failing at life

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What can I do to feel better about myself? I fail at everything I attempt and Im incompetant and ruin all I touch.

How can I find value in myself when I feel so worthless and a waste of space.

I can understand how people can feel valuable and like living if they feel good and that their life makes a difference, but I feel so bad and useless and a failure and I cant see a reason for me to go on.

What is the point of keep trying at stuff when i always get it wrong and ruin everything.

Start with something relatively easy, and work hard at it.

I feel like anyone is a success if they are willing to work hard. There is honor in doing a job, ANY job, well. If you clean your kitchen, instead of doing it partially, clean the dishes, wipe down the sink, wash the cupboards, put everything away, and make the faucet shine. There is honor in this.

If you cook, start by making the best grilled cheese sandwich ever, and then once you've mastered that, go on to harder recipes. Try things at home, in the privacy of that environment, until you are good enough to go out into public and do things.

I don't really know much, but these are just my ideas...

Self-esteem is made up of comparisons. We compare our real self to our ideal self. We compare ourselves against others. And people we meet compare us to others also. If we compare well, we feel good, and if we compare badly, we feel bad.

We accept these comparisons as if they were facts, but really they are all just opinions, which are based on a set of values, normally imposed on us by society. But If I were to base my own self-esteem on those values and opinions, I would feel very disappointed in myself.

I can't directly control how other people feel about me, but I can alter it to some extent by changing how I feel about myself. To change how I feel about myself, I need to redefine the rules I use to do that. There's nothing to say I can't. It's my life, and I can judge myself how I want to, not how someone else says. When I play by the usual rules, I come out bad. So why not play to a different set of rules? Nothing is stopping me! (I'm not sure, but I think CBT is roughly based on this idea...)

I can define what's important. What is my ideal self? Is my ideal something I've defined, or is it something that someone else has defined for me? Is it based on my personal values, or someone else's ideas of achievement? If so, I can take that control back, and make my own rules. How do I compare myself to others? Is it on my terms, or on theirs?

Also, you mentioned how you feel like you are getting things wrong. But getting it wrong is absolutely fine. Making mistakes is part of the natural process of learning, so in one sense the only true mistake is to give up trying. Everyone gets it wrong all the time. I've got it wrong all of my life, but as a very wise man once said, "failure is the pillar of success".

I don't know if what I said was any use, but I hope you won't be too hard on yourself. I don't know you personally, but every human being is full of amazing potential and ability... often the only thing holding us back is our own doubts about ourselves.

Take care, and hope things get better for you

I try my hardest at everything but my best is still found to be lacking.

Lifes hard and not just for people with aspergers. I think if you do your absolute best then their are no regrets even if you fail at some things.

If the people who are criticising you are neurotypicals, then logically I guess they will all have the same judgements, because they will all find the same things hard to understand or accept. But that still doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean you should accept it.

I think it's really important for you not to accept these judgements, especially if they are coming from a lack of understanding on the parts of others. I appreciate how hard it is if everyone is giving you the same message, but you have to hold on to what's inside of yourself. You have the right to be autistic, and you have the right to be happy with yourself. Believe in that, however other people treat you. Don't hate them for it, but don't hate yourself either. Love who you are.... it's only your opinion of yourself that counts at the end of the day.

Well, I've been in that place before, and I understand how you feel. But like I say, you can't control what other people think, but you can control how you feel about yourself. The day I realised that, was the day things started to change for me, and I found that the more positive I felt about myself, the better everyone else responded to me. It's like a circle.

I'm sad to hear to feel that way. Strangely enough, when I met you on Tuesday, I was thinking how together you were. Your make up was very well applied (which I can't do), and you organise all these gatherings (I'm just about grasping the concept of doing things like meeting people).

So it is only me, but if it counts, someone out there thinks you've got good things going on with you.