Aspie1 wrote:
BuyerBeware wrote:
Hence self-esteem-- If you don't have SOME measure of belonging, however small, self-esteem is going to be out of your reach.
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To be able to do the things you have to do in order to earn self-esteem, SOMETHING has to exist to give you a baseline level of self-respect and some sense, however small, of self-efficacy. Some idea that you are, indeed, worthy of love and acceptance and have, on some level, some degree of capacity to improve yourself and your lot.
Correct. That's why the whole argument "you need to love yourself before others will love you" is extremely flawed. NTs like to spew this argument until they're blue in the face. But those same NTs have the belonging part rock solid: strong families who would never even raise their voice at them, countless friends who think they're the coolest person on Earth, and boyfriends/girlfriends who can't keep their hands off them. Because their belonging need is met so well, self-esteem comes easy to them. And as a result, flawed arguments related to it.
On the contrary, aspies have authoritarian parents that create anxiety rather than security (an unmet need for safety, even lower than belonging), few or no friends, and no relationship experiences. Without
that little something to make them feel like they belong somewhere, self-esteem remains forever out of reach. So instead of learning to fake it, it's a far better solution to find some sense of belonging, anything at all: one's church (if religious), real-life interest group, trusted colleagues, etc.
No. Not at all. First of all, you seem to be putting this marvellous NT land on a pedestal. Perhaps you watch too much tv. Your post seems to be built on generalisations. 'Aspies have authoritarian parents' - is that a complete fact? Doubt it.
You do need to love yourself, first and foremost, otherwise everything outside oneself just will never be enough. Doing it so others will 'love' you is not the point. If you're doing it to get something out of it, then that's building your self-esteem on shaky ground - because as soon as the outside world doesn't show its love, a person doing this would say 'I'm not getting what I wanted - why should I bother!' and retreats. Sound familiar, yes, no?
Self-esteem is not 'belonging' in a group, it's realising that you are part of something much bigger than yourself and one's transitory problems. It's seeing a bigger picture. You're saying you need an external to have an internal feeling. That's not the case.
Same with loneliness.
One doesn't need to have a baseline. One decides that they're going to love themselves, works at it - and that's it.
26 Oct 2013, 3:21 am
