Scarleteen

i am afab. but i feel nothing. i can orgasm through direct stimulation (clit, vaginal penetration, entrance stimulation, anal sometimes. you can assume solo.) i dont feel anything beforehand like clit stimulation just feels like I'm rubbing anywhere, vag penetration will either be nothing or a stinging (literally my ass takes less prep than my boypussy.) orgasm feels okay for the 2 seconds it lasts. no feel good feelings after.

looked on oh joy sex toy and main scarleteen and basically all of it is I USED TO LOVE SEX. but i never have felt anything. there was one article on scarleteen that sounded more like my experience but it boiled down to "bro get aroused" which like. lol. lmao even. I've never been aroused in my life. never been wet. i dont think i even have a libido. even when i was on testosterone shortly, nothing (bc yknow as my doc said 0x2 is still 0.) I've checked my labs and hormones. this has been 20+ years (there wasnt anything before that, i was just prepubescent.) I've been on meds, ive been on no meds. no change. and these things preceded the unpleasant sexual experience I have had.

i want to feel good i want to enjoy sex and masturbation I'd love to experience sex someday and it not just be a reminder I'm broken. like. i dont even feel like a human. or animal for that matter. and this is not like I'm repressed and shameful about sex. my autistic special interest is fictional gay porn. i am ashamed of not having libido/arousal/pleasure I'm ashamed of not having what seems to be a pretty universal mammalian experience. but I look all over and no one seems to have experienced this complete lack of all of it and everyone just acts like "well if you never had it it's not like you're missing it".

Hey acearohanda,

I see you came in with this a few years ago, and I don’t want to drag you through a similar conversation if it doesn’t feel helpful. Because this is not new, and because you haven’t connected with what you’ve found that is made for a general audience, I do think seeing a sex therapist is going to be a good next step. An individualized setting, with someone who has a lot of knowledge and acute experience in this field, seems like a better fit for you. You can look at folks who are licensed in your state here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/ther ... ex-therapy or through the AASECT directory here: https://www.aasect.org/referral-directory.

I would argue that arousal/sexual pleasure/libido not a universal human experience, and if you poke around the message boards and see what other folks bring here, it is an extremely wide and varied spectrum of relationships to pleasure, arousal, and libido. It isn’t what makes us human, or animal, and I can understand the pain of feeling inhuman. I am also sorry that people are minimizing your experiences and frustrations, and that when you are searching for other people like you, you’re feeling even more isolated and alone.
When you were here in 2023, it seems like we asked what does feel pleasurable in your life (sexual or non-sexual), and at the time, the answer was “nothing.” Is that still true?
What do you like about fictional gay sexual media?
What, if anything, do you see us as being able to help with?

oh i guess i did...

honestly I haven't seen anyone talk about having no sensation AND no libido/arousal that are upset about it. I've seen a sex therapist before but she just kept asking what arouses me or what touch feels pleasurable and telling me to explore those except when the answer is "nothing" what am i supposed to do with that.

yeah answer is still nothing. i havent felt joy (or anything really) in a decade. doctors and therapists are stumped on what to do bc treatment is always for too much feeling not nothing.

i mean i like my boys being in love and codependent and feeling stupid good. things I used to dream of. but special interest is basically just what i can tolerate doing at this point.

sorry it doesnt matter sorry i wasted your time because i forgot I'd already been here i should probably delete the thread.

I don't think you've wasted anyone's time. Just because you weren't able to solve for this in the past with advice we gave you then doesn't mean you wasted our time, it just means that either what we suggested didn't work or that you didn't feel like you wanted to try what we suggested (which would also mean the advice we gave you then obviously wasn't a fit for you).

I'm going to ask what may be an incredibly obvious question, but have you ever been evaluated for depression by any of these therapists?

I ask because usually, when someone is not able to access any joy or pleasure, and describes just feeling kind of flat, all around, for a long, long time like this, depression is one of the most common reasons why, and, if and when that is what's going on, it also -- usually -- is treatable. Depression is also one of the most common reasons people have some of the sexual issues you're reporting here.

i mean I've been passively suicidal since i was 11. but the no emotions has only been the past decade. and the sexual nothing has been my whole life.

i have tried every antidepressant. i have tried ketamine treatments. I've tried tms. nothing has helped. atp me and my therapist both agree the depression is a symptom not a diagnosis. and yknow I've known hundreds of depressed people and none of them have this complete numbness for such an extended time. its the other thing that makes me broken and inhuman. and every time i do mention it I usually end up wishing I'd just kept pretending to be normal bc being told its depression when it doesnt act like anyone else's depression and doesn't respond to me doing all the things for depression

no functioning sex things no emotions (which means no passions, memory issues, learning issues too!) like. I'm at best a high functioning corpse.

Howdy, acearohanda! I've struggled with treatment-resistant depression and trying a huge range of therapeutic options and have some thoughts here. The first is that you aren't alone in this; lots of people have experienced severe depression like this, and it sucks, and opening up about it is the right thing to do. You may not have encountered people talking about experiences that feel similar to yours, but I assure you, they're out there.

I know others have told you this but I'll say it as well: Everybody (and body) experiences sensation differently, and society and pop culture send a lot of messaging about how we are 'supposed' to feel when aroused or experiencing pleasure, but how you, as an individual person, feel may not align with those. There's no right or wrong way to experience stimuli. BUT, if you haven't done so already, you might want to think about ways to switch things up a bit, like using lube, toys with different textures, and even wearing a glove, rather than going barehanded, to see if things feel different for you.

Third, while this feeling of dulled/absent sensation has been a lifelong issue, it sounds like your depression has been as well, and the first step here is that you gotta get to the bottom of the depression. It's really hard to be in your body, to experience sensation, to feel comfortable, when your brain is making you feel low, and I don't think you're going to resolve this without addressing the depression—I know you have been trying and haven't landed on the right modality yet, and have firsthand experience with how frustrating this is.

A few things to suggest: One, I think you need a new mental health provider, and I would recommend possibly a psychiatrist specifically. Although counselors and other kinds of therapists are great, an MD can have access to more options—you could even consider a neuropsychiatrist, who has even more experience with brain anatomy and physiology. You also need to talk to your primary care provider, or establish care somewhere to start that conversation. If your therapist told you that your depression was a symptom of something else but didn't offer followup suggestions, that's not good, and if you haven't been talking to your primary care provider about this or they're not taking it seriously, that's also not good.

Any number of things could be contributing to depression; you mentioned that you had some bloodwork done, but it's worth repeating and checking on a wider spectrum of levels, in addition to discussing whether you might have apnea or another underlying health issue. Your mental health provider and primary care provider should ideally collaborate with you, together, to share information and explore options. Mental and physical health very much interact with each other and can create feedback loops, and when you're in a very stuck place, it's important to figure out where the blockage is.

You may also find it helpful to poke around and see if there are support groups or online closed communities for people with treatment-resistant depression, especially fellow trans people, because you may be able to connect with people who are going through, or have experienced, what you're feeling. That helps with feeling less alone, and they may also have suggests and recommendations for clinicians who can help you out.

I'm only here for a brief window this week so other members of the Scarleteam will pick back up with you, but I'll try to check in and they'll flag responses from you to make sure I see them!

i mean i have about a grand worth of different toys (none of which are standard amab shape) from chasing that I just need a different stimulus surely. didn't work.

depression has been lifelong (yay emotionally neglectful parents and very late dx audhd) and so has sexual lacking but the emotional numbness hasnt been forever just like...1/4 of my life. my therapist is still working with me beyond "its a symptom" but as I've found my whole life all treatments require you to have some sort of at least somatic emotional response and also memories and I don't.

I've also seen three psychs (shit's expensive for fucking 15 minute appts) and they each told me I was lying about my issues and one misdiagnosed me bipolar (i have never had mania ever i dont even have hyperactive adhd) and loaded me up on mood stabilizers that made me violent towards myself. last one tried to say i have factitious disorder bc i wouldn't let him talk to my parents during my autism assessment (my parents which I am no contact with.)

i do not need new labs i am chronically ill and no one can even figure out what it is. i have had so many labs. since may i have had 13 med/large vials of blood drawn.

i just got a new pcp bc i moved but honestly I don't want to focus on depression there. its taken many doctors to find one that takes complex cases. and I'm sick of my chronic all over pain and chronic fatigue and cognitive issues that have popped up being brushed off as depression bc i have a vagina so i was assigned depression&anxiety at birth apparently. like. i cant feel any pleasure physically. i dont have emotions. i am in constant pain and i literally dont remember what it's like to not be exhausted. of course I'm depressed. trying another numbing, drowsiness inducing medication that ive already tried (and could mean not being able to take adhd meds that i FINALLY got a doctor to give me) is really not what i want.

also like I've had psychs ive had rheums and gi docs and neurologists and immunologists and none of them communicated with each other or my pcp even when within the same building. which seems to be the same experience everyone I know has had so I'm honestly wondering what unicorn health system you've found that does that.

like maybe there is a whole secret hoard of people who have tried everything (except electric shock i am queer and autistic i will not go near that) and still have no feelings and are just so chill with it they don't talk about it. but it doesn't change that treatments are made for big emotions (bc they disrupt others) and meds have a documented blunting/numbing affect.

there's not even real treatment suggestions for anhedonia or general emotional numbness. its literally "just keep doing the things you used to like" and hope for the best. who cares that it'll kill you in a special way and make you hate all your special interests!

i've been trying hard to fix my physical and mental health for basically my entire adult life and ig they both took that as a challenge and have just gotten worse and worse. and you know what the suggestion always is for chronically ill people? TO DO THINGS YOU LIKE and focus on those. same suggestions with getting through current world hell. except I don't like anything! and every time i reach out to anyone professional or otherwise with how debilitating my current body cage is i just get told "sounds like you might be depressed (:" like if all treatments even for treatment resistant depression don't work at what point can we consider maybe its not depression?

this is not me trying to be hostile so I'm sorry if it comes off like that. I've long since learned that just me having conversations is often perceived as fighting so, sorry.

We get it, and it's okay. It makes sense for you to feel really frustrated and helpless at this point, and this is a safe place to voice your feelings, so you're doing that. I also get it personally. While this hasn't typically been the flavor of my own suicidality or depression, it was something my father, who I cared for, struggled with for a solid half of his life, and never fully shook (he, however, did not usually have any access to ongoing healthcare, so a lot of even basic treatment just wasn't even accessible to him). I also have had close friends who have been in similar spots, too. I can clearly remember a time in my teens following a years-long period of suicidality and then a devastating loss, where I began to fall into this kind of numbness, and it felt earnestly terrifying when I realized what was happening. I would not say there is a secret group of people who feel like you do but don't talk about it or are doing just fine somehow. They're not so secret, and I don't think most of them are doing fine. But it does sound like you haven't yourself yet encountered any of them, which has obviously been very isolating.

All of that is to say that I have some sense of where you are and where you've been and I understand you feeling how you do about it. I think it would be far worse if you were not able to at least access the feelings about this you are, and in your case, I count that as a win.

In other words, it's clear you do still experience some feelings. Like, here they are, in the flesh, and pretty intensely, no less. Like Simon talked about with expectations for sex, I want to make sure that you're not creating expectations of what feelings are that don't include, say, anger and frustration, two things that are also very much feelings. I do hear and see that it seems like you've been cut off from a fuller range of feelings for a long time, including feelings that generally feel better than this kind, but I just don't think we help ourselves if and when we create all or nothing frameworks when where we are actually at is somewhere in between, you know?

I do agree with s.e. that this therapist sounds like they aren't actually serving you well, including by talking about or framing depression only as a symptom, rather than as a mental health and medical issue all on its own.

I worry that they might be playing a part in you feeling so hopeless, or things like thinking there are no treatment protocols for anhedonia besides "just keep doing the things you used to like" and what sounds to me like an oversimplification of the options for the kind of mental health issues you've been having as "treatments are made for big emotions (bc they disrupt others) and meds have a documented blunting/numbing affect." That's not my understanding of the options for treatment for anhedonia and I do think that's too simplified a view of treatment and medication. You asking at the end of this about how, if your depression is so resistant to treatment, might it not be depression is also a sound question in my book. By all means, some depression is really just super resistant to current treatments, but you're right, it also may be that depression, or depression by itself, is not all that's going on here. The fact that you are also autistic is something I'd also hope anyone and everyone trying to help you is bearing in mind. My understanding is that autism really complicates trying to find effective treatments further, and that autism itself can sometimes be the issue when something looks like TRD.

I also hear you about the frustrations of doctors being unwilling to work together. Sometimes they are, and other times they aren't, and as someone who has had more of the experience you have with that when it came to my own chronic health conditions, I get the frustration there, too. If you want some help with how to at least try to get your healthcare team to work together, I'm happy to offer some suggestions. At the same time, as a person with chronic health conditions with a lot of people in my life with same, I also 1000% get just being exhausted with the whole system and trying a gazillion things and going on and off meds and having people suggest things that are earnestly insulting. I'd also completely get it if you didn't want anything to do with any kind of healthcare at this point, including wanting to try things with another therapist.

Ultimately, while you came here with this being about sex, because how things are with you and sex are clearly about a much larger and very longstanding mental health issue, I'm sorry to say that we're just not going to be able to do much for you here about it, which is why our user guidelines and the text at the bottom of every page here make clear that we can't stand in for medical care and that we also aren't qualified to -- nor is this a sound environment for -- help users with mental health issues -- and also what sound like longstanding physical health issues as well, like chronic pain and fatigue -- like this.

What we can do is some of the things we're doing here. We can:
• Offer you emotional support and witnessing around this whole thing, particularly the sexual or interpersonal challenges it's included
• Offer practical suggestions and help when it comes to navigating healthcare that come more from a mutual aid/peer information sharing place than a medical professional place
• Help finding other people who share some of what you've been experiencing -- including online groups like https://www.reddit.com/r/anhedonia/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/depression/com ... epression/ -- or other resources for any part of this you'd like help finding resources for
• Offer to help you grow your support net -- I don't get a sense of what the whole of your life looks like when it comes to any other people in it besides healthcare providers and family you don't have or want relationships with, but if that's also a pretty empty field, that obviously won't be helping how hard this all is for you

If any or all of that sounds like help you want, we're here for it, just let us know what that is and what kind of help from us you want with it. But I do think it sounds like we might be at the end of the road in terms of what help we can offer you with anything that's expressly medical just because of our limitations being a sex and relationships education organization with the kinds of online services we offer and the ways we run them, rather than, say, a mental healthcare provider whose job this is, who has clinical training and credentials, your whole health history (which it makes such a big difference to have from the start -- for example, had we known from the start from intake forums alone about both the treatment-resistant depression and your autism we might have done things a little differently or offered different resources) a private office, HIPAA protections and the like. <3

thing is i DON'T feel them. i can logic out what I'm supposed to be feeling. but i am not feeling them. i can be sobbing and say xx situation made me cry it I'm surely crying because i must be upset but i don't actually FEEL anything. if i just don't verbally talk about the thing I'll stop crying and go about my day exactly as i was before (plus the worsened vision from crying.)

anger is the only thing i SOMETIMES feel in a "thing happened and now i would like to rage and destroy everything " except cant do that so it just sorta seethes until i idk eat or something and it becomes something that just happened to me. nothing to do with the anger so.

honestly ive only been seeing this therapist a few months and they're actually the first person I've let myself have a tantrum in front of. dunno if it helped. but theyre also trans and autistic. i supplied the depression as a symptom. the thoughts about treatments are also my own from long before i met them.

and yes autism makes everything just not work. cbt doesn't work at all. i also have a lot of times where meds dont work or do the exact opposite they should or have weird side effects that have never been documented and doctors are just "that cant do that" and like well it did so. also cant look at the autism trd link bc i spent 5 minutes in two browsers trying to do the select images captcha and it just keeps saying I failed (ha i am in fact not human)

honestly i dont want to do anything with healthcare but i am also so tired and dysautonomic and pain that i cant do anything and eventually am going to have to get a job or kms bc gotta work to exist in this bullshit society (even tho i have like a very real intrinsic cant just swallow and deal with it like rejection to working all day until i die.) but also like i am ot even able to do basic human things so idk that not bothering is an option if i stay alive. i found a doctor that at least looks at bw beyond red flag results and she did seem to listen but she also said weird shit like masks dont prevent covid and high vit d DOES and I'm like...man ig i have to pick my flavor of crazy to MAYBE get some help. I'd really rather fucking NOT have to do any of this tho its exhausting and i already am idk audhd burned out or medically exhausted or something.

and yeah no i dont really have friends. i have a few online friends but i only make and keep friends through forced proximity (like work or me constantly pming someone) so there isn't really a net so to speak.

I don't know that i should actually be responding now that i got to the ending bc i was responding piece by piece but i do see we've reached the not equipped to help me part. not that i was expecting medical advice to be clear (in fact doctors are notoriously kind of the worst at helping with sex related things.) course i also didnt actually come here to talk about my brain either i just cant shut the fuck up and have to respond lol

I really feel like what I have been reading is someone having a lot of feelings. Someone crying is also usually someone having a lot of feelings.

One reason I say that is because I don't feel like masking, or typing things here in a way to express feelings you aren't having feels like something it would make sense for you to do here, and that just isn't the vibe I'm getting. Same goes with the crying: unless we have something in our eye, if we're crying, we are feeling something. I really hate to second-guess your own knowledge of yourself -- and I want to be clear that no matter what, I consider you the ultimate authority on your own feelings -- but I also just can't help but wonder if some of this isn't you having the idea that feelings feel differently than they do, and the expectation that they must feel different than they feel to you. Or that you are having feelings but all of you can't access them in a way that makes them legible for you? Do you think that's at least possible something like those things is afoot, even if you don't think it's likely?

You're right, doctors tend to be lousy when it comes to sex. That's because medical schools offer only the tiniest bit of sexuality education, so unless a provider has sought out more education on their own, most of them have about the same amount of sex ed as everyone else, which is to say, not much. But the thing is that it's so clear that, if you want to talk about things that are symptoms, this disconnection to pleasure and sexual response is very clearly a symptom of something much bigger, things that do seem more in the realm of mental and physical healthcare providers, rather than what we can offer as sex educators, especially sex educators who don't have a clear diagnosis to work with of what is most likely at the root of all of this, or a situation where the person with the other issues causing this is having those larger issues treated at least to the point where what we would suggest someone do when it comes to the sexual aspects has any chance of actually working for them.

Per the therapist, you'd said early on you both agreed that depression is a symptom, not its own illness, and that's one reason why we have been suggesting this might not be a great therapist, since that's a pretty unusual view of depression and one that really stands counter to everything we know about it and how it works. If this were my therapist, I'd be concerned if they agreed with me about something like that. I would share similar concerns about a healthcare provider like you have now described who is telling you completely false things about COVID. I get that there's a lot in healthcare and medicine that involves not enough thinking outside the box or openness to other ways of thinking about things, but I also think that there needs to be a limit on that, and when a provider is saying things to us like this, or agreeing with us like this, in my book, they're showing us they probably are not a sound person to get healthcare from. But you're a grownup, and all of these are obviously your choices to make, and like I said, I absolutely understand healthcare burnout (I've had many experiences with it, including as someone with ME/CFS that went undiagnosed for a decade, and a someone who had a portion of their spine literally crumble and collapse after years of a lack of care, poor care, and a lack of the proper diagnosis: seeing a gazillion doctors is exhausting all by itself, let alone everything else that goes with it). That's just my two cents as someone who grew up in healthcare as both a patient and a child with a nurse for a parent, and has worked in and around the field most of my life. It's for you to keep, toss or do whatever you like with.

I'm sorry to hear that you're so socially isolated. That obviously won't help how you've been feeling, and it also makes it so much harder to navigate and go through all the labor involved

It's okay to keep posting here, but we really do need to stick to the things we can actually do within our capacity, that little list I left at the bottom of my last post. Let me know which, if any of these things, you'd still like our help with and we're happy to give it our best:

We can:
• Offer you emotional support and witnessing around this whole thing, particularly the sexual or interpersonal challenges it's included
• Offer practical suggestions and help when it comes to navigating healthcare that come more from a mutual aid/peer information sharing place than a medical professional place
• Help finding other people who share some of what you've been experiencing -- including online groups like https://www.reddit.com/r/anhedonia/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/depression/com ... epression/ -- or other resources for any part of this you'd like help finding resources for
• Offer to help you grow your support net -- I don't get a sense of what the whole of your life looks like when it comes to any other people in it besides healthcare providers and family you don't have or want relationships with, but if that's also a pretty empty field, that obviously won't be helping how hard this all is for you.

i mean I'm sure my brain is still producing emotions but i am still not feeling them (and I used to) so that is still the same as not feeling anything. as for the doctor i agree its weird and it would take nothing at all for me to nope and drop her after one appt. but shes also the first of the 20 or so various doctors ive seen in the past 5 years that didn't dismiss me (for having depression/anxiety, for not having red flag zone labs, for being fat, for being too complex, for not checking the boxes exactly even tho that's not how medicine especially autoimmune works) so seems like immediately firing her might be counterproductive.

also just for your reference since y'all didn't seem to like my statement that brain meds can and do often result in numbing/blunting—that anhedonia reddit is like 80% people who developed anhedonia after taking antidepressants+/-mood stabilizers and continued to have it even after stopping the meds.

and i mean hey if you have suggestions to make friends that isnt just "GO OUT AND DO THINGS" I'd love to know

Hi Acearohands,

I'm going to chime in here and say that, as someone with treatment-resistant depression that I've dealt with for many, MANY years, I see you. It can be incredibly frustrating, and our healthcare system is kind of a hellscape even if you don't have a lot of overlapping conditions. It's also clear that you're spiraling and feeling hopeless. It's understandable, and I wish I could give you a quick fix. I can't. But perhaps there are some reasons to be hopeful?

For example, it does sound like you're happy with your therapist, but you've only been seeing them for a short while, correct? If that's the case, then it may take time to see movement. (I know that's probably the last thing you want to hear, considering how long you've been dealing with this, but that's the nature of therapy.) There is no reason that your primary care doc, your therapist, and a psychiatrist should not be able to work together on your case. I'm not clear on whether you currently have a psychiatrist, but if you don't (or aren't happy with your current one), then perhaps your therapist can recommend someone they already work with?

As for the anhedonia, there are a range of treatments that might be worth discussing with a psychiatrist. If you'd like to read more about some of those possibilities, this article is probably a better resource than reddit. (I think Heather suggested some of those forums as places for support, but they can also spread misinformation that you'll want to be on the lookout for.) It's true that a lot of psychiatrists do not recommend some of the more widely used SSRIs for anhedonia, but that doesn't mean medical interventions can't be effective when combined with appropriate therapy.

Speaking of appropriate therapy, I am also a neurospicy human for whom CBT was a bit of a nightmare. As you can see from the article, that's only one possibility. Mindfulness is something that has been helpful for me in recognizing sensations in my body, identifying feelings, combatting dissociation, and anhedonia. (I agree with Heather that you are clearly *having* feelings, but you may not be able to recognize them. That's a pretty common problem if your brain isn't making those connections.) It requires consistent work, so even if you've tried it before, it might be of some benefit to discuss those techniques now that you have a therapist you like.

As for the friends thing, there are a lot of people who develop deep relationships with others online if you're not able to go out and do stuff. It sounds like you've started to do that, so perhaps it would be helpful to give more attention to the care and feeding of those relationships and see if those folks can connect you with others? Genuine connection and community often feels so far out-of-reach when you're where you are, but I've found it's worth the effort in the long run. With genuine connection in mind, I will leave you with a book recommendation that I (and a lot of other folks) have found to be life-changing. Disability Intimacy is a collection of essays and multimedia work edited by the late and much-missed Alice Wong. I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.

man that first website just one hundo will not load for me just keeps cycling me to prove I'm human (the cruel irony there...)

mindfulness is kind of dangerous for me bc remembering i have a body means my body dysmorphia disorder comes to the forefront. its fun when your brain/body is a fucking cocktail oroburus. and all the treatments for bdd seem to be *drumroll* cbt

i do have a couple online friends I've held onto but its hard when you don't feel your feelings bc that also means you dont remember shit and you don't have passions or excitement to share in anymore. and also like. considering i have never been touched outside of forced obligatory family hugs or like. tattoos (oh i miss them)... having irl people probably seems needed to. had a friend coworker who would casually touch me (mutual, consented, just friendly affection) regularly and that whole two months was like wow maybe someone does want me to exist. touch starvation is a real thing fr.

anyway i will see if my library has that book!

Hi Again acearohanda,

Since you weren't able to access the article through this link, here is a citation:

Serretti A. Anhedonia: Current and future treatments. PCN Rep. 2025 Mar 23;4(1):e70088. doi: 10.1002/pcn5.70088. PMID: 40129874; PMCID: PMC11930767.

If you're already planning a trip to the library, you should be able to access it there. If you have trouble, I guarantee your friendly neighborhood librarian would love to help you. You didn't answer my question about a psychiatrist, but either a psychiatrist or your therapist will be able to access the article with the citation. In the meantime, I assure you that it doesn't have anything to do with your humanity. It's more likely that you might need to clear your cookies on your browser and/or that the Wiley database is being temperamental. (I work with a lot of research databases, and if you're not human because their bot-screening isn't working properly, then I must really be in trouble.)

I've noticed you "joking" about not being human several times. What do you feel like you are getting out of making those kinds of comments about yourself? As I'm reading through this thread it seems to me that everything you're experiencing is DEEPLY human: the desire for connection and touch, the frustration with living in a body that doesn't always respond the way we want it, the despair of living with systems that are deeply dehumanizing.

I think it might be helpful for you to share this thread with your therapist. You're articulating a lot of what you're struggling with clearly, and it might be a tool to help them help you.

i don't have a psych and dont want to find a new one. i have had multiple and they all accused me of lying about my symptoms. and one misdiagnosed me (bc i have low mood and a vagina so i must be bipolar) and the resulting mood stabilizers almost killed me. i dont want to do antidepressants again. they did not help. there's no point in seeing a psych thats only gonna spend 15 minutes with me and doesn't even understand that masking (often unknowingly) is a thing, bc audhd and afab, when i am not trying to get medicated. psyches do not spend time trying to help you through your issues they diagnose and medicate you.

also i was not joking about not being human. the only joke was the last one wrt the captcha. i do not feel human and not being able to do inherently human things/feelings i regularly question if i even qualify as human at this point.

Hi Acearohanda,
I'm sorry you're feeling so down and have had such poor experiences with psychiatrists. It sounds like it's something to consult with your therapist about and perhaps (as I mentioned) they will be able to refer you to someone they trust, and who understands autism, transness, treatment-resistant depression, and sexuality. Even if you haven't encountered them, I promise they're out there. One of the best places to start looking (on your own or with the help of your therapist) is the AASECT referral directory, which I noticed mikky suggested earlier in the thread. Here's the full link in case you need to copy and paste: https://www.aasect.org/referral-directory. You can also try googling things like "psychiatrists who specialize in ___ near ___" or use the psychology today directory that mikky also suggested.

I do hope that you will share this full thread with your therapist, as I think it could be really helpful to you both. Especially because, at this time, I'm not sure what else we can do for you that is within the scope of our ability. It seems clear that we've offered much of what we can, and you aren't finding it helpful. That may be, in part, because what you're experiencing isn't something related to sex that can be solved in isolation.

I wish you the very best of luck, and I hope you are able to continue working with your therapist to get the help you need.