Low self-esteem and fear of rejection/humiliation

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Does a fear of being rejected and/or humiliated come from having poor self-esteem? I seem to get really affected when I know someone is being nasty about me or to me. I find it really hard to think ''oh it's their loss'' or ''oh they're not worth it'' or ''I'm great, no matter what'', because I just can't. It's worse when they have other friends who they go out and about with and yet don't want to know me, so I always take it personally in that situation. When you got low self-esteem, being liked boosts your confidence, and the more people like you, the more you will feel liked and included. But knowing that people don't like you makes you feel disliked and worry that you are unlikeable, and then it goes round in a vicious cycle. Suffering with social anxiety doesn't help either. I just don't know how to not let these feelings bother me. I try to cut these people out of my life but it still eats at me and I can't help but act on it by getting all het up and emotional and just blaming myself. Plus knowing I have Asperger's doesn't help, because then I just think ''ah that is my fault because I'm an Aspie so I'm bound to always be in the wrong and them always in the right''.

Just because I have this cruel thing does it always necessarily mean I am perceived as a bad person? Are super nice people only few and far between, slimming my chances of ever being able to trust people? Or do most NTs just lack empathy? Or am I just taking it more seriously because of having poor self-esteem?

Your poor self esteem probably comes from your fear of rejection to begin with. Are you sure you don't have social anxiety or something like that? There might be meds than can help you with that.

Fear of rejection & Low self esteem - I think they act like a cycle and can trigger each other off and escalate it.
The secret about not trusting people is this; you do not have to make them feel like they aren't trusted. In a way having those negative thoughts about others aren't inherently "bad", but it's what you do with them.

About friendships / relationships and trust. Trust is the glue of these things..but even more basic than that is Value. What do they have to offer you, and versa. Sometimes you can build friendships and relationships without the Trust part, working out any of your esteem issues through that core element alone. When you feel you have more to offer than the other person does, you no longer feel insecure or worry about their trust as you have less to lose than they do. As wrong as it sounds, perhaps I would invest time in people that make you feel like this providing they are nice to you and others you can then build trust as you go.

Anxiety and self esteem stem from self disapproval and hate which comes from being rejected, you need to learn to talk to yourself in a more positive and kind way, one method that can really teach you to do that is Cognitive Behavioural therapy.

No one want to fail at what they want, So you need self confidence to not care break away from ego and laugh about it and all insecurities are gone for good.

Most NTs can empathise, but some people are just s**ts that don't have it their nature.

Having low self-esteem can affect the judgements you make on yourself. From your original post in this thread, and in other posts I've read of yours on this forum, you seem to judge yourself much too severely. I think you need to be kinder to yourself.



From my experience, I would suggest that the fear of rejection and humilation is a combination of social anxiety and low self esteem. I have found the best way to combat these is to build confidence in doing other things and that confidence will be inside of you when you are doing things that you are unconfident about and it'll help prop you up. I hope that makes sense.



If someone is being nasty to you on purpose (and not just accidently offending you - we all sometimes offend someone by accident), then where possible that person is best ignored. I only care about the opinion of my peers, especially the one or two loved ones in my life. If a stranger or a loose acquaintance has a negative view/thought about me, I don't really give much consideration. I would have worried about it when my self esteem was rock bottom, but now I hardly care at all. You just need to figure out how to adopt a similar way of thinking.

I've read your posts and you seem like a good egg, Joe90. Be kind to yourself.