Things That Scare Me As An Aspec Person

Image description: Seven of Nine in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "One," looking terrified as she faces her fear of being alone. This is very relevant to today's spooky-themed post about my own personal aspec fears. We'll be revisiting this theme soon enough, so stay tuned.

For many people, we are right in the middle of their favorite time of year – “spooky season,” the lead up to Halloween. But for me (unpopular opinion alert), spooky season and Halloween aren’t really my thing. Once I hit the age where it was no longer socially acceptable to go trick-or-treating, it became far easier to get treats on the day after Halloween, and as a giant scaredy-cat, I am definitely not up for tricks. However, I do love to be thematically appropriate, and as such I’ve wanted to put posts about spooky topics in this spooky season, such as next week’s look at the terrifying Borg through an aspec lens. But for today, I want to reframe the idea of what “frightening” can mean. Zombies? Ghosts? Vampires? They’re all perfectly creepy for a horror film or a scary costume, but there are things that scare me even more than the creatures that populate Halloween time. So in this post, I’m harnessing the Halloween horror and bringing it back to the real world.

The notion of what frightens different people has always fascinated me. For instance, read a science fiction novel from the 1960s or watch an old episode of The Twilight Zone and you can see themes like nuclear destruction, the terrifying unknown of space exploration, mass hysteria, and what a technological future may become if not properly measured. These scary stories give us a glance at the zeitgeist of the time and what was keeping these writers awake at night. When it comes to myself, I too have spent a lot of time thinking about what scares me; like those sci-fi writers of the past, I also find myself fearing what the future may look like, what isolation can do to a person, and what new and frightening things we may have to navigate. But, as with everything, it is all through my own personal lens, and so this post is all about the things that specifically scare me as an aspec person. They may not be eerie or supernatural, but I would argue that makes them even more terrifying – and thus perfectly keeping with the season of fright.

Spoiler warning! 

Star Trek: Voyager ("One", "The Thaw" - brief spoilers)

The Big Bang Theory (general)

Glee (general)

House ("Better Half")

Content warning: Discussions of Aphobia/Asexual Discrimination; Brief mention of hospitals & medical procedures; Discussions of anxiety and self-doubt; use of the word "queer" to refer to non-straight sexual identities

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Coming out to people as aspec

I’ve been identifying as an aromantic asexual for a long time. As such, it may be easy to imagine – and sometimes I can even convince myself – that coming out to people as AroAce is simple for me to do. But no matter how many times I’ve done it, it’s never once stopped being utterly petrifying. Honestly, I think coming out is one of those things that will always be scary regardless of your identity or how long you’ve been describing yourself that way, because the circumstances always feel different depending on who you’re trying to come out to and when. In my own life, my parents and closest friends know I’m AroAce and have for years. A few trusted former co-workers whom I consider dear friends know too (hello, if you’re reading this post!). In each of those instances, the circumstances, methods, and reactions were all different, which is totally expected, but also creates the unfortunate paradox that there is no universally applicable template for coming out as aspec. As such, each time I want to come out to a new person/group, in a new scenario, etc., it feels like having to start from scratch, and thus can be incredibly scary.

For any identity, coming out can be scary because you never know how someone will react, and I think a lot of people’s minds tend to jump right to the worst-case scenario. In my experience as an aspec person, it becomes even scarier for a number of reasons, not the least of which is having to explain yourself in great detail before you can be understood. Worse than this, however, is the unfortunate implications that come with aspec identities not being very well-known. I often worry about telling newer friends I’m aspec because I fear they’ll assume that I’m judging them, or that I’m no longer relatable. Although I’m never judging my allosexual friends, family members, etc., there’s a constant worry in the back of my mind that they’ll feel bad about themselves if I come out to them.

It's important to note for anyone of any identity that only you get to decide the right time to come out safely. With some obvious exceptions, coming out is not something you have to do for everyone or in every situation, and indeed there are some instances in which coming out may never factor into a situation. However, in my case, I also worry that if I don’t tell people this part of me, it may lead to misunderstandings between us and that, if I come out later, they’ll wonder why I didn’t tell them sooner. And above all, like anyone, I fear the judgment that could arise. For these and so many other reasons, coming out as aspec is never easy, no matter how long I’ve been doing it or how many people I’ve told, and it still puts a feeling of apprehension in the pit of my stomach whenever I try.

Ending up completely alone

Image description: Another image of Seven of Nine in "One." In this episode, Seven's fear of being alone is multi-pronged. As a former Borg drone no longer connected to the hive mind, she fears literally being by herself; but she's also scared of being rejected, being weak, and being unable to do what needs to be done as an individual. All of these are extremely relatable and really fit the theme of this post.

One of the reasons I think coming out can be scary for any identity is the fear that we’ll end up alone because of it – that our families and friends will desert us, that communities will reject us, and that certain recognizable elements will vanish from our lives. I think many people have this fear in some form or another, and this scary scenario is technically a possibility for anyone in any group. However, for minority identities, I think it becomes even more frightening because there are indeed instances where this happens. While the notion of being “completely” alone may be hyperbole, there are definitely situations in which people, for a variety of reasons, find themselves abandoned by those who were once important to them, and are unable to recover enough to forge other relationships or simply don’t want to form them.

I can’t say for sure, but I feel like the fear of ending up alone is a very primal and inherent one. In time periods in which individuals had to rely on groups for safety and security, being kicked out of said group was often a death sentence. But even for those of us who live in societies where groups are more optional than required, I believe that the fear of abandonment is likely still engrained within us, and just takes on new and different forms. For many of us, being removed from a group doesn’t mean we’ll starve or get attacked by wild animals like perhaps it did thousands of years ago; but it does mean that we may lose respect, friends, family members, a livelihood, or any number of important things, including our own sense of self.

I’ve previously discussed how media portrays “ending up alone” in a romantic sense as the ultimate mark of failure and a pitiable cautionary tale. A lot of media weaponizes the concept of being alone, and wields this weapon so that culture often prioritizes romance as the highest ideal in life. Various kinds of media portray friendship and even family relationships as ultimately “second best,” and seem very adamant in the belief that only romantic relationships will last. For me specifically, as an AroAce person, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that I will never have a long-term partner of any kind and as a result, I often fear that I’ll end up navigating the hardships of life by myself. On the one hand, this fear links up with the fear of losing my friends, because I worry that if my friends eventually leave me, then I’ll have no one to rely on as the years go on. But even if my friends remain, this fear still remains in the back of my mind as well, because friends can’t always be around when you need them the way a romantic partner might be.

For instance, not long ago I accompanied one of my parents to the emergency room. They ended up being completely fine, but the experience was nerve-wracking for everyone involved as we remained at the hospital for various health checks for nearly five hours. Hospitals and doctor visits are a scary thing in general, but I was particularly disquieted by imagining my future self having to go through something like this all alone. Obviously trying to look so far ahead into the future and for such a specific reason is hardly an exact science, but it nevertheless serves as an example of why being alone in this manner worries me. In some ways, I don’t fear dying alone as much as I fear living alone, and while I do enjoy being on my own and am often happiest by myself, the notion of having it forever is sometimes a difficult pill to swallow.

Being shunned/being seen as intolerant or bigoted

If the last fear was about losing people due to my identity and the first fear was about not wanting to make people think I’m judging them when I share my identity with them, this one feels like the culmination of both. While I’ve been extremely lucky and have never been shunned by my family or close friends for being aspec, this fear lingers. This is thanks in large part to the unfortunate realities I discuss on this blog all the time – the rampant nature of aphobia, the persistence of amatonormativity, and the general misunderstandings people have for aspec identities.

When it comes to being shunned for being aspec, I’ve indeed experienced forms of this throughout my life. In high school, before I discovered aspec identities, I was routinely called a prude for not being comfortable with or understanding things like dating or sex – even by people I thought were my friends. I never pushed back against this for a few reasons, chiefly because I didn’t yet know that asexuality was a valid identity and so I assumed they were right. I assumed that I was indeed a prude and that there was something wrong with me that I would eventually need to “grow out of” or “fix” if I wanted to be accepted. But there was an extra layer added to my reluctance to challenge this narrative – because some of my friends had queer identities themselves, I was always afraid that I would offend or upset them if I defended myself or even expressed my discomfort with sex.

Because many of these people were just coming to understand and accept their identities themselves, they were understandably cautious about who they trusted. As such, I was afraid that my “prudish nature” would not only mean they wouldn’t want to associate with me anymore, but that they would assume I was bigoted or ignorant because of my reluctance to discuss certain topics or themes. I’m sure I didn’t help anything by how awkward I was when these topics came up; even these days, when I’ve embraced my identity for years, I’m still very awkward around sexual themes or topics, and I know I was even worse back then as a young teenager. But unfortunately, these types of problems and misunderstanding are not endemic just to young teenagers and I can’t say with any certainty that they’ve improved much since my days as a high school freshman.

In my recent post about filtering content, I mentioned there are people who want to censor media because they oppose certain identities or because they don’t want sex or sexuality portrayed in media at all. Because this type of censorship has been a pernicious problem for a long time, the unfortunate reality is that people like me often get unfairly lumped in with people who want to wantonly censor or ban anything they don’t agree with. In my case, and I’m sure in the case of most people like me, that’s not what we want at all. There are a lot of valid reasons why someone may crave a safer, more enjoyable media experience, or where someone like me may be uncomfortable in situations that are highly sexualized. Oftentimes, we’re not asking the people or the media around us to change, rather we are hoping to have our own boundaries respected. But instead, we are treated much like I was treated in high school.

The most ironic thing about sexual censorship is that it actually makes life harder for non-sexual people like me. Censorship, banning, and other forms of limiting artistic expression are never actually helpful, but instead they create an atmosphere in which someone like me – a sex-repulsed AroAce – is made into the villain. As such, I live in fear that my opinions will be seen as bigoted, even though I’m not ever asking for censorship or advocating that representation be taken away from other sexual identities or minority groups. And, because I’ve seen other aspec people in online spaces be called bigoted or ignorant because they have certain beliefs about certain characters, I know this fear is not baseless.

Losing my safe spaces

Speaking of safe spaces, this next fear is one I know extremely well; in fact, it may haunt me even more than the others. If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you know I discuss my personal safe space media a lot. But all of my safe spaces nevertheless scare me deeply, because I know there is a very real possibility of them becoming not safe someday. The notion of “safe” will inevitably mean different things to different people, and there is no universal template for “aspec safe media”; for example, some aspec people may be fine with watching sex scenes, while others might not be able to watch them at all. Personally, as a sex-repulsed AroAce, I very much fall into the latter category and as such, my safe spaces become even more important and the thought of losing them becomes even more frightening. For instance, if I’m watching a piece of media that has, up to a certain point, been completely non-sexual, I often worry it will eventually change for some reason. If I’ve felt comfortable with a specific type of media, character, or storyline, I often fear that these things will morph to be more “normal” or “mainstream” due to any number of various pressures. Once again, this isn’t a baseless fear, as I’ve had it happen to me frequently.

This fear also goes deeper than just a piece of media changing or becoming unsafe; it’s also a question of how people relate to media, how they react to media that is not overtly sexual, and how aspec fans are treated within fandom spaces. This is another issue I’ve discussed before, so I won’t belabor the point here, but I think it’s important to note that what is casual and acceptable for some fans – or what some people think a piece of media “owes” them – is actively destructive to other fans. As such, non-sexual safe spaces often come under attack due to people not understanding the reasons why people like me might need these spaces. Thus, it’s quite easy (at least in my experience) to begin believing that you neither deserve safe spaces nor will you get them – or that they’ll eventually be taken away. For instance, because Western entertainment has not met my needs for a long time, I’ve turned to Korean media; but as those things become more popular throughout the West, I worry they’ll be expected to change to fit the standard that I was trying to escape in the first place. It’s an endless, exhausting struggle.

Image description: At the time of writing this post, I've seen about twenty K-dramas thus far, so mine is hardly a comprehensive study. Even so, a large majority of these dramas have been almost entirely non-sexual. However, a few made exclusively by streaming services like Netflix or adapted from Western media - including Money Heist Korea: Joint Economic Area, pictured here, based on the Spanish show Money Heist - do include a bit of sexual content. Although brief and usually far milder than they'd likely be in Western media, I nevertheless feel a bit of worry that this will become the norm.

That being AroAce will subsume my entire identity

This fear probably sounds a little odd, so let me explain. I have always been beyond grateful for the terminology I have to describe myself, especially in a world that is often hyper-sexualized. While I would never want to give up my terminology, sometimes I feel that being AroAce will eventually become (or perhaps already has become) my whole identity, whether to other people or to myself. I’ve always wanted to be seen as a friend who is creative, a good listener, humorous, loyal, etc., but more and more I feel like my only legacy will be “the aspec friend”. When I write, whether it’s poetry or fiction, I’ve always hoped that my diction, imagery, or characters would be the things that make me unique, but more often than not, I feel like there’s nothing that sets me apart other than being “an aspec writer who writes aspec stories.” I acknowledge that much of this is probably just rooted in a fair degree of Imposter Syndrome. And yet, in many other cases, this fear is quite reality based.

Many times, I feel like I must actively self-identify as aspec in order to explain myself or justify why I feel a certain way, in large part because society still views aspec tendencies as a nuisance. As mentioned previously, aphobia in fandom is often so unconsciously engrained that many allosexual people push people like me out of fandom spaces without even realizing they’re doing it. Therefore, something as simple as asking for representation or expressing a minority opinion can become so extremely fraught, that often the only way to even justify the behavior is to point out my aspec identity, whether or not I really want to.

Naturally, identifying as aspec in these situations can often make them even worse. If there’s anything worse than the implication that you’re not welcome in your fandom because you’re aspec, it’s having it proven to you. I’m not allowed to simply be a fan who, for instance, doesn’t want to see my favorite characters sexualized or who wants to be allowed to enjoy a fandom in a non-sexual way; instead, I am forced to feel at all times that I am the “aspec fan,” thus being reminded I am in the minority opinion and likely won’t get to have a “normal” fan experience. In that way, it doesn’t matter how creative, knowledgeable, approachable, or dedicated a fan I am; rather, it only matters that I’m an aspec one. Therefore, I am often left with the feeling that “my life would be so much easier if I could just experience things like everyone else.”

Being wrong

These last two fears are a bit darker. The fear of “being wrong” may sound like it’s a social thing – as if I’m scared that society will consider me “wrong” and will treat me as such. And while that certainly does factor into my fears, in this case, I mean something else entirely. Here, I mean that I’m often afraid something will eventually disprove my aspec identity and that I’ll be wrong in my beliefs about myself as a result. Although I admit a lot of this is probably just paranoia on my part, this phobia isn’t baseless because it comes from people and media’s attitudes about asexuality and its related identities.

Something you may be familiar with – whether you’ve experienced it yourself or you perhaps read my Tropes series – is the concept of people treating asexuality as a lie or a medical condition. In the post I dedicated entirely to this particular trope, I spoke at length about an episode of the medical drama House called “Better Half,” which featured an asexual couple whose asexuality is disproved by the main characters. Spoilers: In the case of the wife, she’s lying for the sake of her husband; in the husband’s case, he has a tumor that can be cured, restoring his sex drive to “normal” levels. Worse, the entire thing is played off as a “humorous” side plot, encouraging the audience to find the entire scenario “goofy,” despite how horrifying it is from an asexual perspective.

Part of what makes this portrayal so frightful is that asexuality is mentioned by name, and that, because the show is a medical drama, it lends credence (albeit probably undeservedly so) to the notion that asexuality is medically “fixable.” However, I wish I could say “Better Half” is the only instance of this occurring in media. For instance, we also have characters like Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, whose aspec tendencies are played off as something he can eventually “get over”; or how about Emma Pillsbury from Glee, whose non-sexual nature is alternately portrayed as her just being in love with character Will Schuster (which isn’t too terrible) or as just an offshoot of her OCD, which other characters routinely mock her for (which is definitely very terrible). And of course, these things don’t just stay limited to media. Although this hasn’t happened to me as much in recent years, there were numerous times in the past when people around me would insist that asexuality isn’t real. While a lot of this likely has its roots in that age-old problem of asexuality and its related identities not being well-known, there were plenty of times where people – from relatives to acquaintances to perfect strangers – were rather insistent that my lack of sexual and romantic attraction were not normal and were thus problems I needed to fix.

While all of this can seem at first glance like instances of people just being ill-informed or close minded, and perhaps they may be, it isn’t always so easy to escape from the anxiety these events cause. When you experience these attitudes a lot, whether in media or real life, they can eventually form an unpleasant mental background noise that makes you fear you’ve perhaps been the one in the wrong the entire time. In that way, it feels a little bit like other people making you doubt your own reality, and that doubt can be cripplingly difficult to overcome. In my experience, sometimes it leads to the feeling that maybe being wrong about myself is inevitable and that I can’t trust my own perception of my life, which is a terrible mental place to be in at all, and leads me into the final fear on this list.

Not wanting to be me

Even worse than the fear of not being aspec, is an even more horrifying and haunting fear: not wanting to be aspec. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes I am plagued by the feeling that my life would be far easier, and ostensibly better, if I was different. When considering all these other fears, this one does feel like an inevitable side effect, but for as logical as this fear feels in the grand scheme of things, it’s also pernicious. It’s one of those things I know I shouldn’t feel, still feel anyway, and then feel guilty about it, making it a harder trap to walk out of. This fear sometimes pulls me in with the justification that I wouldn’t want to change all of myself, just a little bit here and there. Why can’t I be aspec, but not sex-repulsed? Could I learn to have a different attitude if I just tried hard enough? Maybe I could get really good at faking it or desensitize myself to it, and then my life would be "so much better."

But even these tiny moments of wishing for a change can become a slippery slope and are ultimately fruitless. Even though these things might make life a little bit more navigable in the short term, I know they wouldn’t really make me happy in the long term. Unfortunately, that can be a cold comfort, because when I know these things are both impossible and inadvisable besides, it leaves me with the feeling that things will not get better. However, of all the fears discussed in this post, this one is arguably the one I’ve gotten better with over the years. A lot of that comes from continuing to grow and mature in my identity; it comes from self-reflection, self-acceptance, and a continued desire to love myself. And a lot of it comes from having outlets such as this blog, a form of expression I’m always very grateful for and one which is helping me in my own quest to accept all the parts of myself, even the scary ones.

Image description: An image (not my own) of RM, the leader of BTS, performing the song "Reflection," a song whose repeated lyrics and themes are "I wish I could love myself." BTS's music has taken me on my own journey of reflection and self-love that has been extremely valuable in combatting many of the fears on this list, especially this final one.

Although these things are all very frightening to me, I like to think there’s a ray of hope to each of them as well. For instance, although I fear ending up alone to fend for myself, maybe this fear can lead to something that will benefit myself and others in the future, like getting involved in charity work that helps people feel less lonely. If I struggle with self-acceptance or losing my safe spaces, maybe it will just encourage me to make safe spaces for others. All in all, while I know a lot of these fears may never truly go away, I also think that many of them could become a springboard to better things in the future. It may be a continual effort to overcome these fears when they arise, but each time I beat them back, I may find myself having gained something valuable, and that is definitely worth the effort.

In the Star Trek: Voyager episode “The Thaw” – an episode all about fear (and very creepy, perfect for spooky season) – Captain Janeway has a quote that I think sums things up perfectly: “fear only exists for one purpose: to be conquered.” In that process of conquering our fears, a process I believe often happens in a cycle, I think there is the potential to learn a lot about ourselves and the world around us. Although there are of course days where I struggle with all the things I’ve discussed in this post, the effort to overcome them is always valuable. Even if being me is scary sometimes, it would be far more terrifying to try and be someone else.