I feel worthless and stupid

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I feel worthless and stupid right now. I was going to make a friend a hamburger yesterday, but I got caught up in a video game and forgot about it. I was going to work at Amazon, but could not stand the way management talks to you, "Your mind is just going down rabbit holes" as one manager said to me, and the pace is very difficult to keep up. Now I feel that was worthless. I'm a substitute teacher, and was invited on a trip to India to help out as we were going to visit poor children living in the slums, but as time went on I grew irritated and annoyed with the trip and sometimes expressed this annoyance, and so it ended up not going anywhere, and the person who took me said I would never go on another trip like this again.

I always come into a situation with great potential, but it never seems to pan out, and I just end up feeling worthless.

On the other hand, a few years ago, I worked in workforce management and that went well, but I haven't been able to get another workforce management job because employers all want *recent* experience, so I won't be able to rely on this thing I know I'm good at.

Feeling worthless is a terrible place to be. Been there before many times. Still do go there, but I’ve learned to keep the visits short.

I’ve found that my experience of being worthless arises from internalized expectations of other people and/or social culture.

When I can get that firmly in mind, the junk thought process can be tossed out wholesale.

FWIW, from reading your posts, I think you are a smart, articulate, good and worthwhile person.

Yep....you’re pretty darn smart, albeit a bit political

I've had a lot of disappointments in my life. I tried to go into the Air Force when I was younger, for example, and I even scored a 98 on the ASVAB (with a 99 in Administration, and I had above 95 in everything but Mechanics, which I had a 63 in), but I was medically disqualified due to my Asperger's and other issues. I think it would have been interesting to have served in the military, like much of my family. 3 of my grandparents were in the military (and the ones on my dad's side were officers, like my grandma was a Major in the Air Force), my dad was in the military (a Captain in the Army), my paternal aunt was in the military (she was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force), and my sister joined the Marines. So I come from a big military family, and I couldn't serve.

It's just like with that Amazon job, now I'm substitute teaching again and trying to scrape for jobs. Since teachers now teach from home, they're apparently not absent as often as before. The Amazon job at least guaranteed good money and could ensure that I make reasonable progress on my Ticket to Work. Now I'm not sure if I can.

And I'm looking at the lives of the less fortunate, and wonder if I lose Social Security and have nothing else to do, if I will join their ranks. I shudder at the thought, but i guess if it comes to that, I'll have to deal with it.

What anyone in your family or in your personal life has done or accomplished is their lives, not yours.
You are you and their goals are not yours.
You are intelligent and articulate and there is something that is right for you.

Hi, beneficil,

How are you doing now? We haven't heard from you and I, at least, am concerned. I send you hugs and lots of caring.

I don't know. I'm drawing a blank right now. In fact, that's often why I don't respond. I want to say something, but don't know what to say.

I hope you are feeling better.
Everyone on WP goes through rough times and needs someone to talk to.
It is hard not feel overwhelmed; this is a bad time for everyone.
We are here when you need to express yourself to someone.

OP has sheer brain power that i would love to have.

You are not worthless. You are valueable. A gem.

You have a beautiful mind.

"worthless":. Even the exchange rate of monetary currency fluctuates daily

The only thing worthless is zero

Carbon footprint

"Stupid":. There are many ways to measure and define intelligence

By definition, something has to be three standard deviations below the mean




Not everyone is as smart and valuable as they act like they are

FWIW I tend to consider you among the smarter folks I know online, bar none.

I just spent two years doing rather challenging stuff I'm pretty good at (3D software work et al) & this is universal, I feel much the same as you do.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I think one problem I have is that I am too often concerned about how I look to other people. I've always seen my differences as being shameful, so I always create a cover story. I know, people with Asperger's are supposed to be super-literal and to lack theory of mind, and I do have issues with that, but it's not like I didn't learn how to do impression management. I've been looking at the Enneagram, and it looks like I am a type 3 due to this, which I sometimes do to the point where it impacts my personal integrity.

I think of one instance where my lack of personal integrity might have costed me an interesting opportunity. A decade ago, the local Japanese consul-general was performing blue grass and showing off his fiddling skills at a nearby music venue. I decided to stop by, and when he did a piece I knew and liked, I showed quite a bit of enthusiasm. A staff member soon of his and her husband soon came and spoke to me and bought me drinks. Thinking this was interesting, I sought to impress. And nothing came of it. Had I been more real, there might have been something more interesting that could have come of it. I think the lack of integrity here might have been the core factor.

I can be fun and likable, but I also need to be grounded and honest, and let all those unflattering things about myself come out, too.

This hits home for me quite a bit.

In social situations I've never been able to project authenticity. This is because I'm doing a thousand calculations in real time to try and say the right things so no one thinks ill of me. I want to be liked by other people and work really hard to project a certain persona because I fear my "normal self" is fundamentally unlikable. I'm pretty certain this causes me to be stiff and stilted, but to be honest I'm never really sure what others think of me.

The conditioning is such that I can't turn it off.