I'm asexual due to my past traumas. I've decided to be asexual after many attempts at different romantic relationships.

I don't know if I'm part of the "+" in the LGBTQ+ community, or if I'm just considered a separate category altogether, so I posted this here.

Is it possible to want a romantic relationship without the sex? This is the ultimate question I ask myself as I ponder what a romantic relationship would be like for someone like me.

I've been dealing with PTSD and dissociation for a long enough time to know that I'm not going to heal sexually anytime soon - if not ever. I have too many physiological disorders on top of my mental disorders. My stamina just isn't there to doll myself up either. Sure, I'd love to get close - intimately, emotionally, and somewhat physically (holding hands, hugging, cuddling), but I get scared of being close with even friends and my therapist. It's hard enough with that.

When I tried relationships in the past, I cried during or after being physically intimate. I just can't do it. Flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, dissociation, body memories - all of it - too painful for me to continue in relationships.

I admire watching romantic movies, romantic comedies, and romantic engagements in television shows. I just can't imagine any of that for me in real life. It never happened for me.

I think I am still grieving over all of my losses throughout my life - the many missed opportunities and the woman I could have been had it not been for many different traumas. It saddens me to think about me and my asexuality.

Even the course on the psychology of women I took described asexuality as being some sort of dysfunction, as opposed to it being a choice like everyone else in the LGBTQ+ community. I think they even discussed it as being a divided option - those whose asexuality was from birth versus those whose asexuality was from some trauma, including sexual trauma, medical trauma, or physical trauma. I thought that was divisive. It was a painful course. It bummed me out and made me feel even more alone and ostracized than I already was. I think I cried for a few weeks because of that lesson.

I am hoping that there are some positives to being asexual. I never hear about it anywhere. People talk about sex, but they rarely talk about asexuality.

I think I even felt a tad bit offended when I watched Spock on the new Star Trek movie. I thought I was like the old Spock, since I considered him to be asexual. When the new Spock showed him with a girlfriend, I was kind of disheartened. I mean, I was happy for Spock and loved the movie and the couple very much. I just wanted someone to represent asexuality in a positive way.

I think Data might be more along the lines of what I'm feeling. Or perhaps the non-human, but humanlike Ex Machina lady. But then again, the Ex Machina lady knew how to seduce and pretend in order to escape. So that doesn't count.

I don't know what I'm thinking anymore.