Quoted in Theestablished.com on 22nd May, 2023
Psychiatrist Nahid Dave says that the journey towards self-acceptance is one of the biggest hurdles for aces. So far, she has worked with three patients who are aces, and all of them had varying levels of anxiety and depression, but not entirely linked to their identity.
“All three of them struggled with self-acceptance and kept battling with the question that maybe something was wrong with them hormonally,” she says. “There are two parts of attraction—hormonal, which is the raw sensation that has crests and troughs and grades that people might have more or less of; and psychological. With asexuals, the hormonal part is less, almost non-existent in some cases.”
The journey towards self-acceptance is easier said than done, and Dave acknowledges as much. Even with her own clients who might not even be aces, her suggestion is to refrain from seeking external self-validation. Instead, she gives them, what she refers to as the “friend analogy”: “If you had a friend struggling through self-acceptance, hating themselves for just who they are, what would you tell them? Why’s it so difficult to tell yourself the same thing? You already know the answer.”
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