Do you have empathy for yourself?

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No. By definition, empathy is about others...

the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

You cannot have empathy for yourself.

Nah, that's a subclinical depressive state IIRC.

Alexithymia is the inability to determine and understand your own emotions (which leads to not understanding those of others).

I think what is meant is more "compassion", rather than empathy--perhaps something along the lines of acceptance of yourself, the way you might accept another person.

It is a confusing term, though.

My major problem with self-acceptance is probably that I can never live up to my own expectations--I still feel like I'm lazy and irresponsible, no matter how hard I work, and it doesn't help that my ADHD and depression often make motivation very difficult. I have to keep reminding myself that beating myself up about it does not solve the problem, and that if I want to do better, I have to find ways to work around my disability rather than just getting angry at myself for having it in the first place.

This basically.

But do I have love for myself? Yes. Sometimes it's hard, like Callista ADHD's lack of motivation gets in the way, and when I see my symptoms causing me to fail it can take a lot to not beat myself up about it. This relates to autistic symptoms too.
I'm not miserable being me. I have strengths of my own, and I'm very proud to be an INTJ. Maybe I love myself a bit too much.



I probably beat myself more about my autistic symptoms than ADHD. I suppose there are meds that work quite well for ADHD and with that I can be more organised. But my autism depends on environment and who I socialise with. Sometimes a single dose of Ritalin isn't enough. It gets me talking but the theory of mind issues still come up.

I agree that "empathy" is probably not applicable to oneself. Maybe "compassion", like Callista said.

I was like this for a long time. To some extent I still am, but I am more forgiving of myself now since realising I have AS. I am still quite conscious of not going too easy on myself and never accomplishing anything again. Basically, I try to strike a balance and push myself where that would be productive, but not be unnecessarily hard on myself for past mistakes (while still learning from them). I might be hard on myself for cases of laziness where I foresaw a potential problem, thought about preventing it, but still didn't. On the other hand I didn't beat myself up for a seemingly major mistake like losing a lot of money during the GFC. I took a calculated risk and lost and many people more experienced than me have done even worse. I won't repeat that mistake, though.

It's interesting that selfishness got a mention here. Does being selfish mean having compassion for yourself? I wouldn't have thought so. Or is it vice-versa? I am unashamedly selfish - which is to say that I generally put my interests first, not that I'm inconsiderate or unethical. Having said that, I believe I'm actually less selfish than the average person - just more honest about my selfishness.

Err, wrong. First, having empathy with yourself would mean that you feel what you feel, which is redundant. Second one can feel something without recognizing it, it's called alexithymia.

It doesn't really seem like it at most times.

My therapist has defined this as "giving myself love and care."

And until recently: No, I didn't.

I am attempting to now. It's a process.