Chronic Grief, Low Reward, and the Value Proposition of Life

[Wizardry]

Everybody experiences adversity in their lives. No one ends up dying of old age without knowing pain and hardship. Most people seem to have at least something in their lives that brings them enough joy and contentment that life is worth living in spite of the pain and hardship that is an inherent part of existence.

When someone is experiencing intense suffering that seems like it'll never end, and they don't have anything that brings them enough joy or contentment to make life worth living in spite of that ongoing suffering, the value proposition of life collapses. If significant enough joy or contentment to make the value proposition of life coherent is not achievable for this individual, they may have nothing significant to look forward to except the day they no longer exist.

To be honest, I hate living in this world under these circumstances. I've experienced extreme anguish, discontentment, despair and psychogical torture in ways I don't expect anyone else to ever truly understand, all while having nothing to make it all worthwhile. I've experienced kinds of personal tragedies and trauma that no one else would even believe, let alone be able to empathise with. The one thing that I've always wanted from life has been kept out of my reach in ways that feel cruelly contrived, and most people don't have to miss out on it like I have, so I'm an outlier in an incredibly upsetting way.

People tend to not want to accept this reality (and I understand why, but it is the reality nonetheless), but for my life, finally getting to have a committed, compatible romantic partner would make all the difference between life being something to be endured vs life being something to be enjoyed. I've had to put up with romantic deprivation, the resulting ongoing unresolvable grief, triggering normative reminders of what I'm missing out on, narrowing reward pathways and being misunderstood by others for far, far too long. A romantic relationship with a compatible woman is the only thing that could resolve some of my grief, bring me enough joy and contentment to be enthused about life and bring my other reward pathways back online. I'm kind of like a male sleeping beauty.

As it stands, I don't really feel anything for anyone. My mother is the closest relationship I have, and even there I have mixed feelings. She prioritised keeping me safe in childhood and modelling virtuous values, but she completely failed at preparing me for adult life, helping me develop the skills I needed or focusing on my future and future needs. I developed amblyopia/strabismus (lazy eye) as a young child. The optometrist told us that I needed to wear an eyepatch on my good eye in order for my bad eye to develop properly. My mother would sometimes randomly ask me to wear the eyepatch while I was watching TV, which of course being a young child who couldn't fully grasp the consequences of not doing so, I declined. When I declined, she wasn't insistent, she would just give up. I ended up aging past the developmental window without wearing the eyepatch anywhere near enough. I am legally blind in my bad eye today, all because my mother was not insistent enough that I wear that eyepatch. My mum can offer emotional support at times, but when the stakes are high and I need more than emotional support, I'm on my own. That's pretty much the way it's always been.

My father didn't enter the picture until I was in my mid teens. I specifically asked him about girls multiple times and told him I was struggling, and all he had was one-sentence responses for me. Either he didn't care enough to help me, or he actually didn't have any advice to give me. When I realised that my life has very likely been significantly more difficult and less rewarding as a result of not having an invested male role-model while growing up, I cut what little contact I had with my father off and told him exactly what I thought of him. I don't respect him as a father, and there is nothing he can do for me now.

My life has effectively been shaped by absence. Absence of parental scaffolding and guidance. Father/male role-model absence during childhood. Absence of romantic relationships. Absence of adequate help and support for my difficulties. And now, absence of anything that could offer contentment or make me feel alive except one thing that I don't have full control over getting, and where I experience compounding disadvantages as it relates to getting it.

Now, I spend the bulk of my free time in bed alternating between scrolling on social media, perusing forums and watching youtube videos. It seems that nothing I can do is going to actually get me what I want, so minimal reward begets minimal effort. I've put on a lot of weight such that I don't feel confident with my body, so I've tried to cut down on the sugar, but it hasn't been sustainable. I'm addicted to UberEats because I don't have the experience or frankly the motivation to cook, and sugar is one of my very few reliable sources of reward. It doesn't help that I live with my mum and she doesn't cook either and also just orders UberEats for meals. I resent that what has been modelled for me by my mother is staying home, ordering food and smoking a lot of weed (which I can't even do myself anymore due to something horrible that happened to me). It's really frustrating that all of the behavioural modelling that I've been given from my mother consists of is bad habits that need to be overcome and don't contribute positively to my life in any way, all while the only thing that is s central motivator/grief alleviator appears like it will remain out of reach for the forseeable future no matter what I do.

I don't know what I'm expecting from this post. The likelihood that I'll receive applicable life-changing advice is low. Hopefully at the very least people understand and appreciate where I'm coming from.

 

[monkeyclogs]

it sounds like you are struggling with depression. you probably already know this but I just wanted to say I read and understood.

Sometimes it can feel like you have no future but you always have agency. my only advice is to do something new today, however small and seemingly insignificant. it makes a bigger difference than you would imagine.

 

[Wizardry]

it sounds like you are struggling with depression.

It's not depression, it's grief. They can seem quite similar in some ways, but the causes are very different. The distinction is important, because treatments and approaches that typically work for depression don't touch what I'm going through.

Depression generally involves a malfunction in perception or a chemical imbalance. Those things are not the driving force here.

I'll quote my post from another thread that clearly explains why what I'm dealing with is a grief state.

This is a take that I think a lot of people aren't ready to hear yet, but for some people, permanent romantic absence manifests not as depression, not as entitlement, and not merely as longing, but as chronic grief. It's not just the absence of a positive, but the presence of a negative.

Grief is often defined as coming from loss or bereavement, but that is only the most visible and socially validated way that a grief state can occur. Relational grief is not fundamentally about loss. It is about the sustained absence of an expected, meaningful relationship or role. People experience childless/infertility grief when they really want children but aren't able to have them. People who grow up without a father can retrospectively grieve a paternal figure when they realise the developmental cost of fatherlessness. Some people grieve not being able to experience being and having a romantic partner when the desire for that kind of relationship is salient and there's no grounding reason to expect it's going to happen.

We acknowledge that spousal bereavement is emotionally difficult because a spouse is an important part of their partner's life. We validate break-up grief as being real because the benefits of being in a relationship and an imagined future with a significant other were lost. If romance was really as trivial and substitutable as some people like to pretend when confronted with someone experiencing permanent romantic absence, losing a partner should be as trivial as never getting to have one, but nobody thinks about it that way because getting to experience romantic relationships is important for most people.

The logic being used is like saying a rich person who becomes poor feels economically disenfranchised, but a person who's been poor their whole life doesn't feel that way, never did, and wouldn't be validated if they claimed they ever felt that way. Loss-based grief makes it so that somebody with a higher emotional baseline falls to a lower emotional baseline. Absence-based grief often results in a stably low emotional baseline, so it's less visible and commonly minimised.

People who are asking you to accept not having a romantic partner are unknowingly asking you to embrace grief as your permanent emotional baseline. Acceptance-based framing in the context of bereavement is only humane because there is no intervention that can revive the dead, so acceptance is tragically necessary. In the case of grief based on romantic absence, it may be difficult, but there is a way to resolve that grief, so acceptance-based prescriptions are lazy and unethical.

No offence, but this appears to be exactly the kind of misunderstanding my problems that I was referring to in my post. I don't blame you though. It's common for people to think this sort of thing is depression.

 

[Wizardry]

I guess my OP was a bit of a chaotic rant, but the general point is that most people have something to live for or enjoy that serves as a motivational anchor. Maybe they're momentarily going through a difficult time, or having to make sacrifices in the pursuit of personal growth, but they have something that makes it all ultimately worthwhile and sustainable.

Given indefinitely ongoing chronic grief over never getting to experience romantic love and the resulting narrowing of my reward pathways, my only motivational anchor is mutual romantic/erotic love and acceptance, and that isn't going to change until I've properly had those experiences to resolve my grief state, awaken emotionally through finally feeling love, and as a result, my other reward pathways come back online.

Given that there is no set of actions I can take to guarantee I get what I need to feel like life is actually worth my while, and I have significant factors working against me to that end like weight, inexperience, autistic social difficulties, no romantic modelling or guidance growing up and emotional numbness, I don't know how I'm supposed to have sustainable motivation to do what needs to be done to actually improve my chances of forming a romantic relationship.

How do I sustainably cut out sugar when it's one of the few things still giving me reward and there's no guarantee that by sacrificing it, I'll actually get what I need? How do I work around both autistic social skills difficulties and emotional numbness to start dating successfully? When having a romantic partner is the only central motivator and I can't fathom how that's achievable given the circumstances, there's no coherent reason to be motivated to do anything except extract what little reward I can from sugar, funny videos and making sense of my life and the world until a feasible pathway to establish a romantic relationship becomes clear, or until I croak.

 

[Matthias]

I don't know what I'm expecting from this post. The likelihood that I'll receive applicable life-changing advice is low. Hopefully at the very least people understand and appreciate where I'm coming from.

I'm glad to hear you weren't writing a suicide note because the first few paragraphs had me concerned that's where your post was going. I remember watching a documentary awhile ago where they asked people in developing countries what they thought causes depression and they said social isolation. I remember reading the Greek philosophers wrote the same thing 2000 years ago. Their advice for protecting against depression was "Don't be idle. Don't be alone." I agree with you 100% that a lack of good relationships plays a major role in a depressed mood although I've found that a variety of relationships (family, friends, romantic partners, or feeling part of an organization or cause that you value) can all help meet the need for social connection. I understand the appeal for a romantic partner since family isn't an option for some people and friendships tends to be weaker after people graduate from school, get a full-time job, and start a family.

If you want advice, my advice is to ask Google's Gemini AI for help. It's not perfect or 100% accurate but after improvements during the last few months I've found that it understands me better and provides better advice than people give me. You can ask it to help with almost anything such as ask it to help you figure out why you haven't been able to get a girlfriend or to develop a plan to help you find someone. One thing about AI that I find helpful is that it doesn't doubt me like people do. It generally accepts what I say as true and offers to help based on that information, unlike a therapist who might think you're confused and not take you seriously.

 

[Wizardry]

I'm glad to hear you weren't writing a suicide note because the first few paragraphs had me concerned that's where your post was going.

No, it's not a suicide note, but frankly suicide wouldn't be irrational given the circumstances.

I remember watching a documentary awhile ago where they asked people in developing countries what they thought causes depression and they said social isolation. I remember reading the Greek philosophers wrote the same thing 2000 years ago. Their advice for protecting against depression was "Don't be idle. Don't be alone."

Yes, like I said in my post, for the hardships and adversity inherent of life, there has to be something to make it all worthwhile for the value proposition of life to make sense. For many people, connections and relationships are one of the most important parts of that equation. Those who can find enjoyment or meaning without feeling connected to other people might be able to get by with no relationships (familial, platonic or romantic), but those people would be in the minority. In my case, I lack the one kind of connection that would be meaningful to me while also lacking access to significant alternate sources of pleasure, reward and enjoyment, and it all ties back to the same thing.

I agree with you 100% that a lack of good relationships plays a major role in a depressed mood although I've found that a variety of relationships (family, friends, romantic partners, or feeling part of an organization or cause that you value) can all help meet the need for social connection. I understand the appeal for a romantic partner since family isn't an option for some people and friendships tends to be weaker after people graduate from school, get a full-time job, and start a family.

The thing is I'm not just looking for social connection generally. My need is for mutual romantic/erotic connection rather than social connection. That being the case, obviously familial and platonic relationships can't meet that need. If I just wanted social connection, this would be a much easier problem to solve, but I actually don't really enjoy other people's company while I'm dealing with the chronic grief I'm dealing with. This is especially true if I have to see or hear about their romantic relationships.

It's not that I can't find value in interacting with others (that's literally what I'm doing here), but the value is in meaning-making and discussing beliefs and belief systems, not in feeling connected or attached to other people. In other words, the people themselves are disposable. It's the topics of conversation that are interesting. Platonic human connection actually isn't legible to me while I'm dealing with the grief I'm dealing with. Friendship (and probably familial relationships too) is one of those reward pathways that has been narrowed by grief.

The grief comes from a specific significant, expected but absent relational role, and it's not interchangeable with other relational roles. Romantic connection offers benefits that no other kind of connection does, including such things as intimacy, increased oxytocin, nervous system co-regulation, erotic connection and mutual attraction/being desired (ideally) both physically and mentally by another person. These are the things I actually want. Friendship is not even a consolation prize because it doesn't offer any of the things I want from connection.

I'm willing to get out there and interact with others in a platonic, friendly context even if I don't feel connected to them as a means to an end of getting the kind of relationship I actually want, but going out just for the sake of platonic connection without any reasonable prospect of meeting someone who could become a romantic partner doesn't offer anything I value, and having to mask and try to fit in despite my stilted emotional state wouldn't be worth it in that context.

If you want advice, my advice is to ask Google's Gemini AI for help. It's not perfect or 100% accurate but after improvements during the last few months I've found that it understands me better and provides better advice than people give me. You can ask it to help with almost anything such as ask it to help you figure out why you haven't been able to get a girlfriend or to develop a plan to help you find someone. One thing about AI that I find helpful is that it doesn't doubt me like people do. It generally accepts what I say as true and offers to help based on that information, unlike a therapist who might think you're confused and not take you seriously.

.
Thanks for the tip. I've already used ChatGPT and found that it understood me better than any human ever has. I didn't set out to do this, but through persistently asking the right questions, I developed a framework that maps out my situation very coherently and seems to account for realities that other psychological frameworks don't predict or acknowledge. It's actually how I came to realise that what I'm dealing with is a grief state that is more comparable to acute breakup grief/spousal bereavement than anything else, but with no way to move onto a new chapter of life except for the only resolution pathway (which is "romantic calibration").

 

[Raggamuffin]

I went from ChatGPT to Gemini and added specific prompts to stop it being an echo chamber for my mental health struggles.

I too crave sugar a lot. Although it does hit you with rather rapid peaks and troughs. Bit like when I used to drink - I thought it helped, but long term it isn't. I'm not sure about yourself, but I find I am very "all or nothing" so with diet, if I wanted to improve it I had to go "all in" because whenever I tried to reintroduce sugar I'd just end up straight back on it.

Relationships are tricky when it comes to mental health struggles, as it often exacerbates and creates new stressors. Finding someone who is a good fit is key. I've dated 12 people, and my gut/instinct said "don't go there" with each of them, but I did so regardless. Often due to the intoxicating high of the chemicals released when you are in the early days of liking someone and taking things further. A bit like the sugar firing off the reward centres in the brain. Truth is, I was often so low and lonely that someone liking me was like a moth to a flame. I knew I was playing with fire, and each time I did get burnt. But when you feel like you're in such a dark place, and someone likes your more than you like yourself at the time - it can be hard to resist.

Took a long time to finally feel content enough in myself to be single - and feeling happier for it.

With regards to your experience - intense suffering; if you believe it will remain the same; your beliefs create your reality. Thus you will likely be stuck in the same self-fulfilling cycle. The problem is with such suffering you then lose interest and energy and pleasure in most aspects of life. So, as you say - sugar is a guaranteed quick fix. Or looking at nudey ladies for example. After a very difficult breakup I myself saw escorts on and off for a while. There's many examples of people getting addicted to that - because you have an hour or 2 of guaranteed understanding, comfort and also the sexual side. But these are like plastering the cracks on a wall of a house when the foundations are failing - temporary measures.

You mentioned experiencing pyschological torture - I recently came out of an emotionally abusive relationship, and I think words often fail to even begin to describe what people are capable of doing to one another, but also the strength of the human resolve to get through. You are a survivor, but the scars it leaves are deep. You are more than your scars though.

Have you ever heard of Gabor Maté? Worth looking up on Youtube, or his books. He specialises in trauma, how it manifests, how to heal from it.

You say that a romantic relationship is going to be the only way to resolve some of your issues - but that is outsourcing your happiness and fulfillment onto another. I too did this for a long time. My childhood trauma led to me being a people-pleaser and using the Fawn Response on a daily basis. Thus I outsourced my own self-worth to others. Be mindful that "the way out is in". I will say that relationships can reveal many things within yourself that need healing, but the way these things surface can be harrowing and deeply unsettling.

Someone else I recommend looking into is Joe Dispenza. He's also on Youtube and has books and courses. Worth looking into with an open mind.

Finally, what would your ideal partner look and be like? I imagine you have an image in your mind's eye. Who would they be? How would you meet? Do you think qualities you want in this person are potentially qualities you find lacking within yourself?

Personally, I came from years of chronic pain due to anxiety and depression. Years of substance abuse. Sugar is the final addiction I'm hoping to eventually kick - but I get it, it gives such an instant and pleasurable feeling, it's hard to part ways.

I do wish you all the best on your journey. I know we all have vastly different experiences, but I have known years of "the void" and it is a very horrid place to be. If you can slowly find it within yourself to cultivate hope, and a true belief that things will improve - you will slowly begin the process of climbing out of the hole you are in. That might sound vague, or nauseatingly optimistic - but again; your beliefs create your reality.

Ed

 

[Wizardry]

I went from ChatGPT to Gemini and added specific prompts to stop it being an echo chamber for my mental health struggles.

I too crave sugar a lot. Although it does hit you with rather rapid peaks and troughs. Bit like when I used to drink - I thought it helped, but long term it isn't. I'm not sure about yourself, but I find I am very "all or nothing" so with diet, if I wanted to improve it I had to go "all in" because whenever I tried to reintroduce sugar I'd just end up straight back on it.

Yes, I'm pretty all-or-nothing with my diet as well. At least that's what worked for me in the past. In 2019-2020 I lost over 40kg (about 90lbs) mainly through culling sugar. Back then, I blamed myself and nitpicked my flaws more, attributing them to my lack of romantic success. I thought that weight was the main thing standing in my way, so it followed that by committing to weight loss, I would virtually guarantee that I got the dating outcomes I wanted. Unfortunately it didn't work that way, and I ended up "relapsing" back into my sugar addiction. I gained weight back but I'd only gained around 25kg of that original 40kg back up until the beginning of last year. From last year until now I have unfortunately hit the undesirable milestone of having gained the whole 40kg back, and then another 30kg on top of that (so I've gained a total of like 45kg within a year or so).

Relationships are tricky when it comes to mental health struggles, as it often exacerbates and creates new stressors. Finding someone who is a good fit is key. I've dated 12 people, and my gut/instinct said "don't go there" with each of them, but I did so regardless. Often due to the intoxicating high of the chemicals released when you are in the early days of liking someone and taking things further. A bit like the sugar firing off the reward centres in the brain. Truth is, I was often so low and lonely that someone liking me was like a moth to a flame. I knew I was playing with fire, and each time I did get burnt. But when you feel like you're in such a dark place, and someone likes your more than you like yourself at the time - it can be hard to resist.

Took a long time to finally feel content enough in myself to be single - and feeling happier for it.

I understand that relationships generally come with their own challenges, but as long as I'm getting what I crave out of a relationship including intimacy (physical and emotional), increased oxytocin, nervous system co-regulation, erotic connection and mutual attraction/being desired, chances are high that almost any struggle I could encounter with a compatible partner would be a cakewalk compared to what I'm currently dealing with. The exceptions to this might be if there are incompatibilities that destabilise the relationship itself or I don't end up getting some of the things I crave from a relationship in that relationship, but even then, I probably wouldn't be much worse off than I am now. I'm already trapped in a chronic grief state that resembles acute break-up grief, so unless I was abused or cheated on, I'd probably be better off having had a relationship that didn't end up working out than I am now. At the very least, that would make romantic relationships seem less foreign and out of my reach, and I might pick up some skills that would come in handy for cultivating future relationships.

The intoxicating high of the chemicals released in the early stages of liking someone and dating is definitely something I want to experience. If a relationship didn't progress any further than that, that would be disappointing, but I think I'd almost certainly be better off for having had that experience than I am now never having had it. Paradoxically, I think my ability to feel connected to someone even at a romantic level is moderately inhibited by grief, but I strongly suspect that inhibition would subside when it registers that I'm finally getting to experience mutual infatuation with someone in real life. It actually almost happened once, and I did start to feel again, but I think I would need to feel assured that a romantic relationship really seems to be forming before I'd feel emotionally uninhibited enough to fully experience infatuation intoxication. If that happens, that will most likely mark the start of my emotional reawakening and dormant reward pathways coming back online. In a different instance in 2022, I actually had a woman make out with me in a nightclub district, seemingly because she was attracted to me (which is paramount for it to actually "count" as far as I'm concerned). I was flying high for two weeks after that, motivation invigorated and everything. In those 2 weeks, there were instances where I was talking to people platonically and I actually felt connected in the conversation the way I imagine people normally do.

With regards to your experience - intense suffering; if you believe it will remain the same; your beliefs create your reality. Thus you will likely be stuck in the same self-fulfilling cycle. The problem is with such suffering you then lose interest and energy and pleasure in most aspects of life. So, as you say - sugar is a guaranteed quick fix. Or looking at nudey ladies for example. After a very difficult breakup I myself saw escorts on and off for a while. There's many examples of people getting addicted to that - because you have an hour or 2 of guaranteed understanding, comfort and also the sexual side. But these are like plastering the cracks on a wall of a house when the foundations are failing - temporary measures.

I'm glad I reread the first couple of sentences in this paragraph, because originally I thought you were saying that my "belief" that an absence of romantic relationships is causing me suffering is the actual root of my suffering instead of that reality itself. I was prepared to rail against that point, but I now see that you're instead saying that if I expect nothing to improve, then probably nothing will improve, which is a much more defensible point.

I guess what I'm really looking for at the moment is what can change sustainably such that I have solid reasons to believe there's a decent likelihood of my romantic situation improving. Some of the problem with this is that there are multiple factors working against me such as weight, inexperience, autistic social difficulties, no romantic modelling or guidance growing up, emotional numbness and not knowing where to go where I could meet women my age who might be compatible. There are other more minor things as well such as not having many clothes that fit me since I've gained weight.

If I address just one or two if these things, I'm concerned that won't be enough to actually change my romantic situation, and trying to figure out how to address them all at once is exhausting for someone who already has depleted motivation. ChatGPT said something interesting about me when I asked it if it would consider me rigid. It said "you're not rigid in the sense that you refuse to change your mind. You're rigid in the sense that you require strong, structured justification before changing anything." Maybe "anything" is broadening it a bit, but in the context of making changes to improve my odds of dating success, this describes me well. I wish I could find a professional who could understand where I'm coming from and help me construct a multifaceted action plan to address as many of my barriers as possible. The right professional would probably be a coach rather than a psychologist. In an ideal world, they would probably be something like an executive functioning coach/dating coach hybrid who is familiar with autistic difficulties. I doubt I could find a professional with that specific skillset though.

 

[Wizardry]

You mentioned experiencing pyschological torture - I recently came out of an emotionally abusive relationship, and I think words often fail to even begin to describe what people are capable of doing to one another, but also the strength of the human resolve to get through. You are a survivor, but the scars it leaves are deep. You are more than your scars though.

I agree with you about words failing to even begin to describe what some people are willing to inflict on others. It's unbelievable how callous and bereft of compassion some people can be.

You say that a romantic relationship is going to be the only way to resolve some of your issues - but that is outsourcing your happiness and fulfillment onto another. I too did this for a long time. My childhood trauma led to me being a people-pleaser and using the Fawn Response on a daily basis. Thus I outsourced my own self-worth to others. Be mindful that "the way out is in". I will say that relationships can reveal many things within yourself that need healing, but the way these things surface can be harrowing and deeply unsettling.

To be fair, anyone who is looking for a relationship or pursuing a relationship is looking to outsource some of their happiness and fulfillment onto somebody else. That's why people grieve when they lose a romantic relationship. There are some forms of happiness and fulfillment that can only come from relationships with other humans. Most people wouldn't be content with being alone and having no close relationships with others their whole lives.

The other thing is what's missing from my life isn't just a romantic relationship with a specific other person, but romantic relationships as an essential relational category that I have access to. My Romantic Calibration Theory is relevant here, so I'll lay out some of the essentials of it. Romantic calibration can be defined as the experiential consolidation of expectancy as it pertains to romantic relationships being a part of that individual's life. In other words, the individual knows through repeated lived experience (ie it's not dismissable as a fluke or one-off) that they can 1. experience mutual romantic attraction, they can 2. experience physical intimacy, they can 3. date and escalate towards a romantic relationship, and they can 4. form and sustain a romantic relationship.

Romantic deprivation is a sustained structural state that is induced when one is romantically uncalibrated (including partial calibration or no calibration at all) where romantic desire is salient but continual lack of success leads to expectancy collapse (ie the individual comes to believe through experience [or lack thereof] that calibration domains 4, 3, 2 and/or 1 probably won't happen for them), and where the friction between salient desire and expectancy collapse causes significant psychological harm. Uncalibrated grief (can manifest as either acute [despair] or contained [numbness], or can oscillate between the two) is an often chronic grief state caused by the ongoing absence of romantic calibration in individuals who are experiencing romantic deprivation.

This theory is still under development, so it may change or be expanded on in future. The point is, to use RCT terms, I'm stuck in a state of romantic deprivation and experiencing uncalibrated grief. The only way to alleviate romantic deprivation and uncalibrated grief is to achieve romantic calibration, which can't happen without experiential consolidation of expectancy. As far as calibration domains go for me, 1. Ability to experience mutual romantic attraction is mostly consolidated (I say mostly because I'm not sure if my current weight changes that). 2. Ability to experience physical intimacy is fragile. I have kissed a couple of times in my life but that's as far as I've gone. 3. Ability to date and escalate towards a romantic relationship and 4. Ability to form and sustain a romantic relationship are both uncalibrated. I did go on one date 10 years ago, but it went poorly. I've never gotten close to forming a romantic relationship.

Finally, what would your ideal partner look and be like? I imagine you have an image in your mind's eye. Who would they be? How would you meet? Do you think qualities you want in this person are potentially qualities you find lacking within yourself?

Finding my ideal perfect partner would obviously be the best-case scenario, but I'd also be open to dating someone who is compatible enough for a relationship to work even if they don't perfectly align with every preference I have. My ideal partner would be my type physically, and the minimum level of physical attractiveness I'd accept is moderately physically attractive (if they're overweight like me but have ambitions to lose weight like me, I'd probably be open to that too). We'd probably have overlapping values and enough in common that we have things to talk about and do together. I'd want someone who is either irreligious or who accepts that I'm irreligious, and for whom religion isn't a prominent part of their life. I'd want someone who is either childfree or maybe not looking to have children for the forseeable future (I want to experience being somebody's "first priority" in a relationship rather than coming second after kids). I'd prefer someone who doesn't smoke, doesn't drink too much, and doesn't do drugs. I'd lean towards someone who's more modern/egalitarian than someone who expects a more traditional dynamic where the man is the provider and the woman is the housewife. I'd want someone who can handle conflict and differences of opinion maturely. I'd probably prefer a woman who's intelligent and enjoys deep conversations that can get philosophical. I'd probably prefer someone who is more of an introvert or ambivert than an extravert with a million friends who wants to go out all the time. Someone who is neurodivergent may be more likely to work with me than an NT, but then an NT woman and I would probably be more likely to balance each other out with different strengths and weaknesses, so I'm open either way.

I don't really care how or where we would meet honestly.

I don't think I'm really asking for anything from a partner that is lacking within myself. In fact a lot of what I would prefer from a partner mirrors traits I have myself.

Personally, I came from years of chronic pain due to anxiety and depression. Years of substance abuse. Sugar is the final addiction I'm hoping to eventually kick - but I get it, it gives such an instant and pleasurable feeling, it's hard to part ways.

To be honest I think I'd have a significantly easier time giving up sugar if my life was closer to what I want it to be and sugar wasn't one of the only significant rewards I had left.

I do wish you all the best on your journey. I know we all have vastly different experiences, but I have known years of "the void" and it is a very horrid place to be. If you can slowly find it within yourself to cultivate hope, and a true belief that things will improve - you will slowly begin the process of climbing out of the hole you are in. That might sound vague, or nauseatingly optimistic - but again; your beliefs create your reality.

Ed

Thanks for your post, and thanks for the well-wishes.

 

[tree]

@Wizardry

Sugar?

 

[Wizardry]

@Wizardry

Sugar?

Sugary foods and drinks.

 

[tree]

I hope you use those carefully.

It is a topic of interest to me,
as I am not able to use sugar
(sucrose) at all.

I am not diabetic.

In the past when my diet was different,
I had times of being confused & depressed,
and having seizures, from blood sugar drops.

I don't use sugar, corn syrup, or even
artificial sweeteners any more.

A rule I made for myself is
to not do things that make me
crazy, sick, or stupid.

Sugar is one of those things.

 

[Wizardry]

I hope you use those carefully.

It is a topic of interest to me,
as I am not able to use sugar
(sucrose) at all.

I am not diabetic.

In the past when my diet was different,
I had times of being confused & depressed,
and having seizures, from blood sugar drops.

I don't use sugar, corn syrup, or even
artificial sweeteners any more.

A rule I made for myself is
to not do things that make me
crazy, sick, or stupid.

Sugar is one of those things.

Many sugary foods and drinks aren't healthy, but I've never encountered anyone who's talked about experiencing the same symptoms as you from consuming sugar. If that's the way your body reacts to it then not having it makes sense. All I've ever heard is that too much sugar can make children restless.

When I say sugary foods and drinks, I'm really thinking of the drinks (mainly soft drinks and iced coffees). The food I tend to eat is fast food, which seems to often contain sugar as well. In any case, it's fattening and not healthy.

 

[tree]

When I used sugar, I cried often,
and felt anger and hopelessness
when there wasn't necessarily
any event that seemed likely
to provoke those feelings.

I was finally diagnosed as hypoglycemic.

That took...years.
The first doctor I mentioned the situation to
prescribed tranquilizers because, as he said,
he didn't believe in hypoglycemia. He considered
it a fad.

Later, after having convulsions in the first hour of
a glucose tolerance test, I was diagnosed correctly.

A sister-in-law who was a nurse gave me a copy of
this book: Hypoglycemia: a Better Approach: Paavo Airola: Amazon.com: Books

It was a great help.

 

[Dagan]

To chime in with relatable mention...

When about ten years ago, I decided to go "sugar free," with that whole push into foods and drinks, I found out quickly that it wasn't so much better. My stomach couldn't handle it. Then, making it almost worse was stopping cold turkey from ingesting anything sugar free / synthetic sweeteners at all. I felt like I had a bad flu for nearly three weeks. Every major joint in my body just ached. I almost wanted to get tested for RA or such. After talking to some others and my physician about it, it was made clear that it wasn't just me dealing with those kinds of symptoms. Many were having the same issues. My overall reset was to get back to just naturally-but-not-overly-sweet kinds of foods, if at all....and then just slowly try to add back something here and there, seeing if I could handle it.

I'm going check out the book you just linked. Thank you for sharing that.