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@Appleblossom wrote:

I made a decision to be single for a reason and am not closed to the idea of a sexual relationship .. but in the real world it seems to come with a lot of baggage that I am afraid I simply cannot take on board.   

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Totally get this. While ill I couldn't think about trying to have a relationship. Just waay too much to cope with already. Adding somebody else into the mix would have been a disaster, or so I thought. Who knows if that would have been true but it did feel too much to handle at the time.

Now feeling better I want to open up. I'm finding it hard just have such a distorted view on self-image resulting from the illness. I can't reconcile myself with the idea that someone might actually like me. So any signal I do get I discount at the time only to recognise what they were meaning later on, usually at the psychologist's office. 

Does anyone have any tips/help?