed to be different people day to day, changing as you grow up, changing based on your environment, changing when you are with people vs yourself. it’s all normal i promise. we don’t have to categorize ourself as a specific type of person, like a character in a movie with specific characteristics that they don’t very from. we are human, it’s okay to evolve with time and contradict yourself. be introverted AND extroverted. you are allowed to be sensitive and closed off. your allowed to get angry even if you are sweet most of the time. i struggle with trying to act as a character, a show i’m preforming. a persona, if you will. and i try to do this because if i don’t, if i fail to define every part of my personality in a tangible sense, i feel i don’t know myself. humans are meant to be complex.

as for imposter syndrome, there are a lot of different types:

if you are feeling you are unworthy/undeserving of the things you receive; i get it. in school i was in gifted programs but never felt deserving of it. i felt stupid when i saw all the other gifted kids, my grades were bad, the gifted kids called me dumb but all the other kids would call me smart.. i never felt like it. i felt like i knew more about all the things i didn’t know then what i did know. whether it is with school titles or even streaming, i look at everything everyone else has done to get to the position i’m in and i feel like i’m not worthy of it all. why me, i didn’t do anything/enough to deserve this? someone must have got it wrong. be kind to yourself. try and find all your talents, all the sweet parts that make you you. imposter syndrome stems from confidence issues. insecurities. just as you would any issue like it: face your insecurities, realize your talents and utilize them. stop comparing yourself. you have received everything you have for a reason, other people have different paths, that doesn’t mean yours is untrue. don’t hide from your feelings. how you feel you don’t belong or are unworthy, lean into those. feel them, so then you can begin to heal them. don’t let it hold you back. it can be very unmotivating believing you have wrongly gotten far, no matter how much you feel a fraud, keep pursuing what you want, your goals, don’t let anything hold you back. so what if it was all a fluke. use it to your advantage. if all else fails, if you can’t see how deserving you are, make yourself believe it. become what you view as deserving.

and this doesn’t have to be work/school/career related. some people believe they aren’t deserving in general, in life. for the life they now have, the kindness they receive, the people in your life. you must realize the things that have happen to you do not define you. from the moment you were born you were deserving of everything. everything that could make you smile and feel all happy and warm inside. your deserving of it all. because you always have been, and always will be.

if you feel you could always do better, that you need to be best and do it solo otherwise you feel unworthy; i get this too, being born a natural perfectionist at the core but also with my mental issues like my OCD. some days i don’t even brush my teeth, and it’ll be 7pm and i’ll be sitting in bed hating myself for not doing enough, not being enough. in my streaming, when i was at my peak, i felt like i wasn’t funny enough, not deserving of all the views i got, that someone else could have done better with all i’ve received. if you have ever felt like that, or like if you aren’t the best you are nothing. that sometimes your hardest isn’t even enough, and even if you work and receive what you want, you could’ve done better. YOU ARE HUMAN. it is okay to not be perfect. it’s okay to not push yourself all the time, just because you didn’t push yourself to exhaustion doesn’t mean you are any less worthy. it’s okay if you didn’t do “all you could”, it’s okay if you asked for help from people, it’s okay to not do it solo, that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve what comes your way after all that work. sure some people may work harder, good for them! and good for you for doing your own thing! you don’t need to work harder than others to prove your worthiness. you don’t have to be great at everything. don’t burn yourself out. it’s okay to be average! come join us over here at the mediocre club, i promise we are just as worthy of good as anyone else. and you do have talents. for some reason we see talents as something that only other people can have, because if we can do it.. it must not be that impressive, right?

wrong.

trust the judgment of those around you. you earned it, so trust yourself. they aren’t being nice, they are being honest. it’s not luck. you’re not a fake, you’re human.

it’s still a mystery to me as i am still figuring out myself, but something that really struck me was that i never had desires for anything really?

just the way my friends who were in relationships talked, tv shows, i never desired anything like that. when i looked at anyone, i never felt a sexual attraction really, and it’s something i believe i could live a fulfilling life even without it. i rarely even thought about it in all honesty. realizing that, and realizing that not everyone felt the same way, made me start to research a little.

i also began to realize i have very little romantic interest in general, only ever had 2 real crushes. but i have always longed for romantic connection (a hopeless romantic who struggles with romantic interest. imagine that.)

i took so many quizzes, i remember all the way back in 2020, and read up on asexuality, demisexuality, i even figured i was lithromantic at a point. it was all (and still is) very overwhelming for me.

i struggled so hard to label myself because i felt doing that was the only way for me to finally know myself and be understood. i felt i needed to have a label to be valid, to fit in the community because i realized i wasn’t the standard, i didn’t have the default settings everyone else did (i honestly believe nobody does, but that’s a rant for another time..)

from personal experience, i find it much more relaxing being unlabeled, because trying to label such complex feelings that go on in my mind would be impossible. so i do consider myself unlabeled, if my feelings were to change in the future i like not being tied to a label. that being said, i am open to broader terms, such as spectrums! hence why i mentioned being on the ace spectrum, and why i’m willing to talk on it! plus i believe talking about things i have considered myself, or describing my feelings that may relate to a certain label (like asexuality) can help people who do prefer labels.

anyway…..

because of my struggle, i find myself living vicariously through fiction and media when it comes to things like dating.. (loser)

it makes it really hard growing up like this, even trying to figure out what part of the spectrum you are on, trying to figure out myself. i never allowed myself to get comfortable enough to someone in order to even start exploring. this day and age trying to date while considering being on the ace spec has been a challenge for me, and i’m sure many can relate. dating is black and white in most of the populations mind, and there are certain things to expect when dating, and differing from that standard is insanely hard. and anxiety inducing.

it’s very apparent that most people do have desires i don’t and if i were to pursue someone i like, they expect me to have them as well (because that’s what people who date do, isn’t it?)

in the past this has been a fear of mine because i have been accused of “leading people on” because of the way i am, so i shy away from dating in general nowadays, and that is why my sexuality (figure out if i’m really asexual or even just other sexualities) is still a mystery to myself as i am too scared of doing the wrong thing and hurting people. i hope one day i can build up the courage and start the journey to finding myself! whether that means lgbtq+ or not!

and i hope everyone, ace spec or not, has the chance to do the same. don’t ever be afraid of doing the wrong thing because finding happiness is never wrong, is it? and know things like sexuality can be fluid, don’t feel bound to labels unless you find comfort in them, and don’t feel scared to change.

love u all

Tub of cat